Before I went to bed on Monday night, I wrote that we got the perfect result out of Iowa. My take may not surprise you given what I wrote about the Iowa caucuses on Monday morning. In short, I believe that no one deserves to be rewarded or punished for winning in Iowa because the delegates are non-binding, there are very few at stake, and the unique rules almost assure that they will be split almost evenly between the top three or four or even five candidates. It’s simply not a significant contest on the merits, and yet the media stands ready every four years to throw thunderbolts at anyone who “underperforms” and suggest that they drop out of the race. Meanwhile, the winner, who may have the support of as little as one-fourth of the caucus-goers, is treated as a conquering Roman general.
None of this happened on Monday night because the Democrats couldn’t figure out how to collect and tabulate the results. It was delicious to watch the cable news pundits get all twitchy as they realized that they were not going to get to spend hours trashing someone and describing all the missteps they made along the way that assured their doom. They couldn’t even freak out about the winner and wring their hands about whether they are too far left or too unexciting or incapable of standing toe-to-toe on the stage with Trump.
While I feel badly for the candidates and their organizers who played by the stupid rules and got shortchanged by the Iowa Democratic Party’s incompetence, it’s absolutely fantastic that Iowa had their vote and it won’t have some outsized our ill-deserved influence of who becomes the eventual nominee. It looks like Nate Silver feels the exact same way.
There is some room for ambivalence in that it's stupid that Iowa is afforded so much importance in the first place, even though the candidates who did well there probably did get screwed by the results-reporting disaster tonight.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) February 4, 2020
Another bonus of last night’s results is that they virtually assure that Iowa will lose it’s first-in-the-nation privilege. There are elements of the tradition that are charming, but there is no justification for giving one state this role in every cycle for perpetuity. Maybe fifty cycles (or 200 years) from now, when all the other states have had a chance to go first, then Iowa can get the same boon they’ve been enjoying since 1976.
Now we move to New Hampshire, where people actually cast secret ballots. Maybe we can have a new debate about why New Hampshire and many other states allow non-Democrats to vote in the Democratic primary? Why should the public at large get to tell a political party who its leaders should be? In Pennsylvania, independents cannot vote in the primaries. Maybe that’s a good thing? Maybe it makes it harder to pick an appealing candidate for the general election?
With luck, New Hampshire will be able to count the ballots on election night, but I’m perfectly content that Iowa could not.
5
I purposely ignored the TV stuff last night, just because I didn’t want to add to my overall frustration level, which is already high enough. But when I woke up this morning to see what happened in Iowa, it eased my frustration a little, mainly because the media got a proverbial thumb in their eye, and we don’t have to suffer through the narrative they would have liked so much to begin flogging. I hope the mess there continues until everyone just decides it’s not worth going back and covering. Just kill this caucus zombie, please!!!
Iowa can go first….as long as
A) It’s a primary
B) New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina go on the same day.
Having four regions of the country compete on the same day (given the tedious length of the pre-primary season) would allow for candidates with different measures of support to show their viability. Strong with African Americans? South Carolina. College educated whites? New Hampshire. Hispanics and labor unions? Nevada.
None of those states are too large to blunt retail politicking, but it would also force candidates to campaign nationally, as opposed to sucking up to the same old white farmers they do every four years.
4
This is good news…. for Bloomberg!
Heh. It’s like the worst possible combination. New tech, elderly users, chaotic process, no tests, secret contracts, new caucus system. But yeah, everyone who thinks it’s bad Iowa goes first gets to see what happens this year when it doesn’t.
Honestly the just dont report anything until final results. Oh, but the media the media needs something to talk about! I find caucuses fun even with a kid, but it was pretty funny to watch the disaster.
5
Yeah well Iowa only counts for idiots that still think the main stream media is unbiased.
“Why should the public at large get to tell a political party who its leaders should be?”
This is a much more interesting question and being the George Washington fan that I am. I am sure we disagree.
It’s not that we’re idiots, though on lower levels we are, it’s that main stream media still has an advantage baked in in terms of real time issue. I don’t miss it (cancelled cable a few years back and I never watch the over-the-air TV thing I’ve got). I doubt more and more its matter. Still, they’re better at show biz than online alternatives and they get what they pay for: e.g. Chris Matthews, poor old guy, crying in after hours coverage on Iowa Caucus night. I don’t miss it.
I expect we don’t agree, like you say, but who doesn’t like George Washington, victorious Renaissance revolutionary that he was?
My first thought, as one of the nine in ten Bernie voters that have always voted for Democratic candidates, after Iowa, is that we should all just say ‘fuck it’ and move on. We’ve always been fucked, but stealing Sander’s thunder in Iowa (by the Iowa Democratic Party likely under compulsion from the Democratic National Committee), it’s clear now, was directed and intentional.
Impossible to forgive.
So, great job, Democratic Party, you just lost up to 18% of otherwise reliable votes, just to preserve the candidacies of a young-gay-up-and-comer or a billionaire. Not that Longman gives a shit. This little bit of preliminary primary fuckery is all just fine with him–it’s even good. While he’s busy losing the election to Trump later this year, at least he’s encouraging the possibility of a less fucked up Iowa Caucus next time. Big win all around.
This is ridiculous conspiratorial thinking that doesn’t make any sense. The only thing that was revealed was that we need to abolish caucuses altogether, as the reforms brought a paper trail and an understanding of potential mess ups. Bernie never argued to get rid of caucuses, which also is fine (it was in his political self interest, that’s what politicians do). But it ended up hurting him this time.