Politics & Power Quote by Leonard Boswell

State pride does its most effective work when it hides inside something small enough to fit in your pocket. Leonard Boswell is talking about a commemorative coin, but the real pitch is civic branding: Iowa, often treated as flyover shorthand, gets a moment to define itself on federal currency. The “29th state” detail isn’t trivia so much as a claim to rightful inclusion in the national story, a reminder that Iowa’s turn at visibility has been earned by chronology and membership.

The chosen virtues are not accidental. “Quality education” signals a public good in an era when rural schools are perpetually asked to do more with less; it’s a quiet argument for investment without naming budgets or partisan fights. “Hard work” is the politician’s safest moral credential, especially in an agricultural state where labor is both identity and economic necessity. “Small-town values” does the most ideological lifting: it implies trust, decency, and cohesion while sidestepping the messier realities of demographic change, inequality, or culture-war fracture. It’s nostalgia as a policy substitute, presented as common sense.

The quarter itself is the clever device. Money is literal circulation, so the metaphor writes itself: Iowa’s self-image travels. Boswell’s intent is to make a symbolic object perform double duty as proof of character and a rebuttal to coastal condescension. The subtext is clear: don’t overlook us; we are the America you claim to admire.