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An Iowa soldier in Iraq & The Iowa Precinct Caucuses: The Making of Media Event

"The Iowa Precinct Caucuses, the Making of a Media Event," is now in its Third Edition. This latest edition adds results from 2000 (which saw the first winner of the Iowa caucuses to reach the White House since 1976), 2004 (and the roller-coaster fortunes of Howard Dean and John Kerry) and 2008 caucuses (and the unlikely emergence of Barack Obama as a presidential contender. Host Ben Kieffer talks with authors Hugh Winebrenner and Dennis Goldford who argue that the media have given a value to the Iowa caucuses completely out of proportion to the reality of their purpose and procedural methods. Then a conversation with U.S. Army Reservist Sgt. Dennis Crosser. The North Liberty native is serving his second deployment in Iraq, stationed just north of Baghdad. Sgt. Crosser discusses the changes he's witnessed in Iraq since his first tour of duty in 2004.

Ben Kieffer is the host of IPR's River to River