This is John Batchelor, speaking with the author Josiah Hesse, a memoir of growing up in Iowa in the late 20th century, early 21st century,

among the evangelical Christians who gathered together for celebration and worship.

Josiah, who spoke in tongues for many years,

now looks back upon this as a political and religious experience,

both, through his parents, through his family,

through the region around him.

Iowa, which is the scene of the earliest primaries through the 20th century and into the 21st

and will probably return to being the premier primary for Democrats and Republicans,

has gone through some dramatic changes in the last several presidencies.

And here's one of them, going from

a state that can be presumed to be Republican-leaning farmers to Barack Obama in 2008.

Josiah explains much more of this tonight.

I absolutely agree that that's a fair generalization, because Iowa has had an eclecticism.

I feel like the Midwest in general has never been defined in the same way that the coasts or the South has been.

There isn't a specific cultural identity here, so there's a little bit more room to be

malleable in our tastes.

And, yeah, I think that there's something to be considered when you look at the Barack

Obama's candidacy in 2008. It was really

Iowa that made him. He was kind of an underdog candidate until he won Iowa over Clinton in

2008. And I think that speaks to the young progressive vote that was very alive in Iowa at that time. It was a purple state at that

time. And since then, Iowa has lost an enormous amount of its population, particularly young,

educated, ambitious citizens that have fled the state for other parts of the country, often for jobs, but I'm sure

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