Iowa Caucuses, Like the Electoral College, Are Unrepresentative

Posted by Trish , Pensito Review at 8:03 PM on December 20, 2007.

A big "Amen, Sister!" to Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post, who asks the question so many Floridians and others would like to know, "Who Elected Iowa?"

The caucuses draw a small, unrepresentative sample of a small, unrepresentative state...

...[M]ost Iowans view the caucuses as an obscure art practiced by an elect few. "Usually I don't go, because I'm afraid I'm going to get there and feel like a dummy," one man on Ahn's list confides.

And speaking of dummies, I was amazed to see the decision facing one Iowan.

Kay Baccam, 38, who works at an Iowa spice plant, said she liked Thompson but was leaning toward Clinton in part because of her gender.

"She would be the first woman (president) in history. That's a good role model for kids and women," she said.

Who winnows down their choices to Fred Thompson or Hillary Clinton? Really.

Besides -- and I don't know a thing about how it actually works, but -- it sounds like the Democratic caucuses are separate from the Republicans ones. And in the Democratic caucus, if your candidate doesn't get at least 15 percent of the vote, you have to pick someone else.

Political reporters, myself included, get misty over the notion of neighbors gathering on a cold winter night to hash out differences over who is the best candidate. But the caucus process also serves to disenfranchise...

The bizarre rules of the Democratic contest further distort the results. (Republicans employ a more straightforward method: The candidate with the most votes wins.) Why should a candidate who fails to meet the 15 percent threshold of viability walk away empty-handed? Why should the final outcome depend on how those losing campaigns decide where to throw their backing when, in caucus-speak, nonviable preference groups realign for a second round? No wonder the caucus process makes ordinary people's heads hurt...

And perhaps the most important question: Given all this, why do we in the media invest the caucuses with such make-or-break significance?

When Florida Democrats were placed under a campaign blackout as punishment for the state legislature changing our primary date, we were told it was essential to the electoral process to preserve the system that lets Iowa and New Hampshire, two of our whitest states, choose first. I have never understood the rationale for this boneheaded move, but I believe it was brought to us by the same folks who sit in Congress now -- unable to do anything different, ineffectual and inaudible, and wondering why the Republicans always win.

Tagged as: iowa, iowa caucus

Trish is a regular blogger for the Pensito Review.