If I have learned anything in the past year it is that Iowa is a complete joke. There was a time way back in 1976 when I went there to campaign for Jimmy Carter as a college kid that I believed in Iowa as an honest broker and screening committee for our presidential politics. But in the decades since it has become a casino unworthy of the media hype the state has so jealously protected. The time has come for ending this madness. Margins of a few hundred or thousand in a universe only slightly largely than a major league football stadium, in a state so unrepresentative of our nation at large, deciding winners and losers for a population of 300 million? Party hacks bought off with chump change? Roads built to nowhere by presidential administrations owing Iowa their power? Federal expenditures per capita at the top of the food chain? This state is now running a scam on our country that the most scandalous infomercials on cable television wouldn’t dare to present. Its bizarre rules, especially those in the Democratic Party denying secret ballots and banning minority candidates, ought to invalidate Iowa’s oversized influence. Iowa no longer deserves this.
woo hoo, no argument from me, election reform is long overdue- the popular vote would be my choice
Have to agree. I really don’t like the caucus system to begin with as it is too open to shenanigans and pressure by friends, neighbors, and political operatives. While my preference is for a popular vote, I can understand some system that partially weights rural vs urban.
For primaries, I’ve always liked the idea of geographic areas regularly alternated so that no one state carried too much influence. Perhaps six “super Tuesdays” leading up to the conventions.
Iowa is a joke. Obama won it in 08 only to go on and lose NH. If the networks consider a 50/50 split some sort of political kiss of death for HRC or the road to the nomination for Sanders they are sadly mistaken. Fifty percent may not spell momentum but it hardly represents dead in the water either.
Tonight I would rather be HRC than Bernie Sanders or any of the republican candidates.
ps: Rubio did himself no favors with his speech tonight. Repeal Obamacare, really?
I agree. It’s time for a change. I like Jamie’s idea.
O’Malley & Huckabee have suspended their campaigns.
With all of the media fluff coverage about Iowa fried meat on a stick, etc., all I can see is that Iowans must also have a taste for crap. Turd Cruz? Ya gotta be kidding me.
The good thing to come out of this season is that both party machines got a wake-up call.
*Craig – Universe (spelling)
I cannot listen to Cruz, mute!
Tony, I also have the sound down while Cruz is on…
Primaries are so much more representative than the caucus system…
Can you imagine that nasal, whiny, smarmy-pants giving the SOTU? It makes me hope there really is a legality that would make him ineligible.
As a Midwesterner from a neighboring state, we had a saying about Iowa. It stands for
Idiots
Out
Walking
Around
Still, it’s not Joe & Jane Iowans’ fault that things are set up this way.
BLUE, sp fixed, thanks for the heads up
Well, third win for the Iowa evangelical vote in Iowa. Huckabee, Santorum now Cruz. So far 2 out of the 3 went nowhere after Iowa. Lets see if Cruz can make it 3 for 3.
If Cruz winning does nothing else , maybe it will end the pandering to corn growers with the ethanol subsidy
Jack
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