by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
The Iowa caucuses, a hoary old event that does little to show what most Americans think of particular candidates, holds the distinction of being the first official count of any kind during the presidential election season - and thus garners far more attention than it actually deserves.
Most of the presidential candidates of both parties bring in large groups of paid and unpaid staff to Iowa to campaign relentlessly for weeks and months and reach as many voters as possible. The idea is that whoever wins Iowa leaves the state with "momentum" going into the other caucuses and primaries that quickly follow. A win in Iowa can add legitimacy to a struggling candidate and make him or her a real contender, and a major defeat in Iowa can just as easily be a death knell for a campaign.
So a bunch of Democratic candidates went into Iowa, worked hard, spent tens of millions of dollars - and, at the end of the caucus night (last night) no results were known. Supposedly a computer app that tallied votes failed to work properly - and now, Tuesday morning, Democrats in Iowa are scrambling to count the votes by hand and come up with a better-late-than-never winner.
Iowa Democratic officials are insisting - INSISTING - that this was a software failure and not a hack or election interference from some nefarious source.
But the campaigns have already pulled up stakes and moved on to New Hampshire where they are preparing for that state's presidential primary which occurs a week from today. The Democrats left Iowa without knowing who won - and without any of that momentum for which they had paid so dearly. Iowa was a cock-up.
Lots of people don't appreciate all of the political power that rests with Iowans because of their early caucuses. They argue that a rural, primarily white, agricultural state is not representative of the United States, and that a much ballyhooed victory in Iowa gives a skewed depiction of which candidate would run the strongest race nationwide. The United States, as a whole, does not resemble the coffee shops and kitchen tables of Iowa - or even those of New Hampshire.
But by the time the first handful of primaries are out of the way, the field of candidates has been winnowed down to a bare few, and when bulk of Americans finally get their say, the pickings are slim.
Iowa has failed the nation, and there will undoubtedly be plenty of recriminations and suggestions for fairer ways to select presidential nominees, ways that do not include letting Iowa have the first say in every election cycle. But, as with the two recent thefts of election by the electoral college, talk is cheap and easy - but nothing is likely to change.
That's too bad, because the Iowa caucuses fly in the face of democracy. The caucuses are a lengthy and cumbersome process that not everyone can - or is willing to - sit through, and people who have to work on caucus night are essentially disenfranchised. And, as at least implied above, the caucuses give Iowans far more influence over our national elections than they should be entitled to.
One proposal that gets bandied about every election year is to divide the country into a series of regions and then have every state within a region hold presidential primaries on the same day. The regions would rotate in voting order each election cycle. The Northeast might be first this cycle, last in 2024, next to last in 2028, and so on until it works its way back up to first. The Southeast, Southwest, Midwest, Far West, and Americans Abroad might also have their own primary days which would be rotated into the system.
A regional primary system would mean less campaign travel time, expense, and hassle for candidates who could then focus on a single area of the US at a time - and media buys in the various regional markets would make more sense and be more cost-effective.
And occasionally all citizens would get the opportunity to be among the very first in the nation to state their preferences - instead of just those living in Iowa.
This old typist happens to think that he is just as patriotic and well informed as the average corn producer in Iowa, and he would like to have the opportunity to occasionally be at the front of the process in selecting his party's presidential nominee. Fair is fair - even if the good people in places like Iowa and New Hampshire might not think so.
Citizen Journalist
The Iowa caucuses, a hoary old event that does little to show what most Americans think of particular candidates, holds the distinction of being the first official count of any kind during the presidential election season - and thus garners far more attention than it actually deserves.
Most of the presidential candidates of both parties bring in large groups of paid and unpaid staff to Iowa to campaign relentlessly for weeks and months and reach as many voters as possible. The idea is that whoever wins Iowa leaves the state with "momentum" going into the other caucuses and primaries that quickly follow. A win in Iowa can add legitimacy to a struggling candidate and make him or her a real contender, and a major defeat in Iowa can just as easily be a death knell for a campaign.
So a bunch of Democratic candidates went into Iowa, worked hard, spent tens of millions of dollars - and, at the end of the caucus night (last night) no results were known. Supposedly a computer app that tallied votes failed to work properly - and now, Tuesday morning, Democrats in Iowa are scrambling to count the votes by hand and come up with a better-late-than-never winner.
Iowa Democratic officials are insisting - INSISTING - that this was a software failure and not a hack or election interference from some nefarious source.
But the campaigns have already pulled up stakes and moved on to New Hampshire where they are preparing for that state's presidential primary which occurs a week from today. The Democrats left Iowa without knowing who won - and without any of that momentum for which they had paid so dearly. Iowa was a cock-up.
Lots of people don't appreciate all of the political power that rests with Iowans because of their early caucuses. They argue that a rural, primarily white, agricultural state is not representative of the United States, and that a much ballyhooed victory in Iowa gives a skewed depiction of which candidate would run the strongest race nationwide. The United States, as a whole, does not resemble the coffee shops and kitchen tables of Iowa - or even those of New Hampshire.
But by the time the first handful of primaries are out of the way, the field of candidates has been winnowed down to a bare few, and when bulk of Americans finally get their say, the pickings are slim.
Iowa has failed the nation, and there will undoubtedly be plenty of recriminations and suggestions for fairer ways to select presidential nominees, ways that do not include letting Iowa have the first say in every election cycle. But, as with the two recent thefts of election by the electoral college, talk is cheap and easy - but nothing is likely to change.
That's too bad, because the Iowa caucuses fly in the face of democracy. The caucuses are a lengthy and cumbersome process that not everyone can - or is willing to - sit through, and people who have to work on caucus night are essentially disenfranchised. And, as at least implied above, the caucuses give Iowans far more influence over our national elections than they should be entitled to.
One proposal that gets bandied about every election year is to divide the country into a series of regions and then have every state within a region hold presidential primaries on the same day. The regions would rotate in voting order each election cycle. The Northeast might be first this cycle, last in 2024, next to last in 2028, and so on until it works its way back up to first. The Southeast, Southwest, Midwest, Far West, and Americans Abroad might also have their own primary days which would be rotated into the system.
A regional primary system would mean less campaign travel time, expense, and hassle for candidates who could then focus on a single area of the US at a time - and media buys in the various regional markets would make more sense and be more cost-effective.
And occasionally all citizens would get the opportunity to be among the very first in the nation to state their preferences - instead of just those living in Iowa.
This old typist happens to think that he is just as patriotic and well informed as the average corn producer in Iowa, and he would like to have the opportunity to occasionally be at the front of the process in selecting his party's presidential nominee. Fair is fair - even if the good people in places like Iowa and New Hampshire might not think so.
1 comment:
Failure to count is one thing. Fortunately the Iowa Democratic Party was sufficiently woke to make a paper trail of each vote. Paper yields, eventually, accurate counts. But the Iowa Democratic Party employs a calculus that hearkens back to the era when one vote per person was not the norm. That era ended in the 1960's with Baker v. Carr, Wesberry v. Sanders, and Reynolds v. Sims mandating the one person one vote standard. Political parties are not bound by these decisions.
In Iowa the allocation of delegates are weighted to provide more representation to rural precincts. So if you live in a small town, are a pig farmer, or don't have the best access to the internet you stand a better chance of having your choice for President translated into an actual delegate vote at the national convention.
I have attended caucuses. They favor younger and healthier participants. They disfavor those who work the second shift or Saturdays, the infirm, the elderly, and those without available transportation. Participants line up in lines, often long lines, and wait to get in. Once in there is the registration. Then you have to find the group you want to join. Then the little speeches, the counts, the redistribution of groups as some candidates fail to be viable, and more little speeches, instructions, and votes. And waiting for the recount(s). Meanwhile real voters are home having dinner, taking the kids to the places which fill our children's calendars, shopping, etc. On the other hand elections are fairly quick, especially with advance voting. Elections are better because more people are able to vote.
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