When You Examine the Numbers & the Process, Iowa’s Caucuses in the Overall Realm of Presidential Politics Should ‘Not’ Matter One Iota!
The Iowa caucuses will take place within a few days on January 3, 2012. The Republican presidential candidates, many of whom have been wooing these few Christian evangelistic right-wing conservative Republican voters for years, with campaign spending by the Republican candidates now amounting to well over $400 to date per caucus voter. This effort has produced in our electoral process the likes of Herman Cain, Rich Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Rich Perry, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul & Gary Johnson, whom you probably never heard of before; all except Johnson have lead at some point in the polling among Iowa voters, none of who have a snowball’s chance of ever being nominated, much less elected president of the united States. What does this say about the average Republican caucus voter, and why does it matter at all—it doesn’t! 
The Boston Herald in their editorial yesterday (12/28) referred to it basically as a variable clown show, “the clown car nature of the Republican field as ego-driven candidates like Donald Trump flirted with the process only to be followed by the often engaging but deeply flawed candidacies of Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul and finally Newt Gingrich. It has been an entertaining several months, but really now, does anyone see even the remotest possibility of any of those folks taking the oath of office on the Capitol steps come Jan. 20, 2013?” The answer of course is no. No matter what the Republican Iowa caucus voters say, no matter who they vote for, or for that matter whoever wins in Iowa matters not. Iowa has been nothing more than a sideshow for we all know that the Republican nominee in the end is going to be Mitt Romney. As I said the Iowa Caucuses is nothing more than a distraction—it is in essence a political farce. The comic value of what’s been happening in Iowa is beyond the pale of all political reason—it literary borders on looneyville (and that’s an actual town in Texas).
Yet it is this farce, this absurd process that is Iowa’s claim to political fame, their so called caucuses. It is absolutely incomprehensible that the media gives Iowa so much weight and attention in their coverage our of election process for president. In reality it should be nothing more than a small byline in some back page story, but instead it is covered on the front pages and in our national TV news every day as if it had some significant political meaning—when it doesn’t.
Firstly Iowans do not in any way represent the typical average multiracial American voter. Iowa is a small state with less than 1% of the U.S. population. The caucus voters themselves only amount to less than 5% of all registered Iowan voters; less than one sixth of a hundred of 1% (0.06%) of the total of U.S. registered voters. Actual turnout averages about 15% of all eligible registered Iowan Republicans, and even that low threshold was only first reached back in 1988. Turnout at the 2000 caucus was only 87,000. When you think about it the Iowa Republican frontrunner is determined by a group roughly the size of a crowd at an average University football game; and then this is supposed to represent national significance—national news. What does it matter to almost 200,000,000 million registered U.S. voters what 100, 000 Iowa caucus voters choose as their nominee for president—in the overall realm of the rest of us it truly matters not. The national press is playing this beyond all reasoned comprehension, making us believe that this is Iowa vote has some significance in our electoral presidential process when nothing could be further from the truth, Iowa in reality does not matter!
And further these 100,000 or so Iowa caucus voters are even less of a minuscule minority then would first appear; this is due to the inherent arcane process that involves an inordinate amount of time required to even participate. A caucus is not simply going into a booth and voting, but requires hours of time, thus preventing people who must work, who are sick, or must take care of their children from casting their vote. Absentee voting is also barred, so active-duty Iowan soldiers lose the opportunity to participate, as do locally-registered college students who leave the state during winter holidays. And most importantly is the complexity of the rules in terms of how one’s vote counts, as it is not a simple popular vote, but total quirkiness personified. When you examine the caucus process more closely you’ll discover they’re an awful method for picking candidates for a variety of reasons — suddenly the so referred Republican secret ballot doesn’t really matter anymore?
And then there is the process itself, of those who are able and ready to spend hours, the Republican caucus attendees, after hearing pitches on behalf of the various candidates, write a name on a blank ballot. You may have gone in thinking about voting for say Santorum, but were then persuaded or intimidated to vote for someone else. The candidate who spend the money to bus their caucus goers will likely have the largest & most persuasive group—one most likely to compel the more timid among them to vote their way. The ballots are tallied at headquarters and the actual figures are then announced. The rest of the process is similar to that for the Democrats, with precinct delegates allotted according to the percentages received and the series of conventions that follow.
At least in primaries, many more Republicans (and in open primaries, independents) get to weigh in. In 2008, 234,000 Republicans and independents voted in New Hampshire, two times more than Iowa; and 445,000 Republicans and independents voted in South Carolina, four times more than Iowa.
What does this all mean? Iowa with an extremely small portion of the nation’s population, one which is not representative and one in which some participants may or may not be engaging in “political gamesmanship” that is the Caucuses. To consider the results in Iowa as meaningful is an exercise in folly. The media hype, touting significant “win” is likely to show that the particular media source is either biased, less than credible or both.
Each American voter has a responsibility to look at the facts and make up his or her own mind. National politics is a big game – unfortunately a serious one with major consequences for all of us. One has to get beyond the media hype. Iowa in truth only represents the will of one small isolated right-wing religious minority. The real voting lies ahead when America as a whole begins to participate, and in the final analysis only an informed and involved public will lead to a truly positive result.
We in the final analysis must have a sense of history. It is important that we bear in mind that as a generation, we too are a part of history and we are going to be judged by history; today’s polls, tomorrow’s Iowa caucus outcome headlines don’t matter, what matters is how we will look in time to come, how the next generations will judge what went on in Iowa and the candidates this very limited number of Republican caucus of voters who have advocated on behalf of and will have voted for, this potential group of maladroit nominees for president of the most powerful nation on earth, and the national media will have played it as if it was something real, something that really mattered—there is no sense of history here, only a fools rush to validate the insignificant & irrelevant Iowa caucus! (http://bit.ly/ub5DVz)
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As a side-note the image accompanying my post, one which I’m sure most will readily recognize, and truly represents everything Iowan—it’s been parodied much too, but some basic facts about it which you may not know; it’s called ‘American Gothic’, it was painted Grant Wood (1891 – 1942) who won a $300 prize for it back in 1930. And most famously the woman depicted in the painting represents the farmer’s spinster daughter, not his wife as generally believed. In truth the model for the woman was Mr. Wood’s younger sister, Nan (1899–1990) & the farmer was Dr. Byron McKeeby (1867–1950) from Cedar Rapids, Iowa; the town dentist. The house itself was real, known as the Dibble House, a small white house built in the Carpenter Gothic architectural style in Eldon, Iowa. Wood decided to paint the house along with ‘the kind of people he fancied might be living in that house’—typical Iowans. If you have a further interest in ‘American Gothic’ you can go to the following Wikipedia link;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gothic
Per NYT Op-Ed Columnist Gail Collins this morning (12/29) states, ‘Feel Free to Ignore Iowa’; sometimes there is symmetry in our thinking, only I think I wrote a much better piece; http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/29/opinion/feel-free-to-ignore-iowa.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
