Why does the U.S. pay attention to the Iowa caucuses?

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The United States doesn't only hold its presidential contests in the strangest ways. It also holds them in the strangest places.

One of them is this agrarian settlement, population 135, only six souls fewer than its population in 1930. And what makes it strange is that it is not strange at all. It's normal, quiet. In one direction you can see a thousand acres of corn and soybeans. In the other, you can see a cluster of weathered farm buildings and twin blue silo towers. On the side of the road is the tiny Frederichson School, built in 1888 and shuttered in 1935. And from every direction you can imagine the bounty of this land – think Saskatchewan, think Manitoba – and the promise it held to the pioneers who moved through and to the settlers who stayed.

"It is stable," the acclaimed writer and jazz musician Frank Conroy, who headed the fabled Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, told me before he died. "That's good for writers. It is quiet. That's good. And there is routine. That's invaluable." It is in the quiet, stable and hew-to-the-routine places like this that the first test of the American political season will be held.

Saturday afternoon, former governor Martin O'Malley, seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in a contest dominated by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, stood for an hour in a rural living room fielding questions from four dozen Iowans, all but two of them undecideds. Five months from now, men and women in Dallas County and in the 98 other counties of Iowa, will trudge not to polling places but to church basements and fraternal lodges and fire halls. There, in front of their neighbours, they will signal their preferences for president by moving to the far west corner of a room, or perhaps near the water cooler, or in front of the fire engine. They will do this publicly; Iowa makes its decisions through public caucuses, not private ballot.

Iowa is 93 per cent white; the rest of the United States is only 78 per cent white. Less than 1 per cent of the companies in the state are owned by African-Americans; the national rate is nine times greater. Only 5 per cent of its population is foreign-born; the national rate is 13 per cent. Some 7 per cent of Iowans speak a language other than English at home; nationally, the figure is more than 20 per cent.

So why will anyone pay any attention to anything Iowa has to say in its 1,774 precinct caucuses on the night of Feb. 1?

"Because Iowans take this responsibility very seriously," Terry Branstad, a Republican now in his sixth term as governor and closing in on being the longest-serving governor in American history, told me late last week. "Though we may not be as diverse as other states we are very open minded. We launched Barack Obama eight years ago. We're also a relatively small state so it doesn't cost as much to begin a campaign here." Like New Hampshire, which holds a traditional primary eight days later, Iowa is a testing ground. It is not a test of national appeal but rather a test of organizing skill, of partisan entreaties and, just as important, of personal appearances. Already the 2016 candidates like Mr. O'Malley have spent a cumulative 486 days in this state.

"In the big media states, individuals are campaign props for a photo opportunity," says Dennis Goldford, a Drake University political scientist regarded as the leading expert on the Iowa caucuses. "Here the candidates still have to talk directly to individuals." Those who attend Republican caucuses in Iowa tend to be more conservative, especially on social issues such as abortion and the definition of the family, than are Republicans nationwide; a Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll late last month showed that two in five likely Iowa caucus-goers consider themselves Christian conservatives. Those who attend Democratic caucuses here tend to be more liberal, especially on spending and national-security issues, than Democrats nationwide. It is a farm state with a strong labour component, owing to large United Auto Workers memberships in farm-implement plants.

It is a state that embraces both tradition – the seven villages of the Amana Colonies, in the eastern part of the state, has been producing drink and food, especially bratwurst and cheeses, in a home-style way for a century and a half – and new ideas. It was Iowa's Norman Borlaug who created the Green Revolution, and it is in Iowa where many towns still hold Threshing Days. It was the University of Iowa's astronomers who discovered the Van Allen radiation belt, and it is in Iowa where crafts and open-fire cooking are celebrated at the Buckskinners Rendezvous.

It was also Iowa's Marion Mitchell Morrison who created the John Wayne mythology. And so it surprised no one that the most recent presidential poll, released last week by Monmouth College, put billionaire Donald Trump and retired surgeon Ben Carson in a tie atop the Republican field.

But it is also a state that prizes education, and straight talk, and personal engagement. It is where Jimmy Carter made his breakthrough in national politics in 1976, and where George H. W. Bush did four years later, and where Richard Gephardt did the same thing in 1988. It is where rural America sometimes takes a stand; Senator Robert Dole of Kansas won the caucuses twice, in 1998 and 1996. But it has not been hostile to metropolitan candidates; Senator John Kerry of Boston and Senator Barack Obama of Chicago won Democratic primaries in two successive political cycles, 2004 and 2008.

But sometimes the prize here in Iowa is second place. Former governor Ronald Reagan of California finished second, to the senior Mr. Bush, in 1980, and was elected president 10 months later. Senator Gary Hart of Colorado finished second, to former vice-president Walter Mondale in 1984 and went on to win the New Hampshire primary eight days later. Former governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts came in second in 2008 and won the Republican presidential nomination that year. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina came in second in 2004 and became Mr. Kerry's vice-presidential choice that year.

Iowa prizes its position at the front of the political pack and every four years fights to stay there. It's a state where politicians routinely visit all 99 counties every year, creating an intimacy that's unusually deep. There wasn't a television camera with 55 kilometres of Mr. O'Malley, for example, as he spoke Saturday of new education initiatives and the crisis of the American middle class and then grabbed a double-chocolate brownie baked by the woman whose kitchen was commandeered for the session, known here as a "meet and greet," which, along with the steak fry in Indianola, Iowa, is perhaps the state's most cherished political tradition.

"It's a lot better to start here," said Governor Branstad, "than to have a big-state media campaign all dictated by television ads and big spending groups and the polls."