Exposing the Iowa Caucus Con: They are a fraud, like the Wizard of Oz.

[Karmadillo]

Interesting article. My excerpts don't really catch all the essentials. It's worth reading.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071226_exposing_the_iowa_caucus_con/

By Bill Boyarsky

De Moines, Iowa—This may be the last place in America where political journalists are embraced as heroes.

Usually these reporters, particularly those in the mainstream media, take hits from academia and a growing number of media critics. In Iowa, they are eagerly welcomed when they show up to cover the state’s unique system of selecting presidential nominees. The reason is simple: the media is a co-conspirator in a con, the Iowa caucuses.

<edit>

In other words, the caucuses are a promotional device, just like the Rose Bowl is a way for Pasadena to pitch itself to the world. The caucuses put Iowa on television, promoting the state to businesses like Google, which is opening a data center in Council Bluffs in 2009, a $200 million investment that will produce 200 jobs.

But the Rose Bowl is a football game operating under strict rules, with officials enforcing them. That’s not the case with the Iowa caucus system. The caucuses are a game with few rules and no real enforcement. I fault the media for not explaining this and for giving the false impression the caucuses are an exercise in democracy.

<edit>

Remember this important point: The Democratic and Republican caucuses merely select delegates to county conventions, who pick delegates to district conventions. Participants at these events select representatives to the state convention, where the actual national convention delegations are chosen. So the highly publicized caucuses are merely the first step in a long process that is unimportant nationally because Iowa has relatively few delegates at the national conventions.

<edit>

But the media should try to shed light on the process instead of helping Iowa keep this promotional device alive. Unmask the wizard, journalists, and set America free from the shackles of the Iowa caucuses.

[durrrty libby]

1. If you enjoyed that one, maybe you will like this from 04

http://www.slate.com/id/2094034/


"The Vanishing
If you liked the Florida recount, you'll love the Iowa caucuses".

or Why you'll Never Know Who Won Iowa By William Saletan and Matt Schiller

[musicblind]

2. comfortable

I have to say I'd feel more comfortable is iowa ran secret ballots

[Karmadillo]

3. Thanks for posting this.

nt

[Karmadillo]

4. Campaign Diaries: America Shrugs At Iowa's Undemocratic Caucuses

http://www.campaigndiaries.com/2007/12/america-shrugs-at-iowas-undemocratic.html

12.26.2007
America Shrugs At Iowa's Undemocratic Caucuses

In January 2004, Howard Dean's campaign was strategizing the Iowa caucuses. Confident they had locked in enough committed supporters to carry the state, staffers were reportedly thinking of ways of helping John Kerry rise in the final results. With Wesley Clark threatening Dean's dominant position in New Hampshire, the Dean campaign thought that boosting Kerry in Iowa would make him more competitive in the Granite State and siphon votes away from Clark.

Dean's caucus night ended up being starkly different from what his campaign had planned; and boosted by his Iowa triumph, John Kerry did siphon votes away from Wesley Clark, though significantly more than what Dean had in mind.

Four years later, campaigns are preparing similar ploys and alliances. Rumors are circulating of an agreement between John Edwards and Hillary Clinton to help bury Barack Obama; or is it perhaps Bill Richardson that the Clinton campaign is trying to get on board? And will Denis Kucinich renew his 2004 alliance with Edwards?

In this strategic fury, hardly anyone is pausing to wonder what Iowa's openness to such manipulation reveals about America's electoral process. Many criticize representative democracies for reducing individuals to pawns in larger power plays, but only the Iowa caucuses can reveal just how profoundly dysfunctional the system is in its indifference to local undemocratic processes.

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