Election News and Features
Iowans Prepare to Flex Muscle in Primaries
by
findingDulcinea Staff
As the Iowa caucus approaches, commentators wonder whether it is right that the Hawkeye State has so much sway in choosing the presidential candidates.
30-Second Summary
On Thursday Jan. 3, Iowans will head to their state's 1,781 caucuses, a milestone in the race to the White House.
Although the Iowa caucuses date back to the 1800s, they didn’t reach the level of political prominence they enjoy today until the 1976 presidential election. That year saw Jimmy Carter’s victory in the Hawkeye State secure him the Democratic Party nomination.
Since then, Iowa’s status as the proving ground for presidential hopefuls has only become more entrenched. But many U.S. voters are dissatisfied with what they see as Iowa’s disproportionate influence.
According to a survey conducted by the Associated Press and Yahoo News, nearly 80 percent of those polled said they would rather see a system in which primary and caucus dates rotate each election cycle.
Christopher Hitchens goes so far as to write that Iowa’s preeminence “is an absolutely terrible way in which to select candidates for the presidency, and it makes the United States look and feel like a banana republic both at home and overseas.”
In a similar but less aggressive vein, Bonnie Erbe of U.S. News & World Report reports that the caucuses are troublesome because the Iowans who participate “do not represent U.S. voters as a whole and so are hardly prescient when it comes to divining who will ultimately win each party's nomination.”
Countering such arguments, however, The Economist takes a swipe at the “many non-Americans” who in criticizing the Iowa caucus forget their own flawed electoral systems.
In truth, says The Economist, “The primaries system, once again, is working pretty well.”
Although the Iowa caucuses date back to the 1800s, they didn’t reach the level of political prominence they enjoy today until the 1976 presidential election. That year saw Jimmy Carter’s victory in the Hawkeye State secure him the Democratic Party nomination.
Since then, Iowa’s status as the proving ground for presidential hopefuls has only become more entrenched. But many U.S. voters are dissatisfied with what they see as Iowa’s disproportionate influence.
According to a survey conducted by the Associated Press and Yahoo News, nearly 80 percent of those polled said they would rather see a system in which primary and caucus dates rotate each election cycle.
Christopher Hitchens goes so far as to write that Iowa’s preeminence “is an absolutely terrible way in which to select candidates for the presidency, and it makes the United States look and feel like a banana republic both at home and overseas.”
In a similar but less aggressive vein, Bonnie Erbe of U.S. News & World Report reports that the caucuses are troublesome because the Iowans who participate “do not represent U.S. voters as a whole and so are hardly prescient when it comes to divining who will ultimately win each party's nomination.”
Countering such arguments, however, The Economist takes a swipe at the “many non-Americans” who in criticizing the Iowa caucus forget their own flawed electoral systems.
In truth, says The Economist, “The primaries system, once again, is working pretty well.”
Headline Links: Examining Iowa
In an article titled “Why Is Iowa So Vital to Picking Presidents?” Steven Thomma writes that Iowa has the ability to change the course of American politics, but attributes that power not to the caucuses themselves, but to the media. “The media pronounce instant winners and losers—even though Iowa's caucuses are just the first step in picking delegates who'll vote for a nominee the following summer—and Iowa's delegates represent less than 3 percent of those needed to win either nomination,” Thomma writes.
Source: McClatchy Newspapers
The New York Times reports that demanding caucus regulations that exclude absentee votes and require Iowans to be present at early evening meetings have prevented many working-class citizens from participating. In a state with 2.9 million people, the 2000 election saw only 59,000 Democrats and 87,000 Republicans cast their votes. In 2004, when the GOP did not hold an Iowa caucus, 124,000 Democrats voted. “It disenfranchises certain voters or makes them make choices between putting food on the table and caucusing,” Tom Lindsey, a high school teacher in Iowa City, told the Times.
Source: The New York Times
Reactions: Voters dislike the primaries system
According to a national survey conducted by the Associated Press and Yahoo News, fewer than one in five approve of the disproportionate influence wielded by Iowa and New Hampshire. Nearly 80 percent said they would rather see a system in which primary and caucus dates rotate so that other states can exert comparable influence.
Source: Yahoo News
Historical Context: Primary elections
The government created the presidential primaries in the early 20th century to curtail the influence of state “party machines.” Before that, only the party leaders in each state could nominate candidates. Now, Republicans and Democrats use primaries to allow voters to choose their presidential nominees.
Source: Fact Monster
“Iowa political leaders adopted a caucus system even before the region became a state in 1846,” according to a “A Brief History of the Iowa Caucus” published this January in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Opinion & Analysis: The prickly caucus
Contra Iowa caucus
U.S. News & World Report writer Bonnie Erbe doesn’t think the Iowa caucuses are nearly as important as some make them out to be. According to Erbe, Iowans “do not represent U.S. voters as a whole and so are hardly prescient when it comes to divining who will ultimately win each party's nomination … caucusgoers as a whole tend to be older, whiter, more male, and more Republican than the nation and even than Iowa itself. A mere 6 to 7 percent of Iowans tend to participate … With 22 states holding primaries on Feb. 5 (including delegate-rich New York, California, and Illinois), the presidential nominees won't be decided until at least that date.”
Source: U.S. News & World Report
Christopher Hitches argues that rather than acting as an opening bid to the electoral process, what the Iowa caucus does “is give the whip hand to the moneyed political professionals, to the full-time party hacks and manipulators, to the shady pollsters and the cynical media boosters, and to the supporters of fringe and crackpot candidates … It is an absolutely terrible way in which to select candidates for the presidency, and it makes the United States look and feel like a banana republic both at home and overseas.”
Source: Slate
Pro Iowa caucus
The Economist defends the Iowa caucuses and the position they hold in the election cycle: “What an absurd way to choose a president, sneer many non-Americans, perhaps forgetting their own arrangements (the coronation of Gordon Brown as Labour leader and prime minister, without a single vote, springs to mind). In fact, the primaries system, once again, is working pretty well. There is a basic reason why Americans don't seem seriously interested in challenging the position of the kick-off states: in the end, it doesn't really matter which states start the ball rolling, so long as they are small.”
Source: The Economist
Related Topics: Becoming president after losing the caucus
According to FactCheck.org, Bill Clinton is the only candidate in history to win the presidency despite losing both the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. Other candidates such as George W. Bush in 2000, George H.W. Bush in 1988, and Ronald Reagan in 1980 managed to reach the White House after losing one of those two early contests. In fact, in the nine election cycles since the modern primaries system began, the major nominees from each party have only won in both states twice—in 1976 and 2004.
Source: FactCheck.org
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