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Iowa: Maybe It’s Time to Let Another State Go First?
I was thinking today of the central role Iowa plays in electoral politics. It skews — unsurprisingly — traditional, conservative, and even religious. In fact, I think Iowa’s religious leanings (evangelical especially) cast a long shadow across the whole Republican nomination process. I mean, fer cryin’ out loud, the Iowa caucuses have Donald Trump trying to thump a bible. Huckabee has won here, Santorum too. Their success in this one state carried them a long way into the process, and losing here has eliminated much better-rounded candidates.
Now, what would happen, and what kind of candidates would the Republican Party put forward, if the nomination process proceeded in a different order? What kind of characters would we see making it to the later states if they surfed the wave created by a California win? I’m certain many flyover Republicans would not stand for such a thing, but the immense weight carried by religious voters in Iowa probably drives the coastal elites batty by the time they get their say in the process. Is there a better order? Is this the only way for social values and religious conservatives to have a real say in the nominating process?
Published in Elections, General
Actually it does. Both Tim Pawlenty and Scott Walker went all in on this state and it cost them before the vote even happened. Others have dropped out right after the vote in Iowa. And while some may not have their campaigns end immediately after Iowa, a poor showing severely limits the long term viability and fundraising ability of a campaign and accelerates the demise of some campaigns that might have been viable had they started in a different state.
This is where I going with the idea. The narrowing of the field is important, perhaps too important to leave to a state (or small set of states) that is not very representative of the party or the nation.
So its roll right now is to basically signal that they can actually run for office?
So its basically arbitrary…. so changing it has no real value.
It is a signal that the individual candidate is running for the office. Not can run. Is running.
Whether this role is performed by Iowa or New Hampshire or somewhere else, it is the basic signal that a candidate is really a candidate.
Here’s a suggestion: I grew up in Missouri and I think it would be a good first primary option. The northern portion is like Iowa and the Upper Midwest. St. Louis is an eastern-ish metro, and Kansas City a bit more like Denver and other points west. The Ozarks and southwest Missouri reflect Texas and Oklahoma. Southeast Missouri has a whole lotta Dixie in it. For a candidate to win there they have to hit a lot of demographics, both geographic and ideological.
This is an outstanding point; the reality is that the MSM and frankly, a large portion of voters are unnerved by evangelicals. Why doesn’t the GOP focus upon an earlier Ohio and Florida caucus (more electoral votes and somewhat more representative of the general vote than Iowa)?
Exactly. So why do Republican candidates bother campaigning in Iowa? They should all skip IA and focus on South Carolina and New Hampshire.
Both of these have a more Republican voter base and a better chance of picking the eventual nominee.
I happen to like the system the way it is because I am not seeing any argument to change it other than “I want my state to go first.” If you are truly worried about your guy making it all the way to your state, then expend the energy or money to see to it that he makes it in the earlier states. Or pick a better person to support.
I highly doubt Iowa’s caucus is what is driving GOP profligacy with the Treasury.
Numbers on the stage is something that the RNC should address. No matter what state goes first it is not going to matter how many people are on the stage because if you are at 1 percent now, you will likely be if Oregon is first.
I take your point on that. I just think that there are those out there who want, say, moderate states only selecting the nominee because their boy is getting zero traction out there and they are scared to death. That doesn’t necessarily have to be pointed at you.
Again, I think you guys are guilty of causation equaling correlation here. So had Iowa not been first we would have won in 76, 96, and 08?
I actually prefer that more of them tune out.
Then why change it? If it doesn’t matter what state is first then why all the hubbub?
So what was the last “evangelical approved” candidate won the nomination? GW? Huck won and lost. Santorum won and lost. Dole won but I would hardly call him a flame throwing Bible thumper. GHW won in 80, is he also a slack jawed Jesus freak?
Usually, there are a batch of candidates who skip Iowa and focus on New Hampshire. McCain did it in 2008, so it is a pathway to the nomination. The fact that someone gets bragging rights from winning Iowa will always tempt enough people to keep the state relevant, as long it is first.
Usually after Iowa and New Hampshire, Republicans seem eager to wrap up the race. Gingrich’s success in South Carolina in 2012 was a bit of an exception, but he really wasn’t able to build from it and I think it really was the last serious gasp of the Anyone-But-Romney movement. It’s hard to stop the momentum.
I don’t understand your point. Neither of these candidates could be considered evangelical and frankly, neither is W.
Spoken like a Floridian……. (grin)
It isn’t the winner, it is who gets the “tickets” out of early caucus states. Buchanan, Huckabee, Santorum were one of the two last “standing” in three of the last four contested nomination fights. Don’t you think these three promote that stereotype?
I believe that the caucus model enables boutique candidates who are the favorite of special interests: social and business interests alike.
And a lover of 29 electoral votes! :)
Dole was from a neighboring state. Would be considered home field advantage. I get the sense that evangelicals were a strong force in Republican politics before 1980. After all, GHW Bush beat Reagan. However, by 1988, Pat Robertson placed second in Iowa ahead of Bush. As for W., he had a rapport with evangelicals. He did say his favorite philosopher was Jesus. (By contrast, Forbes said John Locke. I suspect this question was designed to out fans of Ayn Rand.)
First, I’m not arguing it’s simply a function of which state goes first. It’s also a function of the drawn out state by state design, which made sense in a time before cheap high speed transportation and electronic communication, but makes zero sense in modern times. Huckabee and Santorum are only in this race because they won Iowa in the past and believe they can repeat that. They would not be running if Iowa hadn’t put the stupid idea in their head that they are viable. Also, Scott Walker because of geography and his own roots in Iowa became the defacto frontrunner in Iowa and felt the need to try and prove he could win there out of the gate. That affected his strategy badly. And both he and Perry tried to build up a huge infrastructure due to the drawn out state by state design that they wouldn’t have tried if there was a shorter system of multiple regional primaries.
Well, now you’re moving the goalpost. We were focusing on the specific issue of the farm bill and the ethanol subsidy. Each spending issue has its own unique political roots and reasons for being.
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If Texas was first, I bet Perry would still be in the race and a frontrunner. Same for Walker if Wisconsin was first. If New York and Florida had been the fist two primaries in 2008, We may be talking about President Guliani right now. A certain level of national popularity can make a candidate viable anywhere, but Santorum, Huckabee, others who won Iowa were not polling strong nationally at all before surprise showings at Iowa.
I don’t know why you say this. I hear people complaining about he process every election cycle, including me, and it comes often from moderates even though moderates almost always win the nomination.
Then you are either not reading any of the other arguments, or only seeing them as disingenuous. There have been a lot of solid arguments here. You may not agree with them, but you offer nothing in return other than that you yourself like the current system.
Okay, there is one thing said here that I think I agree with and points to a need to make a change. The current system is a reflection of a time when we communicated via telegraph and traveled across country via train. Today we don’t really need that–kind of like how the college football scheduling system is but that is another story.
Breaking the primary into geographic regions and speeding up the process sounds doable–although I am not too sure if this is going to solve any real problem as I don’t see anything that is broken. The main complaint that I see in this thread is that the system is antiquated and needs to be modernized. I want to pose a possible problem with that. Let’s say we break the regions into North East, Midwest, Southeast, Mountain, and Pacific. Well then you are likely to find yourselves with more brokered conventions because each of these regions have different values, if you will, when looking for a candidate. It is going to take a very special candidate to be able to win enough regions to reach the required delegate count for the nomination, unless we are going to reform that too. Someone who is poised to win the Southeast is hardly likely to beat out someone who is poised to win the Pacific and on it goes. This is just a concern of mine is all.
Just because they tune out doesn’t mean they don’t vote. They may likely vote – but will be uninformed. Or more accurately – misinformed by the MSM.
The date of state’s primary is set by that particular state. Unless you are proposing a Federal takeover of this state prerogative there is no way to change that. As a supporter of decentralized government, I’m very much opposed to any such thing.
What we really need is more voter self-education.
This is not exactly the case. The parties have incredible clout here. As was brought up earlier, when Florida moved its primary, the parties threatened to not seat delegates. For whatever reason, the party bosses have shown great resistance to changing primary dates.
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The parties work with the state election commissions and the primaries have to abide by state and federal election laws, but ultimately this is a party owned process. A party could scrap the whole primary process altogether and just appoint a candidate as their nominee if they wanted. This is by no means a government or states rights issue. This is a party choice issue.
Well, Robert, it turns out that you are the master of the rhetorical question. Since I did not start this thread attaching your question to my response changes nothing. You could have as easily posed your question without my response. ?
Your anti-religious bias is showing.