Will Social Conservatives Make Iowa Irrelevant?

From my waning days in the GOP as the extremists of the Christian Right slowly increased their vice grip on the party, I know how skewed the nomination process has become. In Virginia, organizations like The Family Foundation utilize a network of far right churches to mobilize voters for primary contests. These zombie like voters - who would gladly take the country back in time as they push for a defacto theocracy - then go to the polls and shift the outcome in favor of extremist candidates. The same cancer infects the primary process on other states with Iowa being one of them. The result is that now, some in the GOP think Iowa should be largely ignored since its primary structure is so dominated by the Christian Taliban that a nominee popular with that segment of the electorate may well prove unelectable elsewhere. As I've noted before, the GOP in its quest for short term expediency has created a Frankenstein monster. The Washington Post looks at the move by some to relegate Iowa to irrelevance because the extremists in that state hold too much sway. Here are some highlights:
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Iowa — Politically speaking, this state is in something of an existential crisis. For the past nine presidential elections, Iowa has reveled in the attention it gets with its position at the front of the presidential nominating contest. This time around, the question is not just who will win the Iowa caucuses but also whether it will matter.
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When the rest of the country is focusing on the economy, will Republicans in other states take their lead from the outcome of an eccentric process that has been dominated by social conservatives?
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Some of the leading presidential contenders, who have invested little in the state so far, appear to be hoping that the answer is not all that much — increasing the anxiety that Iowa Republicans feel about their place in the political firmament.
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The uncomfortable fact for Iowa Republicans is that their cherished caucuses have rarely been much of a launching pad. Since the party held its first one to pick a president in 1976, there have been only two instances in which a winner who was not an incumbent has gone on to take the GOP nomination. And only one of those, George W. Bush in 2000, won the White House.
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In a recent column for the New Hampshire Union Leader that was reprinted in the Des Moines Register, former New Hampshire GOP chairman Fergus Cullen wrote that important issues don’t get debated in Iowa, because “three quarters of the audience wears tinfoil hats.”
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“Iowa Republicans didn’t set out to marginalize themselves, but it’s happened — to New Hampshire’s benefit,” Cullen added. “With several major candidates likely to bypass Iowa, and the odds rising that Iowa’s skewed caucus electorate could support candidates with limited general election appeal, the likelihood of New Hampshire being called upon to make a correction” increases.
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Some Romney supporters in Iowa say they would understand if he turns elsewhere. . . . I think he’s got a good chance of beating Obama,” he added, “but the problem here is to win in Iowa you’ve got to go too far to the right, and it will hurt him in the national election.” The overall direction of Republican politics in Iowa has swung rightward on social issues, even since the last presidential election.
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Obviously, it would be great fun to see Iowa's role in the nomination process marginalized because of the growing toxicity of the Christian Right's influence. It could help the saner members of the GOP to make a more concerted effort to reclaim the party from the crazies and extremists.