DES MOINES — When bartender Jessica Nelson was offered the chance to work overtime during the final weeks of caucus season here at the downtown Marriott Hotel, she eagerly canceled her holiday plans.
These are boom times in the Corn State: The tips she's earned from serving high-end martinis and bottles of microbrewed beers over the last couple of weeks are at least double her normal take -- far better than even a New Year's Eve party.
Nelson, 25, hopes to use her bonus from the caucus circus to pay off a new brown velvet couch and a pair of leather ottomans. "At this time of year, it's normally dead," she said. "Everyone says this is the biggest [caucus] ever."
That may be the case, as early reports estimate that spending across the board -- from hotels and tourism to media advertising sales -- is at an all-time high.
Much of this is thanks to an aggressive, last-days push by candidates battling in two wide-open races, all eager to woo Iowans.
"The Iowa economy is a winner in all of this," said Shawn Roland, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Economic Development. "There's the simple fact that the caucus draws a ton of people to come here, and spend money here, that wouldn't otherwise do so."
Roland said he understood the benefits and occasional frustrations that could come from living through such short-term spending booms.
He and his wife spent weeks trying to find a restaurant that had a table free on New Year's Eve, which fell in the midst of the last big campaign push for candidates.
Normally, diners would find plenty of options if they were willing to face the icy winter chill for a nice evening out. But this year, their only options were to eat at 4 p.m., or wait until nearly 11 p.m.
"We decided to get sushi to go," Roland said. "Then, we hit a caucus media party. It wasn't so much romance as it was raucous."
But while the economic trickle-down of this quadrennial political tradition is richly enjoyed in certain sectors, at least one Iowa economist says the financial impact on the state is actually neither as broad nor as deep as it might seem from the crowded streets of downtown Des Moines.
Instead, it's "like having another state fair come to town every four years," said David Swenson, an economist with Iowa State University who has researched the issue.
