Dear Spencerian Editors:
Hello. At the risk of sounding ignorant, can you explain the importance of Iowa in political campaigns. My wife and several friends that discuss politics always bring this up and the answer is collectively I don't know and it is left at that. I would like to put this question to rest. Your explanation is greatly appreciated. Thank You.
Happy Holidays,
John S.
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First of all, thank you for the fantastic question, John. Second, a sincere and hearty thank you for providing a question which allows me to bring back this series that I really enjoy a lot, We Answer Your Political Questions. Now, on to your timely question!
Before I go into any depth on Iowa and the unique caucus/primary process we have in this country, let me make one thing abundantly clear to you: your question is not ignorant, nor are you.
The caucus and primary process by which we ultimately elect a President and Vice-President is ignorant. It is profoundly ignorant. It is ignorant on a grand scale. It is stupid. It is dumb. It is thoughtless, pathetic, weird, moronic, foolish, almost wholly without merit, and entirely unworthy of a democracy as grand as the United States of America.
That this fundamentally flawed process hasn't been changed in many decades is a woeful testament to our broken political system. Not that there haven't been good ideas. More on those in a minute.
First, though, let's talk about Iowa (and New Hampshire, and us other early primary and caucus states, too) and the fact that a bunch of self-important old, white corn farmers* determine the nominee for President of the United States.
Now, I used a lot of negative words to describe the Iowa Caucuses and our larger process for how this all works about. I said it was "almost wholly without merit." "Almost" was the key word, there.
For those who enjoy the entertainment/media spectacle, it is utterly fantastic. I cast myself in that sorry lot: being able to write and blog about candidates making fools of themselves in places like Iowa simply makes for great content. Newt Gingrich getting cussed by a camo-clad local at a grocery store? That's solid gold right there.
There is another, much more practical (less awful on a human level) reason for having caucuses and primaries: these events select the delegates who will represent their state at the party conventions, held next summer (you can visit the site for the Democratic Convention, which will be in Charlotte North Carolina the week of September 3, by clicking here; you can visit the site for the Republican Convention, which takes place August 27-30, and will be in my neck of the woods in Tampa, by clicking here).
You have to remember, John: you don't actually vote for a presidential candidate in a primary.
You only think you do.
I know. You're in Iowa, and you saw all those names on the ballot -- Gingrich, Perry, Romney, Bachmann, Santorum, Paul -- and you selected one on a ballot, put it in a box, walked away. So what happened next, at each of those precincts where the voting took place?
Here is what will happen on January 3 of 2012 in Iowa -- and what the result will be: caucuses -- events where people come together and vote -- will happen in all of the 1,784 precincts in Iowa. Those precincts will then send delegates representing whichever candidate won that precinct to their appropriate county convention, one of 99 in the state. Those conventions then pick delegates to go to the Iowa State Convention. It is there that candidate-representative delegates will be selected to go to the national convention (in the case of the Republicans, down here in Tampa this August).
So, on January 3, some people will identify a handful of people to go to a county event, where other people will be selected to go to a state-wide event, where other people will be selected to come to Tampa in August and pledge their nomination for... Well. Who wins the Iowa Caucus may well be a far cry from who gets the nomination.
I know what you're thinking, John: that's an awful lot of work. Doesn't somebody do it better?
The answer is, well, sort of. New Hampshire, as I'm sure you've heard, has the first-in-the-nation primary. This is different than a "caucus." In a primary -- like the one in New Hampshire -- delegates to the national convention are selected directly, on primary day (in this case, on January 10, 2012; just around the corner).
You can see the difference. In Iowa, these local-level delegates end up trading their support and repositioning their loyalties. Sometimes complex alliances are formed, and two candidates with fewer committed delegates each will throw support one way or the other in order to defeat a third candidate. And with nearly 2,000 precincts, you can see why political experts agree: you need a strong campaign staff in Iowa, and you need it early.
In New Hampshire, the delegates going to the national nominating convention are picked right then, that day. You win New Hampshire, you've taken your first steps in garnering enough delegate votes at the convention to win the nomination.
I know what your'e thinking again, John: that's not much better, really.
And you're right. Because New Hampshire is the first primary in the nation, and because Iowa the first caucus, the candidates spend and inordinate amount of time there, and the media focuses an inordinate amount of attention on them.
It's a messy process. And it's a bi-partisan mess. In the 2008 election, I was going to vote for John Edwards in the primary here in Florida (please remember, this was before Senator Edwards'... problems came to light). But by the time it got around to us, he was toast. I ended up voting for Obama.
Which, in a funny way, is some of the case Iowans and New Hampshirites make for having one-state, early caucuses and primaries. Let's take a quick page from the playbook of former Florida Governor and former Senator Bob Graham, himself a former presidential candidate:
Iowa and New Hampshire are not perfect, but they are more likely to eliminate flawed candidates than states where voters see only television commercials. In 1972, Ed Muskie, a former vice presidential candidate and Maine senator, was supposed to trounce his Democratic rivals in New Hampshire. But voters picked up on Senator Muskie’s tendency to wear his temper on his sleeve. He barely won a contest that should have been a cakewalk. His candidacy soon ended.
Twenty-four years later, Iowa caucus-goers killed the hopes of Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, another early favorite. In the 1996 Republican contest, Mr. Gramm dazzled insiders and pundits with his money-raising prowess. After Iowans met the acerbic Mr. Gramm face-to-face, they voted him fifth in the caucuses. He dropped out of the race.
New Hampshire voters did not derail the candidacy of Gov. George W. Bush in 2000, but they tried. By giving John McCain a resounding 19-point victory, New Hampshire primary voters sent Americans a strong early warning about a man whose presidency has been a major disappointment.
We shouldn't question the judgement of the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire. Anyone that spikes the Phil Gramm campaign is good in my book.
However, I think Senator Graham has a better way:
In our new political environment, Iowa and New Hampshire are unlikely to reclaim the role they once played in screening our future presidents. Too many other states are eager to influence the process, too.
So if we can’t recreate the past, what would be the next best screen? Some have wryly suggested a political version of “American Idol,” with voters sizing up candidates from living rooms across the nation and eliminating one candidate per week until the party nominee is chosen. I think the better analogy is college football’s Bowl Championship Series, which rotates the title game from year to year among the traditional bowl games.
A series of five regional primaries, spaced three weeks apart and rotated every four years, would give voters from Miami to Maui to Manchester opportunities to be first in the nation. Candidates could spend more time with citizens of neighboring states and less time on coast-to-coast flights. Because the primaries would be stretched out over three months rather than three weeks, reporters and other political scorekeepers could not rush to declare a national winner.
Regional primaries are not as intimate as living rooms in Cedar Rapids and Portsmouth. But they might accomplish what the 2008 primary season probably will not: a comprehensive and meticulous screening of the men and women who would be president.
How Americans aren't clamoring for this is beyond me. I always kind of thought people liked having a say -- a la American Idol, as Senator Graham alluded to. Of course, a better way doesn't always mean a popular way, and Iowa (and New Hampshire, and all the others), as I said above, provide a lot of good stuff for folks in the media to write about. Makes you wonder, though: do Presidents Gramm, Muskie and McCain agree?
In closing, let me add one more region to the five Senator Graham suggested: social media. If our current process seems vaguely antiquated to you, that's because it is. Woefully so. I can set up a questionnaire on Survey Monkey in ten minutes. I can do virtually the same thing on Facebook in five.
I have friends in the technology world who could probably take me to school on how to do this on-line better than I could explain it. The point is, that's a big missing piece to me. You want to engage young people (we need to)? You want to increase electoral turnout (we need to; 2010 was just under 38%, 2008 was just under 57%.... in the greatest democracy in the world, we can do better).
Simple question: why hasn't there been a Facebook Primary? Where's the Twitter Primary? It's nearly 2012, people. I mean, I was supposed to have my flying car by now.
John, thank you again for your wonderful question. Hope I've been of some help. And I hope you and your family have a safe and happy holiday, and a glorious new year.
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* For the record, John, I like Iowa. I like Iowa a lot, actually. I know people from Iowa, and they are good people. They are wonderful people, as a matter of fact, and I care about them a great deal. The point of that particular comment was, if you look at the demographics of Iowa, they don't necessarily match up with much of the rest of America. For example, the state as a whole is 91% white. America is about 72%. The numbers are disproportionate when you look at Asians and Hispanics as well. Iowans are a little older than the American average, but only by a couple of percentage points. At any rate, I hope my Iowa friends and family will forgive me.
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I WANT TO ANSWER YOUR POLITICAL QUESTIONS: Ask away. I'll give it my very best shot. No question is too weird, no subject is off the table. Just so long as it's political.
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