Iowa Caucuses, Like the Electoral College, Are Unrepresentative

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.

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.

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...