Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Saturday, October 9, 2021

This Would Be Good

 Democrats are planning on scraping the Iowa caucus' place as first in the nominating process. First, there should be no caucuses period. They should make that a blanket rule. As someone in the piece says, caucuses are more restrictive than the most restrictive Republican voter suppression effort. Second, Iowa and New Hampshire are whiter than a weatherman's teeth.

One solution offered in the piece is to have Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina all go on the same day. One of the "arguments" Iowa and New Hampshire make for their primacy is that it allows for people who excel at retail politics to make their case before an engaged and intimate electorate.

The problem is that in no way, shape or form does that reflect the way we campaign for the presidency anymore. In fact, the sort of politicians who excel at that are often quite deficient in other, 21st century campaigning skills. Forcing the nominee to demonstrate the ability to reach Latino, Black AND rural white voters is a better predictor of how they will campaign in the general election.

However, Iowa has been on the chopping block before. Let's see if the axe actually falls.

No comments: