Three days before the crucial Iowa caucuses, and the American Spectator's Phillip Klein seems to be fed up with the mythology of the place:
Every four years, politicians and the media swarm this small Midwestern state and shower its voters with attention and compliments, but very few people have the courage to admit the simple truth: Iowans are largely apathetic about politics, and they don't deserve the disproportionate influence they have in choosing the leader of the free world. …Read the whole thing -- it's pretty brutal, pointing out the yawning gap between the political image and political reality of Iowa.
Even though candidates in both parties will have together spent hundreds of days in the state and doled out more than $30 million to are more than 50,000 television advertisements, only one out of ten eligible Iowans is expected to participate in a caucus on Thursday.
What next? Watch out, Dixville Notch, N.H. -- Klein might be on his way.
UPDATE 2:45 p.m.:
Add John Fund of the Wall Street Journal to the anti-Iowa crowd:
[T]he Iowa caucuses are far from a Normal Rockwell exercise in small-town democracy. They may not be as bad as the "smoke-filled rooms" of yore, but give me a simple primary election any day. I can't wait for New Hampshire.But both Iowa and New Hampshire are dissed in the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch:
Beginning the presidential nominating process in Iowa, as will occur this week, "makes no sense," says Gov. Ted Strickland, who recently campaigned there for Sen. Hillary Clinton.-- RSM
"I'd like to see both parties say, 'We're going to bring this to an end,' " he said. …
Critics complain that the current system gives a few hundred thousand voters in Iowa and New Hampshire far too much influence. They contend that the skills candidates use to connect with small groups in Iowa and New Hampshire are not necessarily those that a president needs.
-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor, The Washington Times
Comments (2)
After the early start to the primaries, how many times can one say the same thing over and over. It's time to hold all of the primaries on the same day.
Posted by Larry Stone | January 2, 2008 4:12 AM
I tend to agree that the Iowa caucuses are not representative of Iowa citizens interest in politics. Democrats are able to gin up union interest in disproportionate numbers to the state as a whole and Republicans might get the informal church organization going for Huckabee. However there is a good side to the long caucus process. The candidates have to do it in person and any mistakes are found out quickly. The more one-on-one these politicians do the more they can make gaffs, remember Howard Dean. People who don't really want the presidency, Fred Thompson, will show it as well. You can think of the small state caucus process as a tempering like steel.
Posted by robert | January 3, 2008 12:07 PM