As a voter who does not live in Iowa-- like ninety-nine percent of Americans-- I am disgusted that such disproportionate amounts of money and attention has been spent by presidential campaigns on winning the Iowa caucuses.
Amidst all of the mainstream media's ballyhooing of the momentum to be gained in the tight Iowa polls, The New York Times finally examined the caucuses sheer unfairness and obsoleteness.
A relic from over two hundred years ago, the evening caucuses start at a certain time, and exclude any who can't attend. This leaves out "the infirm, soldiers on active duty, medical personnel who cannot leave their patients, parents who do not have baby sitters, restaurant employees on the dinner shift, and many others who work in retail, at gas stations and in other jobs that require evening duty." It's a pretty unvarnished nose-thumbing at the working class.
Samuel Isaacharoff, an election law professor at New York University, observed, "just as nonrepresentative as Iowa is of the country, Iowa caucusgoers are nonrepresentative of Iowa as a whole."
Racially, Iowa is indeed nonrepresentative of the U.S. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2006 estimates, Iowa's residents are 94.6% white, 2.5 % black, 3.8% Latino, and 1.6% Asian. Nationally, American residents are 66.4% white, 12.8% black, 14.8% Latino, and 4.4% Asian.
The Iowa caucuses are not a fair predictor of national sentiment on who should lead our nation. They're not even necessarily telling about how Iowans feel.
The caucuses have been overhyped to the point of insanity. Hopefully, for 2012, our leaders and electorate will now begin dismantling our byzantine and antidemocratic presidential election system in favor of a national primary and a national general election determined by popular vote.
Dan Brown is a teacher and the author of "The Great Expectations School."
Follow Dan Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/danbrownteacher
She isn't looking quite so 'inevitable' now is she!
But, if you were Iowa with 3million people and you had candidates dropping a couple hundred million on the state, wouldn't you want to be first in the country as well? It's about the money!
i can't.
great article - thanks.
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Presidential Electors meet in their respective state capitol buildings (or in the District of Columbia) on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December (per 3 U.S.C. 7), never as a national body. At the 51 meetings, held on the same day, the Electors cast the electoral votes. As such, the collectivity of the 51 groups is the technical definition of the college, despite never convening together. The electoral college system, like the national convention, is an indirect element in the process of electing the president.
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there's a secret handshake, but since they never actually meet...