Should rural voters get first say (again) in 2012?
I’ve blogged a lot about the small-town centric structure of America’s political system, which gives voters in places like Iowa and New Hampshire the first swipe at presidential hopefuls.
This morning, the Washington Post is asking whether it makes sense for 200,000 mostly white, older, and rural people in Iowa to hold that kind of power.
When the rest of the country is focusing on the economy, will Republicans in other states take their lead from the outcome of an eccentric process that has been dominated by social conservatives?
And as the GOP looks to defeat an African American president who mobilized record numbers of young and minority voters four years ago, how relevant are the preferences of 200,000 or so caucusgoers in a rural state that is overwhelmingly white and significantly older than average?
The Post notes that some of the leading candidates, including Mitt Romney, seem to be giving Iowa short shrift this year.
The article also points out that the Iowa caucuses just aren’t a very good measure of how strong or durable various candidates will be. Most of the non-incumbent candidates who win in Iowa flop later in the season.
Even some other rural activists are thumping on Iowa.
According to the Post, a former New Hampshire GOP chairman wrote an op-ed piece claiming that important issues don’t get debated in Iowa, because “three quarters of the audience wears tinfoil hats.”
So what do you think? Too much power for small towns voters? Or is it healthy for rural America to dominate the national conversation for a few months every four years?
Tags: politics
i don’t think this is the right way to frame the issue. the problem isn’t that iowa is “rural” or “white,” the problem is that it’s always “iowa” — by which i mean that allowing the same state to go first, whichever state that is, is always going to have a distorting effect on whichever issues or demographics get emphasized. and that’s not healthy. both parties should reform their primary calendars so that there’s a rotation of how the states are ordered from election campaign to election campaign.
Maybe every state that feels the need to hold a primary should hold the darn thing on the same day.
I know the news media loves this extended dog and cat show but it gets to be a drag.
Same with the 1,000,000 polls that seem to be conducted every day.
Diagnosing the problem with our elections as something to do with NH and IA going first in the primaries is essentially equivalent to the vet saying the dog needs his toenails trimmed and teeth brushed two months after the burial.
Maybe the “tinfoil hats” would listen more closely if any of the propped up cronies addressed issues like the unnecessary wars, debasing the currency and the elephant in the room known as unfunded liabilities.
I see the problem.
However if large states go first or if we have a truly national all at once primary system, who would dominate? The only people that would have any relevance in that sort of a system would be those who have very large amounts of cash to communicate using national media.
You could make a case that even with Iowa’s and New Hampshire’s demographic problems, it is still a better Democratic process than these national campaign adds which is what would predominate if New York or Florida or California lead the primaries.
Those states are too large for any sort of true meeting of the candidates and discussion of the issues, it would come down to who bought the best marketing machine would be who won.
I’m with Pete. Lets have a giant, super duper Tuesday in July or August and call it good.
Washington Post: “And as the GOP looks to defeat an African American president”
They just can’t race out of their heads. It doesn’t matter that he got Osama. It doesn’t matter that he passed health care.
To the Washington Post, they just can’t get over the color of Obama’s skin.
Fifty years from now, the Washington Post will likely say, “We had an African American President. Can’t think of his name or what he did.”
jdm, i think you forgot to read the rest of the sentence. although it’s common among conservatives to try to pretend otherwise (though perhaps this doesn’t apply to you in particular), race is still a really big deal in american society. and this particular sentence happens to be talking about the demographic makeup of iowa, one aspect of which is that it’s a very white state. so yes, it’s perfectly relevant that the sentence mentions that obama is african american. there’s no “there” there.
I’m not sure that Iowa counts as a truly “rural” state anymore. 61% of Iowans are urban. Spanish is the 2nd most used language (about 120,000 out of 3 million) and German is 3rd (47,000). As of 2006 agriculture, forestry, hunting and fishing (combined) accounted for only 3.5% of Iowa’s gross economy.
hermit thrush:
No, I got it. Washington Post loves to divide along race boundaries, whether or not it matters.
I think Obama should be insulted that he is being characterized, not by his achievements, but by something he had no control over. All Washington Post sees is an African American in the White House, and “white and older” people in Iowa.
How blind.
Skin tone? Is that all Obama is? Jeeze, the guy is half white if that really matters. How about we concentrate on finding the BEST candidates as opposed to the ones that ease our collective guilt over something we had nothing to do with?
This thread links with yesterday’s “democracy” discussion. While we march forth to promote democracy in the world, we skew its practice here at home. The majority of American voters are urban, so we weight the scales for rural voters. Presto. A handful of people living in Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa get the same power in the Senate as the masses in California, New York, and Florida. Not sure we trust the popular vote? No problem; the Electoral College will over-rule those pesky voters. National political parties tempted to nominate moderate candidates? No worries: South Carolina and Iowa will nip that run-away impulse toward national consensus.
Good thing or bad thing? Dunno. But it isn’t, quite, the “democracy” we extol.
Nuck,
If there are 43,000 people in Iowa who are still speaking German, I thank my lucky stars that my grandparents settled in Michigan and not Iowa.
I think it is a pretty good balance. If you want to bring in more money, more special interests more homogeneity and less new ideas, you will let the mass urban sprawl states take over.
In Iowa or New Hampshire a candidate without the massive money and organizing machine can still be heard. In California they will never be heard because they will not have the money to penetrate the media markets, who in the end determine the debate and candidates in the big states, not town forums or door to door.
I agree in theory, Mervel. But the reality of Iowa is, in the GOP anyway, the only candidates allowed to be heard (ie, have any chance of winning) are now hard-right fundamentalists. So there’s even less variety than you’d get with ultra-rich big-state ad buys.
New Hampshire still has what you’re talking about. There’s a broader range of what’s acceptable in both parties.
We need election reform at many levels. End or limit corporate contributions. Fair redistricting. Voting machines that can’t be hacked. A more sensible primary system. Our Democracy is not working for the middle class.
Rural voters already have a disproportionate control of Congress. And look at the Republican agenda in the House. The majority of Americans oppose their plans. Maybe Medicare can buy them some hearing aids.
It’s too bad a moderate Republican can’t be true to his policies, ignore the nitwit states, and hold on until he gets to the states where most of the people live. Otherwise, Republicans will run a polarizing candidate that is too far out on the right.
Part of democracy is who cares the most. If you have a bunch of people who are moderate who can’t be bothered and you have a small bunch of people who really care a lot about specific issues the small number may win out, and maybe that is okay.
I don’t know if changing the place of primaries will do anything in a country where the media companies make millions from discord and strife. How many reporters become campaign managers at both local and state levels? How many politicians end up with their own talk shows or have family members given jobs in media? Media and politics have become so intertwined it’s hard to tell if there is any such thing as reliable political reporting. The conflict of interest both national and local between the media and politicians is rife. So the media courts the voters in the first primary states as do the politicians, it seems like a symbiotic relationship and not likely to change. Part of democracy is also a transparent media, and that isn’t going to happen anymore than moderates getting a voice.
Today the NY Times is asking the same question:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/business/economy/01leonhardt.html
From the article:
“A more democratic system would allow more voters to see the candidates up close for months at a time. The early states could rotate each year, so that all kinds — big states and small, younger and older, rural and urban — had a turn. In 2016, the first wave could include states that have voted near the end recently, like Indiana, North Carolina, Oregon and South Dakota.”
I think this is true. I don’t think if we let the urban world take over it will be true however.