"You Americans sure do have a funny democracy."
"Tell me about it."
"Let me get this right, you have to win the party nomination in order to be on the presidential ballot."
"So far, so good."
"And the party nomination is determined by these states saying which candidate they want."
"That's right."
"But does a candidate have much of a chance of getting the nomination if they lose in the first 3 states, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina?"
"That candidate would probably be done."
"So really the people in those states have much more influence over the primary than people in other states. Guess that means there really isn't one-person one-vote."
"True, but we have far more egregious examples then that."
"I know about gerrymandering, the Electoral College, the Senate representation distortion, blocking third parties from office... but today I am focused on this Republican primary season. So those first three states, the ones with so much power, surely they represent a large percent of the American people."
"Actually Iowa (about 3 million), South Carolina (about 4.7 million), and New Hampshire (about 1.3 million) have roughly the same population as New York City. They are dwarfed in population by states like California (about 37.7 million), Texas (about 25.6 million) and New York (about 19.5 million)."
"So those aren't populous states. Surely they must represent the ethnic mix of the United States."
"New Hampshire is 94% Caucasian and Iowa is even higher. Hispanics and Latinos are approaching 1/5th of the US population but are rarely found in those three states."
"So these states don't have similar demographics than the rest of the US. Are they much better educated?"
"New Hampshire is one of the top 5 states regarding the percent of residents with at least a college degree but Iowa and Alabama are near the bottom."
"So residents of these three states, three states that comprise only a very small percent of the US population, three states whose demographics do not come close to mirroring that of America, two of which states have education levels far below that of the rest of the US are going to be the major deciding factors in who represents the Republican party."
"That's right."
"You Americans sure do have a funny democracy."
"Sure do."
Follow Howard Steven Friedman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/howardsfriedman
100% precincts reporting
| Candidate | Votes | Pct. | Del. |
|---|---|---|---|
 Santorum |
29,839 | 24.6% | 13 |
 Romney |
29,805 | 24.5% | 12 |
 Paul |
26,036 | 21.4% | |
 Gingrich |
16,163 | 13.3% | |
 Perry |
12,557 | 10.3% | |
 Bachmann |
6,046 | 5.0% | |
 Huntsman |
739 | 0.6% | |
 Others |
254 | 0.2% | |
 Cain |
45 | 0.1% | |
 Roemer |
17 | 0.1% |
Delegate counts are estimates and might be adjusted later.
The question; is this what people want or have they been manipulated into acceptance?
On top of that they neuter the constitution as if passing specious law can legally remove our constitutionally guaranteed rights. To date it seems congress can and the people have few choices accept to refer to the safe guards our founders placed in those documents they considered important in the preservation of the rights of the people, the declaration of Independence and our Constitution:
The Supreme Court declared in 1897:
The Constitution is the body and letter of which the Declaration of Independence is the thought and the spirit, and it is always safe to read the letter of the Constitution in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence
Together they give the people the right to rebel against injustice. If what we see today with the congress opposing the will and the spirit of our constitution in law and their refusal to prosecute frauds perpetrated against the people is not great injustice then slavery in any form, torture in any form unreasonable imprisonment in any form will become the future and “freedom” a mere slogan.
This was not really your point though. Why should Iowa caucus first and New Hampshire's primary be held before Texas? There seems to be no good answer for that outside of tradition. But in my opinion there really is no compelling reason to change anything either. The states and their citizens choose our President, not all our citizens. This is a noteworthy distinction.
Democracy mainly refers to our use of an election process and the positive right to vote to select our representatives. And now, despite the original design of the Constitution, amended to include our Senators. The electoral college process for selecting a President was carefully designed to not be democratic.
And these the three powers each the three forms of government referred to by Herodotus described further by Aristotle enlarged upon by Polybius and re-expressed through an interpretation of the British constitutional framework by Montesquieu.
Given, since those days, the development in political theory and practice we can now call the United States a democracy. I know it is tedious for rightists and worshipers of the past to take into account, but time passes, things change and that includes usage of such words as 'democracy.' Not founded as one, but the United States is certainly one now. And, being a social artifact, a construct, it is highly imperfect and as such should be subject to constant reform and renewal.