Continue reading »
I am so tired of hearing about and reading about Iowa and New Hampshire. Iowa is a great state, I’ve had some of the best corn I’ve ever tasted there. I’ve had lots of fun at the Valaire Ballroom in Des Moines. And New Hampshire is a wonderful place as well. But why should America care who voters pick in the Iowa primary? It’s not like they have a decent track record of selecting winners.
We are all aware of the laws that prevent the media from releasing voting results before the polls close. The reason is the fear that voters will remain home if they learn that their candidate is losing by a large margin; or they might stay home if their candidate has a large lead. “Why should I take a long lunch / go out in this rain / leave the comfort of home to stand in line if my candidate is winning/losing by so much already?”
I think this is a great law. It keeps the press out of our hair for a short (albeit sweet) amount of time. It lets voters vote without worry. Exit polls may provide some influence, but in my experience most people don’t value exit poll results.
Why can’t we expand this concept across a much larger timeframe? I’m talking about during the primary process. But not just one day’s worth or one state’s worth. I’m talking about the entire primary process. Here’s my idea:
Let’s not release the results until the actual party conventions.
Why is this a good idea?
- Each party member in each state will be allowed to vote for the candidate they want as opposed to having to choose from only the remaining candidates as dictated by previous primaries. In other words you will be able to vote for the person that best represents your values, not just for the one that pisses you off the least. For example: I’m in Texas and I’m a Mitt Romney supporter. Thanks to the current system by the time I got the chance to vote my candidate wasn’t even on the ballot. I don’t think that’s fair.
- By not knowing who is leading the delegate count each candidate will be forced to campaign continuously and spend their money wisely if they want it to last. Hmm… that sounds like something most Americans have to do every month.
- The financial difficulty of entering a long and expensive race will certainly deter and potentially weed out candidates that currently join the races for ego and/or local popularity reasons. Politicians will think twice about entering the campaign if its going to cost them so much. A pleasant side effect of this would be the much celebrated death of the ten candidate primary ‘debate’ circus that we all had to endure.
- The national party conventions will actually mean something.
- The media will be forced to cover other issues because they won’t know who is actually winning and won’t have a singular candidate to prop up and promote.
Of course, the easier thing to do would be to move to a single national primary day and stop all of this ridiculous state posturing and jockeying for position. I think it is incredibly unfair that states far away from where I live have predetermined who I can vote for, especially given the differences between the issues I face in Texas on a day to day basis versus whatever is going on in Iowa, Ohio or New Hampshire.
A national primary day just makes sense.
[update: Jan 4, 2008]
Calm down Oprah. Obama has joined a distinguished group of politicians that includes Gore, Harkin, Gephardt and Mondale. These are the previous four Democratic winners in the Iowa caucuses that were selected when a sitting President was not on the ballot.
- Iowa picked Harkin over eventual winner Clinton (Iowa had Clinton 4th)
- Iowa picked Gephardt over eventual nominee Dukakis (he was 3rd behind Tsongas)
-
Even in 1976 37% were uncommitted, they had Carter 2nd.
On the Republican side they didn’t do much better.
- They picked GWB correctly.
- When Reagan’s VP was running, the put Bush 3rd behind Dole and Pat Robertson
- When Reagan ran in 1980 Iowa preferred the elder Bush.
Not too impressive, huh?
[original post from Dec 29, 2007]
I am so sick of hearing about and reading about Iowa and New Hampshire. Iowa is a great state, I’ve had some of the best corn I’ve ever tasted there. I’ve had lots of fun at the Valaire Ballroom in Des Moines. And New Hampshire is a wonderful place as well. But why should America care who voters pick in the Iowa primary?
Think about it. Here is a list of the winners for each party over the past 30 years:
Iowa
1976 – Ford (R, incumbent), Uncommitted (D = 36%, Carter was second with 28%)
1980 – Bush (R), Carter (D)
1984 – REAGAN (R, incumbent), Mondale (D)
1988 – Dole (R), Gephardt (D)
1992 – Bush (R, incumbent), Harkin (D)
1996 – Dole (R), Clinton (D, incumbent)
2000 – Bush II (R), Gore (D)
2004 – Bush II (R, incumbent), Kerry (D)
The only time that Iowa voters got it right when they weren’t forced to choose against an incumbent was Bush II, v.1. That’s 1:8. Now let’s see how the fine folks in New Hampsha’ fared:
New Hampshire
1976 – Ford (R), CARTER (D)
1980 – REAGAN (R) Carter (D)
1984 – REAGAN (R) Hart (D)
1988 – BUSH (R) Dukakis (D)
1992 – Bush (R) Tsongas (D)
1996 – Dole (R) CLINTON (D)
2000 – McCain (R) Gore (D)
2004 – BUSH II (R) Kerry (D)
Second verse, close to the first. NH got 3:8 when removing the incumbent.
So I ask anyone willing to listen: Why do we still care about how Iowa and New Hampshire vote in the primaries? The world has changed folks… we’ve got instant news, opinions travel at the speed of light and every candidate’s words, facial expressions and body movements are overanalyzed, critiqued and force fed to the masses. Let’s give the vote back to the people and tell the mainstream media to rethink its coverage priorities.
