NEWTON'S LAW: HARKIN CASHES IN HOME STATE, BUT HIS CONSTITUENTS ARE LOSERS

Tom Harkin is no Kevin Costner.

He may be a lot like Robin Hood ("take from the rich, give to the poor"), who Costner played in a movie. But as far as doing a good turn for Iowa, Harkin places second to the Hollywood star.

Harkin is a U.S. senator from Iowa. Chances are that during his tenure in office, he has spoken out on the need for Iowa's economic development, for the need to bring people and their dollars in from other locales and watch them spend, spend, spend in Des Moines and Sioux City and Davenport.

The senator will probably never admit in public that he stood in the way of the state making a buck.

But that's what he's done.

Harkin's folly begins not on his Midwestern stomping grounds but in the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. Some months back, the senator determined that his party was without a national voice. He felt he could provide one. So he entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Fair enough. Never mind that his views seem hopelessly removed from our times, or that Iowa provides the base for far more corn chowder than it does presidential candidates, Herbert Hoover notwithstanding.

Have you ever heard this political slogan? "The road to the White House leads through Dubuque." I don't think so.

I've never been to Iowa. I flew over it once and it looked like a nice place. I've met a few people from Iowa and they were all friendly. The state probably has its share of creeps, I've just never met any.

Nor have I met Tom Harkin, who is probably a nice man, in the great tradition of nice Iowans. Except, his personal ambitions and perception of party loyalty hurt his constituents.

Four years ago, Iowa was crawling with presidential candidates. You couldn't swing a cat by the tail and not hit one. The state holds the first party caucuses in the nation and these White House hopefuls were hopeful of getting an early jump on the competition.

Never in the history of presidential politics have so many voters been courted at their kitchen table. "Well, look here at the door, Martha," a farmer would shout to his wife. "It's that Dick Gephardt fellow. And he's got a bunch of cameras with him."

There were more "photo ops" per capita in Iowa during that winter of 1988 than at your typical Cannes Film Festival. Paul Simon posed in enough snowy fields to make you think he was an L.L. Bean model. Al Gore drank so much lunch-counter coffee that he actually lost his drawl. All of it was captured on film.

Along with the networks, there were plenty of local television news stations from around the country in tow, having a grand time trying to soak up local color for the folks back in Nashville, or wherever.

Plenty of print reporters were along for the ride, too. An army of them. They ate in restaurants, slept in hotels and bought Iowa souv~e~nirs for their city-slicker friends to muse over. Iowa may not have propped up democracy in those frigid days, but it celebrated some short-term economic enhancement.

Harkin put the zap on that for 1992. By seeking the presidency, the Iowa senator effectively steered other candidates away from the state; fellow Democrats conceded him the backyard victory.

Since the candidates didn't bother to show up, neither did the media. The nation's eyes shifted to New Hampshire, where the first primary of the political season was held yesterday and where Harkin couldn't see the top of the pack with a telescope.

All the money a heated presidential campaign can generate was directed elsewhere ... all because Harkin, the Iowan, was redeeming some parochial popularity.

At least Kevin Costner brought in some film-crew money when he filmed "Field of Dreams" in Iowa. And he left behind a legacy, a baseball field carved into a patch of corn, that people still come to see. The tourism impact is considerable.

Iowa would have benefited more had Harkin heard a voice: "If you run, they won't come."

And they call him the favorite son?