Why the Iowa Caucuses are Overrated

The funny thing about the iowa caucuses is they have no effect on the voting of the delagates in the convention.

Your point becomes even more salient once we consider that Iowa stands for either I Owe the World an Apology, or Idiots Out Wandering Around. Of course, this might provide an explanation why the Diwmitcrats and the Repugnantcans both want Iowa’s choice to play such a prominent role. It has seemed to me for quite some time that both parties are not only content with but are actually actively pursuing greater influence by the booboisie.

As Tevye says, “Tradition”. Changing things is scary; it’s always been this way, and so it always will be this way, even though it is completely wacky.

Aaron, I’m from Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes and twice that many Iowa jokes.

Imagine what it would be like if the election season kicked off with the California and New York primaries. Very few unproven candidates would have the resources needed to mobilize the campaign workers and buy the advertising needed for such large markets. The race would be over before the first primary. You might as well just sell the party nomination on eBay.

I would suggest that what we’ve seen so far this year indicates that campaign organization is no longer as important as it once was. The financial side is still required to run attack ads, but several of the bubble candidates didn’t have any actual campaign presence outside of the Tea Party Republican debates.

When Cain and Gingrich can be frontrunners both nationally and in Iowa, without anything like Paul’s organization, shows that a multi-state first primary would not automatically eliminate candidates with smaller resources. With conservative media acting as the main source for voters getting to know the candidates, the “meet & greets” becomes less important. So while a candidate with limited resources may not be able to make appearances in numerous states, all they really need to do is put on a good show at the nationally-televised debates and get enough coverage on Fox News to have some viability.

(this seems to at least be true in the Tea Party Republican primary system, with no way of knowing if the same could be said in a Democratic primary)

As a former denizen of the state of New Hampshire, the explanation that made sense to me was that in NH, the candidates actually have to spend time there and meet people. It’s less about how much money you have to bomb the airwaves with sound bytes and more about hand-shaking and explaining your position.

“You might as well just sell the party nomination on eBay.”

That would certainly mean less wear and tear on my ears and eyeballs…….

One Brow writes:

There aren’t enough political donations available to run a primary for 5-15 candidates from a single party in a multitude of states, or even a large, diverse state. So the parties start with small states to give lesser-knowns a chance to to compete.

The problem with this explanation is that there is no strong correlation between the results in Iowa versus who eventually wins the nomination unless they are the presumptive favorite prior to the Iowa caucus. That’s why we’ve seen some candidates pose as if they care about Iowa while putting their energy and money elsewhere. Let’s recall that Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucus in ’08 which helped him none at all when it came to that campaign or this one; it did help him secure a job with a TV channel Iowa Republicans like to think is a news station.

Another Iowan here. Sorry about Steve King (@jameshanley Peter King is the insane rightwing nutjob from New York. Steve King is the insane rightwing nutjob from Iowa). I’m in a different district, so can’t vote against him.

The only thing that makes sense to me is that smaller states should go first because it gives lesser known candidates a chance to get out and actually talk to people. Our media buys are a lot lower than other parts of the country and it is easy to go to two or three cities and get 90% of the population. As others have pointed out, starting with NY, California or Texas would bankrupt smaller candidates. I think that having more voices heard, even the insane ones, is better than only one or two.

But let it rotate. There are other small states that should have a chance.

The other thing I like about the Democratic caucus(unlike the Republican) is that we are sort of like an instant runoff election. Any candidate with less than 15%(?) of the vote at the Democratic caucus is considered non-viable and his/her supporters have to pick another candidate. This also gives people a chance to argue for their candidate.

I’ll never forget a kid who couldn’t have been more than 18 who stood up all nervous and spoke from the heart about his candidate. You don’t get that kind of passion and participation from primaries.

I actually think that blogs like “Dispatches from the Culture Wars” on the Internet – and even more so, 24-hour-a-day news channels – are responsible for inflating the importance of the Iowa caucuses.

I’m in my 60’s. They had caucuses in Iowa when I was growing up. But you had to be a news groupie to know when they took place. The day after, you might see a mention of the caucuses on page 4 of the B section of the paper. That was it. No mention by Walter Chronkite. Certainly no mention on the local news.

But NOW, in 2011, people have to find things to talk about. They have to talk for 24 hours about those things. On most days there isn’t 24 hours of news to talk about. So often you end up talking Paris Hilton or the Kardashians.

While the Iowa caucuses are surely overrated, they are undoubtedly more important than Paris Hilton or the Kardashians. So if you have to choose between the Kardashians or the Iowa caucuses to talk about, you choose the caucuses.

In fact, at that level, it makes sense to do so.

But it is the Internet and the news channels that are responsible for the inflation of the importance of Iowa.

Dear Ed and friends,

I am motivated to comment for the first time by surprise that what seemed, to me, to be the obvious reason for the existence of these mini-elections was not alluded to in the post or comments.

Perhaps, then I am too cynical; I see them as good, old-fashioned “rotten boroughs”.

Both states have a small franchise for these votes and, with due respect to each, a less diverse electorate than the candidates will face later, motivated by a small subset of issues. (In Iowa, agriculture issues dominate to the exclusion of other policies whilst in New Hampshire, I am given to understand that the voters for each party belong to one of other of the largely homogenous social groups on the left and the right, with few contrarians taking part.)

The result is that actual policies have a diminished role and the results of these votes is more likely to be decided by rhetoric, character and debate (or more likely by political shenanigans, mud-slinging and grandstanding.) These are areas where the political operatives believe they have power to influence the outcome by their skill and determination (as opposed merely to being seen to be the most capable person for the job – a category in which no truly self-aware politician can honestly place himself.)

During primary elections the political party does not really exist as it divides into camps of followers (the rump of ‘party elders’ cannot act as any action is sure to be interpreted as support for one or other of the candidates) so decisions to change the way of things during this period fall to the candidates.

The front runner doesn’t want to rock the boat and annoy his Iowa and NH supporters and he (or his electoral team, presumable the ‘A’ team of political operatives) are sure they will do the best under the status quo.

A close-running second needs to one-up his main rival and his team of up-and-coming hacks may think they maybe have a slightly better candidate by they know that they are better political operators than the old-guard on front-runners team – if they get to work in an environment where their clever media strategies are not going to get overshadowed by real-world issues in Washington.

Distant third and fourth placed candidates know that they must have an early upset to elevate themselves and their fund-raising; perhaps they might be able to upset the apple-cart of the traditional early elections and find an opening to embarass or up-stage their more illustrious competitors. They are though, at present, quite small voices in the party and a stand against the Iowa Caucus for example might just seem like a pre-emptive attack of sour grapes or worse still, be ignored altogether. In any case, their energetic, young teams of political advisors are just certain that they can run rings around the establishment flunkies on frontrunner and secondplace’s teams so long as they can’t bring their ‘Washington gravitas’ and ‘policy experience’ into play.

In short, each candidate wants to have an early chance to leapfrog their competitors by using their real ‘political’ skills that they really believe in (the ability to entice or cajole the voters that have been naturally selected through innumerable elections while lesser hucksters and dissemblers were voted down and fell away) in order to be in the best possible position before they have to rely on the much riskier proposition of trying to persuade the diverse multitude of their character and capability as leader, diplomat and policy-maker.

It’s the candidates best chance to use their true skills of manipulation, lying, schmoosing and belligerence before a captive audience, reality TV style, without the intrusion of all that confusing, incomprehensible legal, social and diplomatic policy stuff that no-one really cares about anyway.

To me the whole idea of primaries seems silly. You ask the public to pick who will be campaigning for a party they (the voters) may have nothing to do with then wonder why so many fruit loops show up.

And what do you propose as an alternative the primaries? Have you never learned the history of why we have them? Sure, they’re not perfect but I never thought the very idea of primaries was still controversial.

Here’s an idea: why not let the parties decide who going to run?

I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic, but the obvious problem here is that women and minorities have no chance of being nominated here.

bananacat – Yes, I was being sarcastic.

It’s the way it works here (and in the Ol’ Dart too, I beleive).

Dingo

@26

Maybe I should have specified that I’m English which means the system I’m used to is more like the Australians above describe, the parties pick their candidates and the voters choose between them.

So no I don’t know the history of why you ended up with the primary system, can anyone point me to a decent explanation?

Which kinda looks like this.

(“’93 Election” From Keating! The Musical)

Dingo

Andrew Sullivan also provided some others’ attempts to rationalize the Iowa caucus over the past couple of days, especially yesterday. I think those and attempts in this thread has Ed’s question going unanswered. i think because there’s no rational reason for how the primaries play out where a very small percentage of Iowan voters get wooed first.

Sure, they’re not perfect but I never thought the very idea of primaries was still controversial.

Giving the results, I don’t understand how they couldn’t be controversial. For me, it gives too much power to enraged, underinformed people.

I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic, but the obvious problem here is that women and minorities have no chance of being nominated here.

That would depend on the party. And I don’t think there’s evidence for this. I would expect women to do worse in a primary system. The US Congress compared to parliaments in Europe seems to validate this assumption.

Canadian here -I also don’t understand the primary system – it seems to me to be little more than a system designed to ensure that nothing but campaigning and fundraising ever take place…screw actually doing any WORK (for those who are already elected officials)

guess I’m spoiled here – party members elect leaders via delegates at a convention. Election campaigns last 6 weeks. Party leader of party with most seats is premier or prime minister (provincial/federal). Not to say I’m happy with current PM but at least I didn’t have to hear him campaign for a year!

Well, the Canadian system isn’t something to emulate either. The voting system is also FPTP. Harper lost the election and still won it thanks to the voting system. Of course, the same happens in the US and the UK.