The Impact of BCRA in the 2004 Iowa Presidential Election.

A detailed case study of the 2004 Iowa presidential election campaign. Part of a larger project organized by the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy targeting the impact of BCRA on selected House, Senate and Presidential battleground elections. The paper examines how campaign finance law effected the strategy and tactics of the campaigns, political parties and outside groups in Iowa. The paper explores how the closeness of the race throughout the campaign and the large amounts of money available to those involved led to an almost dead heat outcome where decisions about how to organize on the ground may have swung the state from a narrow Gore win in 2000 to a narrow Bush win in 2004. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]