Tuesday, February 4, 2020

With the Iowa caucuses, the prognostication and handwringing occur early and often


Source:  The New York Times (rotated 180 degrees)

But what about the caucuses? Every four years, reporters troop to Iowa to offer soft-focus portraits of this relic of old-timey democracy, during which well-informed heartland voters trudge through the snow to their local middle school or VFW hall to convene with their neighbors, deliberate over their choices, listen to boring speeches, and enact an arcane ritual that often involves standing in different corners, horse-trading votes, and shuffling around until a winner is finally declared. It’s nostalgic! It’s participatory! It’s charming! It’s an inspiring example of democracy in action! 
Hogwash. It’s anti-democratic, and it needs to be destroyed. And, thank goodness, it’s beginning to happen.

"This is obviously a warm welcome to some people who are really familiar to caucusgoers in the state," said J. Ann Selzer, \resident of Selzer & Co., the firm that conducted the poll. "But there’s also some welcoming of newcomers who are only now starting to come to the state and get to know the people who could shape their future."

“The size of these things have outstripped the rules for which they were written,” he said. “The nature of the events have changed. These aren’t little party people sitting around the kitchen, which is what Jimmy Carter did and George Herbert Walker Bush” did.

Related posts:
The first to worst in the nation Iowa caucuses.  (2/4/2020)
Remember. Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucus in 2012.  (2/3/2020).

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