Are we all still mad at Iowa and NH??.. or has that passed like belching gas after

[Peacetrain]

eating too much cabbage? I saw so many many many I hate Iowa and NH posts in here a few weeks ago..that they had no business being first etc etc etc..now it seems to have all past (belch).. what did I miss?? was there a referendum taken and its all fine now?? just curious..

Oh and add to that curiosity.. have you ever noticed how many nations and cultures have their own version of rotten cabbage.. one of my favs is from the southern United States.... called chow chow..

[rurallib]

1. I am sure they are still mad

It is not like you or I made the rules.

[Peacetrain]

2. True that!!!

[NurseJackie]

3. It's only the caucuses that I'm "mad at" ... not the states.

Although, having said that, I do believe there's much room for improvement in the nomination process and order and frequency and timing.

[Peacetrain]

5. Caucuses are a tradition.. but I have to give the republicans credit on this..

they use a straw poll at their caucus.. which I think would be so much better.. and what most people do not realize.. it that our Democratic activists in Iowa.. are about as liberal or progressive as you can get.. and hold sway over the caucus.. the state itself is much more moderate.. it is one of those .. be careful what you ask for situations.. we send some very liberal and progressive people out of here here..

[NurseJackie]

11. I value the sanctity of a secret ballot and...

be careful what you ask for situations

I value the sanctity of a secret ballot and I do not believe it's right for so many to be disenfranchised by the process... AND... I'm horrified by the fact that activist bullies can intimidate others who attend.

The whole thing is just wrong wrong wrong. What's there to "be careful" about?

[Peacetrain]

13. Not arguing with you one bit.. that is why I said the republican caucuses do it better

they have the straw ballot, which is a secret ballot..

[IowaGuy]

15. No...The Republican straw poll is different...

The Republicans still have a caucus in Iowa. The Republican straw poll is held many months earlier than the caucus. It is nothing other than a picnic in a parking lot held for the express purpose of generating media buzz and extracting money out of the presidential campaign coffers into the state Republican party coffers. It does not decide delegates, you don't even have to be a Republican to attend. You just got to get a ticket, which are handed out freely by the campaigns (they buy them from the state party).

What happens is some Saturday in the fall, the Republican campaigns get a bunch of buses and empty out the retirement homes, bus everybody to a parking lot where a bunch of mediocre bar-b-q food is being served and even worse country music is being played. The old folks get a free bus ride, meal, and turn down their hearing aids, while candidates blather on for the TV cameras and everybody pretends it means something. No delegates to county, district, state or national conventions are decided or anything else decided at the Republican straw poll. It's just the state party grifting the campaigns.

Their rules for actually deciding delegates from the caucuses change from cycle to cycle, just as the Dems do also.

[rurallib]

28. That is a different deal

from what I observed, on caucus night Republicans write down their choice on a piece of paper and hand them in. The chair counts them and declares the votes. From what I could see, that was it. Then they went home.
So, in effect it was a straw poll.

I didn't know they had rented the other half of the building that night. So by the time we got started they were done and gone.
I was chair for the Dems and we were dealing with some last minute attendees. We had locked the doors but registration takes time.

The Repugs were done and gone by 7:05.

[beachbumbob]

4. most us pay little attention to either state's primary, thats all the media that do that

what happens doesn't effect states like Illinois when ours come

[Peacetrain]

6. True that.. we just give people a long extended period of time to give out their message

but it is all the other states that actually pick..

[beachbumbob]

8. media purpose is to work the election and don;t believe for one second its for benefit of America

lets not forget 2016 and trump.

The media got him elected as much as anything else

[dsc]

7. It has nothing to do with hate

it has to do with demographics. Let's be blunt, if those states had fewer whites than the rest of the country, instead of more, there is no way on God's green earth their stranglehold on going first would have lasted into the Civil Rights era. Our black voters deserve to have say, not to have the pickings after some white folk have their say.

[IowaGuy]

16. Food for thought....

You are correct that Iowa is more white than the rest of the nation as a whole, however. the demographics of the Iowa Democratic Party roughly mirror the demographics of the country while the Republican party looks like a Klan rally. Is that a bad thing for us? It isn't the states population that's participating in the Democratic caucuses, it's the Democrats.

[dsc]

17. Even with that, the Iowa and NH Democratic electorates

are still well north of 85% white. Again, we wouldn't tolerate this if SC had been going first for decades. The minute blacks could vote in numbers SC would have lost its first in the nation status.

[RhodeIslandOne]

32. South Carolina has it's own "Why should we care?" problem

Mainly, that a Democrat isn't winning in the general there any time soon.

[LonePirate]

9. IA and NH have no business being the first two in the nation. It's time to retire that tradition.

Neither state is anywhere close to being representative of the country, let alone the Democratic Party. Keeping them as the first voting states effectively disenfranchises large blocs of the party and does us harm. Tradition is not a justifiable excuse for this disenfranchisement.

We need a national primary day or we need a series of 4-6 regional primary days that rotate among the regions.

[brooklynite]

12. So you want the Primary to be fought on TV?

The value of NH and IA is that they REQUIRE candidates to campaign face to face with voters, which in turn requires an organized campaign team. I like to know up front which campaigns have their act together (Obama) and which do not (Dean).

[dsc]

18. How about Maryland or VA

Maryland has 8 districts, Iowa and NH combined 6. Va has 11 so it would be a substantial increase, but MD is just about perfect. It has a vastly more diverse population.

[brooklynite]

19. No objection from me...

...but Primary dates are set by the States, not the Party. NH -WILL- change their date to remain first.

[LonePirate]

20. That face to face campaigning can be done anywhere. Other states and voters deserve the attention.

[SharonClark]

10. Let sleeping dogs lie.

There are more interesting things happening at the moment.

[ritapria]

14. I am pissed off at Iowa

Bernie is at only at 11% in the Des Moines Register Poll ….Vermont should hold the First in the Nation Caucus..

[RhodeIslandOne]

36. No! Minnesota!

[LincolnRossiter]

21. Nah. I still think you'd have to try really hard to find two states less represenative of the

American electorate--particularly the democratic electorate. That being the case, it makes no sense for them to have such an outsized role in choosing nominees.

I'd say the same thing if Washington DC and Hawaii were the first two contests.

[RhodeIslandOne]

33. Wyoming? Kansas? Idaho? Mississippi?

At least Iowa and NH have gone Democratic multiple times in the general since 1988.

I'm not opposed to say, New Mexico, as an early primary state.

[LincolnRossiter]

42. Wyoming, Kansas, and Idaho are on par with Iowa and NH. Not sure what you think differentiates them.

Mississippi is deep red because it's so damned racist. It's actually about 35% black--which is a good match for the democratic party.

[RhodeIslandOne]

45. The fact we haven't won any of those states in a general election in years?

Iowa and New Hampshire simply aren't overrun with hardcore fundamentalist bible humpers nor anti-government rancher deep red nuts who think it's a sin to be a Democrat. You are entirely focused on racial makeup.

The 35% of blacks in MS can't overcome the hardcore Jesus freaks who always vote because of teh geys and baby fetuses. You don't have that kind of contingent in New Hampshire and it's rare enough in Iowa that the liberal college enclaves negate it.

[brush]

22. Caucuses are still exclusionary and undemocratic and both states still lack a diverse demographic...

that reflects the make-up of the Democratic Party which gives a false impression of where party electorate stands.

[BeyondGeography]

23. They also gave us President Barack Obama

Not just Iowa, but pretty much all the caucus states built up his delegate count to the point where he couldn't be caught. Mark Penn is still trying to understand the rules.

There's a reason Iowa was Obama's last campaign stop in 2012. The Iowa caucus result in 2008 made it all possible.

[brush]

24. Caucuses are still undemocratic. Working people, students etc. can't spend 4 hrs caucusing.

Switch to primaries.

[DrToast]

26. Things should be judged on their own merits, not because you liked the outcome

[RhodeIslandOne]

35. Nonsense

The complaint here seems to be it's not "diverse" enough, yet they launched the campaign of the first black President into orbit. It goes directly against the weird arguments being made here.

[DrToast]

37. I misunderstood what you were saying

That’s a fair point.

[RhodeIslandOne]

38. I wasn't the poster you were replying to

But fair enough anyway.

[DrToast]

39. Well then they have a fair point!

[Garrett78]

41. No, they don't. Here's their argument in a nutshell:

"Obama won Iowa, therefore we shouldn't worry about starting off with states that reflect our electorate."

That's a pretty silly argument.

[customerserviceguy]

25. I think that objection to the whiteness of IA and NH

is still there, but it certainly has been overshadowed these last several days.

Oh, and good observation on the cabbage thing, too.

[peggysue2]

27. Seems to me we go through the 'bash Iowa and New Hampshire' every election cycle

It is what it is.

[rurallib]

29. I live in Iowa and am very sympathetic to the arguments of us and NH

being unrepresentative. NH has had the early primary forever and it has been enshrined at least in party rules. Iowa found a loophole in the 70s to jump in front of NH by calling their meetings something else.

Beating up on us here isn't going to do much good. Party rules need to be changed or maybe a large influx of minorities moving to Iowa and NH would solve the problem.

My position is that there isn't a whole lot I can do about it, so I am making the best of the way things are.

If I were king, I would look at some form of regional primaries that would rotate positions for every election.

BTW my town is majority minority, so representation of here is not a problem.

[Tarc]

30. Yea, our New Hampshire is whiter than a Saltine cracker. That's not the point.

Being a small state, the candidates and their surrogates can travel the length and width and meet with pretty much everyone. I still have a signed card from Howard Dean, and had a great sit-down in my local coffee shop with Cameron Kerry back n 2004.

[Garrett78]

31. Starting with 2 states that don't remotely reflect our electorate has long been absurd.

But traditions don't die easily, no matter how stupid they are.

[RhodeIslandOne]

34. It's also entirely overrated how much they really mean

Quick, tell me who won the 1992 Iowa caucus?

Hint: He was pretty damn liberal.

[Garrett78]

40. Those first 2 states drive the narrative. They hold a lot of sway.

And it's not just about who wins but also about who doesn't win. The resulting narrative is very impactful.

1992 was an odd case, partly because there was an Iowan on the ballot. The Iowa results were made meaningless. The big story was who came in a surprising 2nd in New Hampshire (the winner was from nearby Massachusetts). Clinton basically dominated a small and weak field from that point forward.

Starting off with states that actually reflect our electorate seems like a no-brainer. That's not a big or unreasonable ask. On the contrary, it should be a given. But, again, traditions have staying power.

[Hortensis]

43. Strange idea. Vast overstatement, surely? I don't remember what

you do at all. Did you check the posters you saw for duplicates? Some of us are habitually immoderate and we can all be repetitive.

[Blue_true]

44. What is the value of an OP like this?

For me. I think that Iowa and New Hampshire should retain their first status. I would like to see Iowa figure out how to get more democrats to caucuses and stop the bullying that happen at them.

[Iggo]

46. Trying to get it going again? Things not exciting enough?