Thursday, January 3, 2008

Why Iowa?

This will be a short post, because my opinion on the matter can be summed up rather quickly, and I see no need to really go into extreme detail about such an obvious stance.


In this year's presidential primaries, a few states, primarily Iowa and New Hampshire, have received most of the attention of the candidates from each party. And this is a practice that has been going on for some time, and shows no signs of changing. Political pundits and analists speak openly about how the candidates can best strategize around their performance in these early primary and caucus states, as though that's the way it ought to be. The entire nation simply sits by on our couches and watches the pundits speculate on which way the vote in these two states of no particular significance is going to go, and we eagerly await the final results in Iowa today, hoping these voters of no particular significance go for the candidates we want. And if these voters of no particular significance happen to throw us a curveball, the pundits say it will probably change the course of our votes, openly admitting that the additional media coverage of the winners in Iowa and New Hampshire will sway more people to vote for them on Super Tuesday.


I do not even begin to understand the justification for this system. It is a direct affront on democracy, working to subvert the will of the people nationwide and replace our decision-making processes with the decisions made by a few voters of no particular significance.


In a perfect world, all the states in the nation would hold their primaries on the same day. The only way any other system could possibly be justified is if there were something wrong with that ideal system. And I have not heard a single solid argument against the idea of all the states holding primaries on the same day.

4 comments:

Rainier96 said...

I guess I don't have any strong feelings one way or the other. But I'd be happy to outlaw any primaries or caucuses until April at the earliest. We're spending too much time on elections. The British call an election and the parties have only about 5 or 6 weeks to campaign before it's held.

Why do you think you're related to Tom Paine?

Zachary Freier said...

My maternal grandmother's maiden name is Paine...and those Paines, as I understand it, were in New England around the Revolution. I don't know for sure if I am related to him or not, but it's certainly a possibility, the way I understand things.

Rainier96 said...

Cool. Good radical genes.

Rainier96 said...

Re: Your MySpace "Under Construction" proclamation:

Wisdom indeed. :-)

I could say a lot about the subject, but I won't bore you. I'll just say that it sounds like you're on the right track.