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Iowa Insanity

1 Comment January 13, 2010 – 3:08 pm | Permalink |  Print This Post |

Vote for Barak and he’ll provide free baby sitting. Isn’t that illegal or at least somewhat shadly? But alas, the Iowa caucus process isn’t democratic anyway, so why does Iowa get so much attention- other than because of tradition. Why aren’t there 3 or 4 states that have a PRIMARY (a democratic process) on the same first day that’s representative of the nation.

Why do various campaign aides need to show up at Iowan homes with DVD’s that explain how the caucuses work. Iowans need help from outsiders to tell them about their process? Nobody needs a DVD to understand one-person-one-vote, a level playing field, and a secret ballot

And we need to blame the MEDIA for the hysteria that’s a part of the Iowa insanity!

Every day there has been a poll as though life and death hinged on what the latest trend was. If you look at the polls one thing becomes obvious. There is no trend. Who cares about what Iowa thinks anything. I know, I know the MEDIA does. And so we see pictures of Huckabee shooting a bird, praying on bended knee, and running in the cold morning snow with reporters. Anything to get an angle on a candidate that will sell tabloid or TV commercials. Besides with all the 24 hour cable news networks, one has to fill the air time with something- anything!

What we have are less than 3,000,000 people offering their vote an attention to whomever will give them the time of day while 300,000,000 other Americans look on with doubts. And in a state that 92% white, what does that tell the rest of us across the United States? Rudy Guiliani decided to woo the religious right from New York, rather than get involved in Iowa directly.

Every four years the press has been promising to swear off the bottle and stop treating the Iowa caucuses as if they were a primary, let alone an election. Credit Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post for being the first writer this year to try to hold his fellow journalists to that pledge. Listen, without that massive media boost, prevailing in Iowa would be seen for what it is: an important first victory that amounts to scoring a run in the top of the first inning.

No big deal!

“It stinks,” says veteran political reporter Jack Germond. “The voters ought to have time to make a considered decision, and the press ought to be a little less poll-driven, and we’re not.” Between the coverage and the hyper-compressed campaign calendar, he says, “the whole system this year is absolutely a disgrace.”

The term of choice for the more thoughtful reporters, in describing the Iowa rules, is arcane. With its arcane caucus rules, Iowa remains a small battlefield. Only 124,000 Democrats voted last time, less than a quarter of those eligible. So if Barack Obama, say, edges Hillary Clinton by 2,000 votes, he’ll be hailed in headlines as a giant-killer despite the tiny margin.

Much ado about nothing- escept for what hype the press makes it.

When you read an honest reporter like Dan Balz you appreciate the depth and extent of the fraud that is being practiced on us all. “In a primary,” as he put it, “voters quietly fill out their ballots and leave. In the caucuses, they are required to come and stay for several hours, and there are no secret ballots. In the presence of friends, neighbors and occasionally strangers, Iowa Democrats vote with their feet, by raising their hands and moving to different parts of the room to signify their support for one candidate or another. For Democrats, it is not a one-person, one-vote system. … Inducements are allowed; bribes are not.”

Maybe Rudy Guiliani was smart by staying out of Iowa!

What the Iowa insanity-laced caucasuses do is give the whip to the moneyed political professionals, to the full-time party hacks and manipulators, to the shady pollsters and the cynical media boosters, and to the supporters of fringe and crackpot candidates. Remember that not Iowa but its “caucuses” put Pat Robertson ahead of George H.W. Bush in the race for the GOP nomination in 1988. So is there any wonder the Iowa now loves another ministger named Huckabee? The process might be a good way for Iowa to pick its party convention delegates, but it’s an absolute terrible way in which to select candidates for the presidency.

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