Another Reason the Caucuses Suck

On a creaky plane ride between JFK and my equally creaky connection in St. Louis, I happened to read an article in today’s New York Times questioning the democratic principles of the Iowa caucus system: Caucuses Only Empower Some Iowans.

It’s a must read.

For months we’ve been hearing about how Iowa allows for the kind of retail politics that allows for real participatory democracy, but if you’re not part of the Iowa chamber of commerce, and you’re not someone whose bread and butter relies on the caucus every four years (read: the state parties and paid bloviators like David Yepsen), they’re probably the most anti-democratic part of our entire nominating system. As many smart people have pointed out before me, granting one of the whitest, most rural states in the nation almost total power over deciding the nominee (at least for the Dems this year, if not the GOP) is in no way fair to the other 99% of the country, and in fact completely ANTI-democratic.

To ad insult to injury, only a whopping 6% of Iowans manage to drag their asses out to participate in a given year. Even with an average of 49% turnout (in 2004), young voters can’t catch a break in the media narrative. Yet somehow Iowans get a big fat pat on the back from the media every four years because a few die-hards manage to drag themselves out to the caucus and it makes for great copy and even better economics for the state. This is all amply covered in the New York Times piece.

The piece did mention something so obvious (and frankly, wrong) about this system that pretty much nobody talks about it. Caucuses require physical participation at a particular time and place. That’s very demanding in comparison to a primary, in which one can vote at an time during the day. Naturally, this by default excludes certain types of people from participating – night shift workers, service workers, poor folk, disabled folk, and, the big no brainer: our troops.

Iowans serving our country abroad in Afghanistan, Iraq, and any number of stations outside of Iowa are excluded from the caucus by default. So not only are we getting less input from young Iowans, we’re excluding the voices of those most impacted by current policy decisions. This seems particularly important in light of the ruckus the youth vote community kicked up when some campaigns made noises questioning the legitimacy of out of state voters, and perhaps even more so in light of recent remarks by John Edwards about troop withdrawal times and residual forces. Whatever the media says, the candidates are offering different visions for the war and our foreign policy going forward. It’s scandalous that those most affected by those decisions will have no say in selecting their future commander in chief.

Yet another reason why the Iowa caucus has to go. Some folks have pointed at the shortened primary schedule this year and suggested that this will indeed by the swan song for the Iowa Caucus. Here’s hoping.

Now I’m hopping in my car to hit an Obama event downtown. Hopefully it won't be a full house by the time I get there. If not, I’ll have my first video segments uploaded late tonight.