For candidates, Iowa is no slam dunk

I owa is ready for the onslaught of presidential candidates. But a vital question looms, less than a year from the Republican precinct caucuses here: Are the candidates ready for Iowa?

Because Iowa – in the center of the country and, for a luminous period every four years, at the center of political life – has a political character and a role in American civic life all its own.

Its mixture of humus,…