The trouble with caucuses
One of the points of is that candidates and deal with the complexity of real people and their not always neatly boxable views on all subjects.
An example: Glenn Neideigh who runs the Oak View II hunting club outside Des Moines and has voted in the past for Democrats and Republicans, including once for President Bush.
Turning up at his club to shoot TV footage rather than birds, I walked with him all of 20 yards into a field before a windchill somewhere around 0 Fahrenheit started to cramp our conversation.
But I learned a lot even in that short, freeze-truncated meeting: Glenn is a fan of one of the so-called minor Democrats this time around. He cares about illegal immigration but also about healthcare, he cares about Iraq but does not want a withdrawal that damages America even more. He hates political adverts.
In short, he is a middle-of-the-road thoughtful man: Iowa man.
But here is a problem, he is not going to a caucus.
It is not that he does not care - he really does. Or that he is ignorant of he issues - he certainly is not. But he is busy and just cannot make it that night.
And this caucus system (no postal ballot and a set time to turn up) is inflexible. Perhaps that - rather than the choice of state - is the real scandal of Iowa.
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But allowing 'everyone' a voice may be too dangerous for those "in power"...hence the first come first served..and hence first to win Iowa, the first likely candiate for presdidency. Those who want to win and feel they can win Iowa, won't want any changes...
Thanks for your blog, Justin Webb. I just came from the New York Times Caucus blog, where reports on a poll on the Thursday caucus done by an Iowa newspaper have Barack Obama as the clear winner. The same blog also reported earlier on January1 that Dennis Kucinich - who sent his Iowa support to Jonathan Edwards in 2004 - has told his Iowa supporters to caucus for Mr. Obama.
So, it seems likely that Barack Obama will be the Democratic presidential nominee. He would likely pick Hillary Clinton as his vice-presidential running mate - she has quite a few very rich Eastern Democrat power brokers backing her unpopular political efforts.
Such a Obama-Clinton ticket would not (Fidel Castro's unasked-for endorsement nothwithstanding) make for a winning ticket.
American voters would react in disgust. Potential Democratic Party voters would avoid the polling booth in November, 2008. Mitt Romney would become the next president.
The Iowa caucuses are obviously anti-democratic. Iowa demographic tends toward an anti-democratic and toward what might be viewed as a racist makeup (as far as political "test-marketing" is concerned) when compared with the ethnic, racial, and economic class characteristics of America's largest and most populous regions.
The same was true of New Hampshire, when that was the favored state, about a decade ago, as the safe, conservative, white-middle-class, originating venue in which to mint "viable" (i.e. "bought-and-paid-for" and "marketable") presidential candidates .
On August 28, 2006, Radio Iowa carried the brief but possibly informative news story, "Iowa No Longer the Whitest State." The article is easily found via a websearch of the relevant terms. According to that article, "a few years ago a review of U.S. census data found the Hawkeye State had the highest percentage of any state of people who classified themselves as Caucasian, white." (Was the article referring to the 2000 census?) But as of 2006, Radio Iowa said, Iowa had dropped to fourth among American states in its caucasian population (or rather - I had to re-read the piece - in its caucasian-non-Hispanic) percentage - 91 percent of Iowans were at that date "White Non-Hispanic." ( Notice how the labelling morphs without explanation in that news item from caucasian to caucasian non-hispanic, and in such a way as to make Iowa appear "less white.")
I don't credit an article like the Radio Iowa one at face value, given the careless and vague way in which it treats its statistical categories. But it is strange that no one in our mostly acquiescent media make much of the latent racialist, pro-affluent white middle class bias of beginning the assessment and formal marketing of our presidential candidates with a caucus (not a voters referendum) in such a state as Iowa.
And, I have nothing against being white and middle-class - I qualify for those labels myself. But I'm both ashamed and cognizant of the fact that being white gives you undeserved privileges in a society with as much institutionalized racism as our own. Each week I travel 80 miles south from my Jersey City, New Jersey home in zip 07304 to my brother's Bayville (zip 08721), New Jersey home - where the population is over 90% white and about 80% working class --and I notice how the brand new schools, libraries, hospitals and other amenties of Ocean County, New Jersey outshine those of multicultural and multiracial - and poor - Jersey City. (But of course, when black and Latino kids locked in to urban racialized poverty fail in school - they're to blame.)
When I lived in the US for several years back in the 1970s I discovered most Americans - like most sane people over the world - don't give a monkey's toss about politics or politicians. Of course, the wonderful ´óÏó´«Ã½ wouldn't dream of admitting to such a supposed negative state of affairs and continue to kid us that Americans are glued to their TVs ready to catch the latest political opinion.
There's no such thing as a well-oiled, smoothly running, distortion-free democracy.
Of course Iowa's nominating system is flawed but is it really much more so than any electoral process anywhere else in America, or even Europe?
As with any election the most active activists will be there by hook or crook , and nothing will stop them caucusing. Those casual caucusers will likely find their route to the town hall obstructed by a brief flurry of snow, a 24 repeat on TV or the inability to find someone to go with them.
Whichever candidate's got the best ratio of die hard to fair-weather supporters is going to take the most out of Iowa,
Well, if he's "too busy" then he doesn't really care all that much, does he. It's not as if the scheduling of the caucus has come as a sudden shock, is it? It's only been known about for the last several months. Plenty of time to adjust schedules if the people care enough about their democracy.
"The Trouble with Caucuses...." Strange how after nearly 60 years of living in these United States, a ´óÏó´«Ã½ Blogger arrives to report on one and suddenly for the first time I hear we have "trouble with caucuses." What a coincidence. I own a condominium. One day a year its association meets to discuss its finances and other problems. They hardly ever seem to get a quorum of 25% of the owners. Those who don't come are too busy with "important things" to be bothered. If one day out of four years is too much inconvenience for voters to caucus, they shouldn't complain about the other 1460 of them in between when they get a president they don't like. Perhaps election day is too inconvenient also.
Louis Massano #1
Leapin' liberals. There but for the grace of god go I. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Born into original sin, we must all spend our entire lives ridden with guilt that we are not as poor as the poorest of the poor. It started with Robin Hood and the tradition continues down through Marx, Stalin, and Hugo Chavez. "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Matthew 19:24. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Blah blah blah. The New York Times was once "the paper of record." But like ´óÏó´«Ã½, it fell off its pedestal. ´óÏó´«Ã½ had their Hutton Report, the NYT had Jason Blair. It has never recovered and probably never will. A lot of people never paid it much heed anyway. The NYT no more represents the views of America as a whole than Park Avenue represents Main Street in Anytown USA. BTW, I was born and grew up in New York City. So why does Iowa have a predominantly Caucasian population? Maybe not a whole lot of African Americans aspire to devote their lives to farming corn, the population is not spread out homogenously. And why does rural Bayville NJ have shiny new hospitals, schools, and libraries? Probably because up until a few decades ago, they didn't have much of any to speak of at all or what passed for them was so old and dilapidated they needed to be replaced. Funny how we don't go out of our way to make new schools and libraries inferior just because they are in rural areas.
Louis,
I can't see Hillary Clinton accepting the vice presidency. Bill Richardson maybe but not Hillary. It's everything or nothing for her.
Mr. Massano seems to make some broad generalizations and logical leaps that I wouldn't make myself. Leaving aside his claim to know who Obama would choose as a running mate, and know how Democrat voters would react in the Fall...
I grew up in Iowa, and am still very much Iowan, and am very familiar with Iowa sensibilities. I wouldn't read so much into the media's choice of wording, and the statistical "whiteness", and jump to the conclusion that Iowa is racist. White make up does not mean 'racist makeup.' I won't bore everyone with how/why I know/believe otherwise, about Iowans. Nor would I say that caucuses are anti-democratic--an absurd corollary if you ask me.
I do, however, think that Justin Webb has made an excellent point, about how the caucus process can be cumbersome, and that some improvements might make Mr. Massano--and others--happier.
Though, I wouldn't say that Mr. Neideigh's inability to attend rises to the level of "scandal."
I think there is one very positive feature to caucuses, which recommends keeping it as a form: A voter can express a true preference, and doesn't have to "settle for least bad"--at least, not at the outset. If his/her first choice is proving not to be a viable contender, the voter gets a second choice. It's an admirable idea, if you ask me, and much closer a democratic process, letting people express their preference, than the single-ballot method. In fact, I wish we could use something like it, in the Fall. These days, with our advanced electronics, it would be technically possible to do. (But I sure wouldn't put the electronics in the hands of either party or get the req'd black boxes from Diebold!).
Anyway, some improvements might enable more of the Glenn Neideigh's--"the middle-of-the-road thoughful" people, to attend. The idea would be to improve the sampling. Our hope, for now, is that there will be OTHER thoughtful people there at the caucus, so it's not crucial that Glenn be there--that's what sampling is about. I do think it's too bad Glenn can't be there. I don't know him--sounds like he lives not too far from my home town-- but I know other thoughtful Iowans, and they're the salt of the earth.
Maybe anticipating Mr. Massano's response...Sampling is not Democracy... OK, let's make it easier so everybody people can attend if they want, and that will make it closer to "voting." OH...but everybody already CAN attend if they want. They just have to opt out of the other scheduled activity and go to caucus. Sorry, Democracy isn't always convenient.
Another point is that the caucuses, technically, are not about 'voting' in the same sense as balloting in the fall. The way things are set up now, it's about each party choosing a candidate. And they can do it any way they want. I think it is admirable and a testament to the good intentions of Iowans, that they learned from the debacle of the 1968 elections, and did something remarkably proactive and Iowan, creating a new system that gives people the ability to actually get to know the candidates, and then express a preference. We should encourage them to continue to improve upon it.
Please! Iowa - for goodness sake, is hardly representative of the United States. Bear in mind that the media feeding frenzy over Iowa's caucuses is really much ado about nothing and of nowhere. Iowa has less than 3 million people and only approximately 2/3rds of those are registered voters, and that's about 2/3rds of 1% of the population of the United States. Iowa does have 5.5 pigs per capita, 88% of the state lands are in farming applications and approximately 95% of Iowans are white. Iowa is utterly not reflective of the American electorate. What Iowa has is corn and lots of it; as well as pigs [aforementioned], eggs and soybeans. What Iowa does not have is relevance to about anything or anywhere else, other than - perhaps, to Iowa. Iowa's a state with no major urban areas and has a population demographic akin to pre-sliced white bread. Now, I've nothing against 'white bread' - per se, however, such is not made of anything one can sink their teeth into to sustain themselves. Iowa's caucuses are further skewed because of the lack of absentee ballots - thereby precluding many residents of the state [notably college students not in residence, military personnel, etc] from participating in their caucuses. Apart from feeding the predispositions of pundants, Iowa will only provide fodder for the media and some otherwise meaningless peg for those who wish to have a herd to follow to subsequently do so. If providing anything, Iowa having their caucuses before any meaningful state [New York, Illinois, Texas, Florida - the president's brother, hanging chads and dubious results thereof notwithstanding, etc] is simply demonstrative of a dysfuncitonal electoral system in the United States. Iowa is - perhaps, the least representative state for contemporary American demographics. America's first caucus, or primary, may as well be held on the moon. Now, that would be something to take notice of.
Chicago, USA
Lefty, it's perfectly possible for a ballot paper to allow you first, second and lesser choices. Such a system is used in Ireland, Australia and to elect London's mayor, where it's known by a variety of names, depending on the precise method chosen: Alternative Vote, Supplementary Vote or Single Transferable Vote are the main ones.
Advanced technology isn't even necessary, as this can be done with a pen and paper.
"...he cares about Iraq but doesn't want a withdrawal that damages America even more"(!) Damages America?!? How many chemical weapons and fragmentation bombs have been dropped on Iowa? Is Abu Ghraib somewhere near Des Moines? That's pretty thoughtful alright, to "care" about Iraq by putting America's imperial interests first. And he can rest easy knowing that he really doesn't need to bother attending the caucuses because all the 'viable' candidates do,too. Including Mr. Hope & Change, Obama and darling Hillary. If Americans really cared about anyone other than their own selfish selves, these caucuses would have quite a different cast of characters. It doesn't matter if the imperial presidency has a black face or a female face, it's the same predatory policies that have done so much real, lasting damage to others around the world. It would be more appropriate if presidential caucuses were held in Fallujah or Ramallah or Kandahar. After all s/he is their president, too.
A vote in Iowa is about twenty times more powerful than mine in California. It is an unfair system
I must agree with Paul Harper, above: if the good, decent Iowan doesn't wish to attend the caucus, that is of course his privilege, but I do wish he would not make a claim of being "too busy".
I hate to imagine what is more important than spending one evening every four years having an outrageously outsized impact on the presidential race. Citizens of later-voting states will have no influence at all over the selection of major party candidates. To skip such an opportunity makes a mockery of any pretense of interest in our democracy.
Justin, FINALLY someone has explained what a caucus is. I have a degree in history and politics, voted in countless UK elections and even know what 'quango' stands for but, having moved to Arizona 6 months ago, I have yet to find an American citizen who has any idea what a caucus was. None of them had a clue. Your blog makes me feel slightly more sane - now can you please explain what "dixie" means, many thanks, Helen
It is problematic. I hope nobody really expects the entirety of Iowa to 'reschedule' in order to go to caucus -- however important it is -- as that would require the entire state to shut down. There are people with jobs, children, and other responsibilities that would preclude them from attending the caucus.
As to the other comments, I hate that 'undeserved privilege' is now the fashionable term for benefits that everyone should have. It makes more sense to think of people who don't have shiny libraries or whatever as not having something they do deserve, instead of those who do having something they don't deserve.
Also, the whole white = racist bit is so passe. As if even the antebellum South never had its homegrown abolitionists...
Some comments to close out what I have to say on this board, if I may:
(A.) I guess I should have made as a fundamental point my acceptance of the fact that, ever since rise of corporate and financial power to open ascendancy in the U.S. in the mid-1970s, and since the decline of the large political machines (both Republican and Democratic Pary machines) and other perennial institutions of U.S. politics, which were all part of a complex of "kingmaking" interactions going into the presidential primaries - and coming after each one - like farm groups and labor unions - the presidential primaries have become an elaborate shadow game our elites play - with a demoralized media cooperating - into avert the possibility of true democracy by picking atypical states (New Hampshire, Iowa) and then have a very, very small number of Americans conservative, white, rural-minded (there is a traditional American belief, beginning with a bias of Thomas Jefferson's, in the morally elect status of the farm folk, and rural life in general, and a bias against cities as well [ interesting book on this by Morton and Lucia White,"The Intellectual Versus the City"] - in the case of Iowa, without even a formal vote - become the main determiners of who will become president.
So the problem isn't with Iowa, or the caucus machinery, per se - it is the use of these to subvert the "will of the people" as it would be expressed under a more sensible, truly representative, system.
Last time out, in 2004, with the Democrats, Iowa was the occasion for an orchestrated, full about turn away from Howard Dean to John Kerry - the latter a man who would not have been able to keep his campaign going until Iowa due to lack of voter interest, except for his own and his wife's personal wealth.
This time out it, from this coming Friday morning on, it will be Barack Obama we in the States will be required to view as the "inexorable Democrat" to run for president.
(B.)I've been online on political talkboards (before they were the monitored kind known today as "blogs") and if I had a dollar for every occasion since then, upon which I was called a "liberal" for voicing an opinion Ronald Reagan's speechwriters would not have approved of, I'd be a mighty wealthy "communist" today. :-)
I get something from appreciating the reactions of people on talkboards like this one, and so I feel thankful for them. But every once in a while I'm reminded of how, a while ago, when Cicero's orations were recommended to me as those of a great political intellect, I made the mistake of starting with one he gave late in his career ( with Pompey and Caesar in attendance,as recorded by Sallust in a history).
(If you think my posts are lengthy, you should read Cicero's speeches.)
My bad luck was to light on a single clause of a sentence in that oration, which began with the words, "A nation can survive its fools...."
I immediately put the book down, and haven't read a word by Cicero since.
Judging from my own experience as an audience of U.S. political discourse( on the internet, as well as before it arrived) since Ronald Reagan and his followers (like Bill O"Reilly) have "perfected" it - I realized that if Cicero really meant that, he could never hold my attention as an expert on power politics....
(C.)Observer at #7. You could be right. The method of picking vice-presidential running mates in the U.S. is also anti-democratic - the man who has won the presidential nomination decides, and not necessarily from his competition during the party nomination campaign to that point. Hillary (and Bill) might not want the job - if only for the reason that, in the past, they've been a team.
And the same sort reservation would apply on Obama's picking Hillary - he'd also get Bill. But like I said, the Clintons have a lot of big money behind them. LBJ forced his way into the vice-presidential slot in 1960- he wasn't wanted by Jack and Bobby Kennedy. Today there are rumors that he blackmailed JFK to get the running mate position, but a better interpretation was that Johnson was powerful in his own right, and had many Southern backers.
Typically, a U.S. vice-president's office has been a political no-man's-land. But that changed under Clinton (with Gore) and especially with Bush-Cheney.
We are in the most surreal political environment in the U.S. since the pre-Civil-War era of the 19th century. Obama may pick a total unknown - but someone who provides "balance" to his ticket. Possibly he will pick John Edwards, since as far as many U.S. Southerners are concerned, Illnois (Obama's home state) is a Northern (not Upper Mid West) state.
Best to all for this new year, and thanks again to Justin Webb for this blog. Hope he keeps it going.
(E.) I'm will put my money on Mitt Romney as the Republican presidential nominee - and as the next U.S. president, but the latter, only if the Democrats attempt to give us a rerun of a Clinton-style, "split-the-difference," "lawyer-liberal" presidency by running yet another lawyerly "poseur," Barack Obama, for president.
I am 47 years old---I lived in Iowa for my first 40 years and only attended a caucus as a student in high school, even though I was politically active enough that I drove 30 miles to volunteer for a candidate (Jesse Jackson. WHY NOT? Because I lived in tiny towns my whole life and couldn't quite stomach going to some strangers house I didn't know and spending 4 hours talking politics with strangers---it's not that I didn't care---this years race is so important I think I would go if I still lived in Iowa---but the whole system is set up to allow a small percentage of hard core party activists have a much larger then their numbers warrent in who wins-----I always wanted it to be changed to a simple vote like most states but Iowans are very stubborn and do not change easily, to be sure!! I always vote in elections but the caucus system was too much for me----but it is true that anyone who wants to make the slightest effort can meet the candidates face to face, almost as many times as they wish---and thats unique in this world today. PS, I hope John Edwards wins!!
Mark #6
Although I am a Brit, and therefore clearly cannot know that much about US politics, I do agree with Justin on this, and I have heard plenty of Americans criticize the caucus system as well. for example there is some criticism of it in this article:
As a general point, surely the fact that you have to turn up at a set time for a couple of hours in the evening prevents many people from turning up. Some people will obviously have work commitments that they cannot get out of. If there were a primary election then those people could vote before or after work or by post (this would help military personnel for example).
I think it's important to put Iowa and New Hampshire into their proper perspective. ´óÏó´«Ã½ has said the outcome in Iowa could make or break candidates and might indicate who will be the next president. Nothing could be further from the truth. One Iowan woman said Iowa isn't first because it is important, it's important because it's first. This is IMO a very accurate assessment. Everyone wants to know who will be in the lead coming out of the gate but the process is long and grueling and a lot can happen between now and November. How many people remember what was said at the first debates last fall when the media made so much of them? Iowa and New Hampshire are so small that if they were not first, it's likely few if any of the candidates would spend much time or money campaigning there. When you watch the conventions, see how few delegates Iowa sends compared to what is needed to win. Iowa's caucus system may seem arcane but it has advantages. The candidates are forced to "press the flesh" in small groups instead of just running big ad campaigns and talking to vast numbers as they will later on. Iowans could change their system at any time if they decided they don't like it, for example if they would prefer to hold primaries like most other states do. For the candidates, it is an opportunity to test and re-tune their campaign strategies early on having only risked losing in states with few delegates. We will know much more about how the race is really going on Super Tuesday in February when there will be a host of primaries in larger states on one day.
The process is deliberately grueling, it's an acid test for one of the most grueling jobs in the world and possibly the single most powerful position. This is an endurance race and those who may sprint to the front early can fade in the long run. Ross Perot showed he didn't have what it took when he dropped out saying his family had been threatened. Gary Hart and Howard Dean also fell by the wayside, something that might not have happened in a short campaign.
´óÏó´«Ã½ seems to be focusing on the process in depth in a way I've never seen before. This is very different from running for PM in Britain. The PM is just one of many Ministers, the first among equals voted in by his own local constituency. A President has 300,000,000 constituents to answer directly to and vast geographical territory to cover.
Comparing the voting in Kenya and that here in the US, it should be understood that the US has a long history of voting fraud just like many other countries. We only have to go back as far as 2000 to see that. Had the results in Florida truly reflected the voters' intent, Gore would have won Florida and the election with it. It's also interesting to note that in 1960, in all likelihood Richard Nixon won the election, not Kennedy, the difference being among other things all the dead people who voted in Chicago thanks to Mayor Daley's political machine and that threw Illinois and the election to Kennedy. An old saying had it that on election day, Americans should vote early and vote often. I don't ever recall any rioting or violence in the US though as the result of rigged or stolen elections.
OK, I'll go out on a limb and predict that neither winner in Iowa will go on to become President of the United States. In a race this tight at this point, the results in Iowa are meaningless.
Of the democratic front runners I think only John Edwards has really anything to gain from Iowa tonight - as he isn't expected to come 1st or even 2nd - so if he does he'll have momentum - prob. bad for Obama unless Clinton comes in 3rd.
On the republican side similarly if John McCain comes in a close 3rd or above he'll be seen as having momentum in his comeback, and unless Huckabee is an outright (+5%) winner he'll be seen as peaking too early.
There are many issues with the Iowa Caucus. It prevents one main group from voting--soldiers. The Iowa Caucus does not allow absentee ballots, even from military members.
In addition, there is no secret ballot. Everyone in your community knows how you are voting. This is just wrong. And un-American.
No one can participate unless they can stay the full two hours! So people that have only a lunch break at work cannot vote!
Not all votes are weighed equally. Your past voting record is included in your vote.
Ties are solved by tossing a coin or picking names out of a hat! It is a disgrace that this method is still going on.
Jeez, folks, enough already. The issue really isn't whether Iowa is worthy or racist or representative or undemocratic. It's one night, one place, one decision and then the political process will move swiftly onward. And they'll be plenty of opportunities to make choices for the next president.
The undue attention/emphasis is something that the national (and international) press seems to be promoting.
The Democratic process for caucusing (unlike the GOPs which is a straw poll) has it roots in what middle America is still based in, communities and citizens getting together to discuss politics, politicians and planks.
As someone who lived in Iowa and caucused there, it was actually quite enjoyable. And in small states like NH and Iowa the stakes for entry aren't in the tens millions of dollars (e.g., Jimmy Carter, John Edwards) you simply have to meet with people face to face and say your piece. Its was alway more about substance then bling.
As for Mr. Massano - your comfortability with labeling people with 'ism' is distressing. Perhaps you should turn off 'Radio Iowa' whatever that is...turn on ESPN and enjoy a bowl game. You could use the distraction; so could we...
I have been to almost every caucus since the inception of the caucus, 1972. It brings Iowans together to discuss the pros and cons of each canidate. If someone just doesn't have the time, "shame on them". I have made the time each year, with 3 young children and a full time job. So I have no patience with those who just can't make the time. And isn't it great that a lilly white, rural state, has as its front runners, a black man and a white woman.
"Go Iowa"
I am an Iowa resident, who feels that the current system is fatally flawed. The caucus system as used here in Iowa doesn't allow for level participation by all of the voters. If you don't meet the fifteen percent rule, your candidate is not considered viable at your caucus site. If your candidate is not considered viable, you will not be allowed to cast a vote for them at the caucus. You will be pressured to support one of the other candidates. Once a person is at the site it's hard for them to just walk out. Many end up casting their lot with candidates they don't really support. While this probably doesn't change the totals at the top of the race, it can have a large affect on those further back in the pack. Witness the two Democratic candidates that have already dropped out of the race. Would they have fared better in a Primary? We will never know.