One of the great quadrennial rituals of our presidential-nominating system is the descent of candidates on Iowa (e.g., the 19 who appeared in Cedar Rapids at this year’s Iowa Democratic Hall of Fame Dinner) at about this point in the cycle. Close behind it in predictability is the rise of complaints about Iowa’s First-in-the-Nation caucuses and their privileged status. This year it’s Michelle Cottle who has offered an exceptionally high-profile objection to the whole thing. Here’s a sample, though if you’ve read this sort of argument before, you can practically recite it without a script:
“Demographically speaking, the Iowa electorate looks about as much like the face of America as does the Senate Republican conference. Which says a lot.
“Iowa’s caucuses are mind-numbingly convoluted and anti-democratic, favoring the most motivated, well-organized few over the less-obsessive majority of Iowans. More fundamentally, granting one state — any state — a perennial lock on the pole position of presidential voting fosters a sense of entitlement resulting in a quadrennial parade of pandering that borders on the absurd. Ethanol subsidies? Seriously?”
To her credit, Cottle understands that we’ve been hearing such complaints for eons, saying: “Hating on the Iowa caucuses has become a cliché.” Some of the particulars of her indictment are a bit off, though. Yes, caucuses don’t enlist as much participation as government-sponsored primaries, but party-sponsored primaries don’t do much better. Who’s going to force the taxpayers of Iowa to pay for official presidential-nominating contests? Since Iowans are by and large very happy with the status quo, that ain’t happening.
Her dismissal of Iowa Democratic Party efforts (via a “virtual caucus”) to comply with new rules allowing for participation in the caucuses without physically attending them seems a bit churlish as well: It’s an entirely new and untested system, so it might be wise to let it operate at least once before denouncing it as a sham.
The idea that Iowa (alongside New Hampshire, site of the first primary) maintains a death grip on the nominating process by unrepresentative, too-white electorates is a bit outdated as well. Between the 2004 and 2008 cycles, both national parties agreed to move two other states, Nevada (holding caucuses) and South Carolina (with a primary) into the charmed circle of contests sanctioned to kick off the nominating process to provide geographic and racial-ethnic balance (Nevada has a sizable Latino population; South Carolina an even more sizable African-American population). This reform was also a good example of how Iowa has adapted to all the criticism over its preeminence by giving up a bit of power in order to create allies willing to help it defend the power it retains. If they had to, I have no doubt Iowa Republicans and Democrats would support allowing other states to go “early” — though not first — in order to hang onto that First-in-the-Nation designation.
Ultimately, though, Iowa’s primacy depends on the perpetual willingness of presidential candidates to reinforce it. Since the caucuses became major events in 1976, only one successful presidential nominee — Bill Clinton in 1992 — has skipped Iowa, and that was a unique case because Iowa’s own Tom Harkin was running, making the caucuses irrelevant that year. But just participating in the caucuses isn’t enough: Iowans expect prospective candidates to come early and often, and if possible, to spend money and time promoting their own local candidates and their own party infrastructure. And naturally, once candidates have invested in Iowa, they have every interest in recouping that investment instead of supporting some effort to remove the caucuses from their traditional role.
And so the current system, with occasional tweaks and even reforms, lurches along. Those like Cottle who crave a more rational system sometimes fail to comprehend that the nominating process requires action not just by the national party but by state parties and bipartisan state legislatures. She personally favors the idea of rotating regional primaries, an idea that’s been kicking around forever. Actually making that happen across state and party lines would be a gargantuan undertaking. At a minimum, it would require a big push from a powerful figure like, say, a very popular incumbent president with no fear of alienating people in the early states.
There are already gradual developments underway that further erode the old Iowa–New Hampshire duopoly, most notably early voting: On the very same day of the Iowa caucuses next year, by-mail voting for the immense California presidential primary will begin. In the end, though, somebody has to have the first official nominating-contest results, with whatever consequences that might have for winners and losers. Iowans figure it might as well be themselves going first. They have the experience.
McConnell and Trump said it was a bump for them and they did so with authority and great strength so it must be true!
The only bump I was aware of was after Helsinki which happened to be a couple weeks after 8 Republican Senators spent the 4th of July in Russia. Right, because before that everyone Trump endorsed lost. I guess that was the same kind of situation though. What everyone thought would be a disaster for Trump’s GOP turned out to be great for them. How do they work their magic?
Stranger still, Trump’s Republicans are overflowing with offerings to help Democrats target them in the election and they are either ignored and become “wins” because the GOP is playing a game of destroying the hearts and minds of Americans while Democrats try to find the best economic policies for people who are known to vote against their own economic interests.
Are Republicans trying to help Democrats so they can impeach Trump because theyre too afraid to do it?
They become more and more extreme because the Democrats arent noticing now Republicans are trying to help them?
Or is it just that they believe that if you can communicate a lie with force and conviction, you win
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/mcconnell-calls-deficit-very-disturbing-blames-federal-spending-dismisses-criticism-of-tax-cut/2018/10/16/a5b93da0-d15c-11e8-8c22-fa2ef74bd6d6_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9465a672e731
Will Democrats grab this and go after Republicans with it, or will Helsinki strike again?
Democrats were already on track to win the House before all the Kavanaugh posturing.
Now we are assured to make it even more difficult for those Red State Democrats to remain in the Senate for 6 more years.
Sacrificing 6 year terms for 2 year terms is not smart.
Also, the hearings have created a backlash for sexual assault survivors all over the country. The standard of proof for rape has actually gone up again and has become part of the partisan culture wars.
This is not a win for Metoo or for Democrats.
Both long term Senators like Feinstein and new candidates like Kamala Harris completely mishandled the hearings allowing them and even making them part of partisan politics.
This proves that Democrats’ leadership problems going forward are not a matter of age or identity. The problem is ideology and an almost total inability to communicate with non-liberals in common sense plain language.
We can’t have complex policy issues and moral discussions be reduced to hashtags and catchphrases like Believesurvivors.
The electorate deserves and expects better.
The leftwing consultant and activist apparatus with its narrow liberal coastal views has proven time and again incapable of speaking to the rest of the country.
We need to have accountability for the consultant/activist class. After disasters like this nomination heads should roll. People shouldn’t be allowed to define defeat as success. This was nowhere near even a moral victory.
We should have 55-65% opposition to Kavanaugh, not a completely irrelevant 46%. We should be above the 50s in almost all states.
Instead people like Harris and Booker who want to be President are pandering already to primary voters and donors. They are catering to polarize audiences in Blue States further yet even there are not able to get to the upper 60s.
The United States doesn’t have national elections. Even when issues are nationalized the consequences are always filtered via the States and congressional districts.
The strategy of not having national strategies and not having national calls for liberals in the cities to restrain themselves and at least try to appeal to non-PC activists is not working.
We should not have lost in 2016. We should be in line not only for gains in the House but also for unequivocal victories in the Senate and Electoral College.
Instead we are just muddling through.
If Trump can get away with murder it is because Democrat’s discourse is still overwhelmingly disliked.