With the 2008 campaigns under way for the GOP and Democratic Party presidential nominations, two key questions have to be asked. One focuses on the news media in general and the other on the Iowa caucuses in particular.

With regard to the news media, the question is: “Hey, why can’t you get the question right?” To read news reports, one would think the question is: Can a woman be elected president? Or, in the alternative, Can a black man be elected president? Interesting questions, but they are beside the point. The key question is, Who is most qualified to serve as president of the United States?

The reason the key question is not being asked, at least not by the news media, is illustrated by what is happening to the Iowa caucuses.

The most pressing question about the Iowa caucuses is not how can the news media do a better job of campaign coverage, but rather how can Iowans rescue the caucuses from what the news media have become. When it comes to selecting candidates for public office, journalists have become script writers, seeking the sensational “What if?,” something that will take the public’s mind off American Idol, if only for a news cycle or two.

Caucuses used to be a time of trial and error, a step here and a misstep there, a time for would-be nominees to shape policies that the public will respond to – as candidates and voters did a democracy two-step. But a change is under way, as discussed by Des Moines Register political columnist David Yepsen.

The new version of the caucuses is typified by Sen. Hillary Clinton’s debut the weekend of Jan. 27-28. The script writers – my derogatory term, not Yepsen’s – are well at work. Political scripters tell the public what would be fun to have happen, instead of reporting what’s going on. Remember, in the year or so before the 2000 election, the script writers had Rudy Giuliani facing Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate race in New York. All kinds of dirt to dish, angles to take, fun to have. But cancer had other thoughts, and Mayor Giuliani’s candidacy for higher office was cut short – albeit thankfully for a short time.

Then within the last year or two, the writers had reworked the script and it was Condoleezza Rice vs. Hillary. Boy, Hillary and Condi, what a wonderful catfight that would be. Whoopee! Then it finally dawned on the press how far south the war in Iraq was going, taking the secretary of state’s rep with it.

Not to worry! Now the script writers have another match of the century, this time the first white woman seeking her party’s nomination against a black man, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Some 30 years ago, when Gov. Jimmy Carter began to get acquainted with Iowa caucus goers, his press entourage was limited, almost nonexistent.

Over the weekend, Senator Clinton began her caucus campaign. All the script writers and boom mikes signified her location, so would-be caucus goers would at least have an idea where she was, even if they couldn’t talk with her because of the media crush. Time for us Iowans to go back to the drawing board, to figure how we can reclaim the caucuses from the script writers.