The OC Blog Back Issues Our Mission Contact Us Masthead
Sudsy Wants You to Join the Oregon Commentator
 

My Thoughts on the Iowa Caucus

Here’s what I have to say about the Iowa Caucus and all the media hype going on about it:

It’s a small farming state that no one gives a shit about, except Iowans. There is no logical reason for it to have so much political attention. And media doesn’t explain that it is a party-based caucus that is biased and not as indicative of primary results as they would like you to think. Fuck Iowa and the Iowa Caucus.

  1. bizzybody says:

    The easiest way to fix the electoral college would be to have each House Representative district’s majority go to whichever candidate got the majority in that district.

    Since Senators from each state are both elected by statewide popular vote, give each state 2 electoral votes that go to whichever candidate gets the statewide majority- in addition to the electoral votes by House district.

    That would add election power to the low population states and rural areas. If your state only has one or two Representatives, your state basically has zero consequence in a Presidential election. The one and only time each and every state’s votes mattered was the 2000 election. If a couple of four vote states that went for Bush had gone for Gore…

    A direct popular vote for President would put all the control right into the hands of the four largest cities. Do you really want New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston (and their surrounding suburbs and metro areas) deciding who gets to be President? The 2005 pop. estimate for LA was 3,844,829, but back in the mid-80s the whole metro area was somewhere around 12 million.

    P.S. FYI, the entity that called Florida for Gore an hour before the panhandle polls closed was Voter News Service. VNS was established by the news divisions of ABC, CBS and NBC so they could save money by not running separate polling efforts. When FOX News Channel came along in 1995, they signed up with VNS. Contrary to Michael Moore, it was VNS that reversed its too-early call then when the polls actually closed, called Florida for Bush. FOX just decided to broadcast what VNS reported sooner than the other networks. After the election, nobody called for any investigation of the “mistake” by VNS, an “error” they’d never ever made before. Predictions of election outcomes are not supposed to be made until ALL the polls are closed in the State or other area where the election is being held- so as not to influence the outcome.

  2. Timothy says:

    I don’t want primaries. I actually think primaries are antithetical to gathering a true representation of voter preference, but I spend way too much of my free time thinking about voting systems.

  3. Simmons says:

    Iowa matters to me. It matters to me!

  4. Sean says:

    How about a state that matters?

  5. Ford says:

    So do you want simultaneous national primaries or what? they have to start somewhere, and except for ag subsidies, iowa seems as good as any.

  6. Timothy says:

    Eh, that’s a harder sell. You just trade one set of problems for another, and look where direct election of senators got us.

  7. Chris says:

    You got that right! Fuck Iowa and fuck New Hampshire! I’m sick of those puny-ass little states having so much say in the Presidential election.
    I hope that all the people living in those states got absolutely bombarded with television ads, phone calls, and visits at the door. That serves them right for thinking they’re so important.

    By the way, Fuck the Electoral College while I’m at it. The outdated piece of garbage needs to get dumped.

  8. Timothy says:

    They also picked Huckabee. They are invited to take their corn subsidies and die in a fire.

  9. Sakaki says:

    Thank you! But can you add one more to the whole thing? Add onto your “fuck you” section, New Hampshire and it’s primaries.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.