It's an insane system. Mitt Romney will probably win Iowa and then
New Hampshire. At that point the race will be over. No one whose won
both of those States has failed to win the nomination. The remedy is one
national primary. Better yet, one national primary involving all
political parties and then a general election. This is already done in
some States. The Presidential campaign should only last for 6 months,
not the current 2 years:
Supporters watch as Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick
Perry speaks during a campaign stop at the Fainting Goat in Waverly,
Iowa, Friday, Dec. 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
On a
two-day trip to New Hampshire last week I attended three campaign events
with a total of roughly 600 people. I tried to find an African-American
in the audience at all three events, but I couldn’t. To be fair, I did
spot two Latinos and five or six Asian-Americans. The U.S., according to
the 2010 census is 72.4 percent white. The first two states vote in the
presidential primaries, Iowa and New Hampshire, are 91.3 percent white
and 93.9 percent white, respectively.
The Iowa caucuses, which
will be dramatically covered by the news media on Tuesday, are
especially pernicious. In a caucus instead of a primary the Iowans who
get to participate are even smaller in number and less diverse than the
state’s already unrepresentative electorate.
Worse still, the
Iowa caucuses aren’t subject to the same spending disclosure deadlines
as primaries. An obscure 1979 ruling from the Federal Election
Commission (FEC) held that Iowa’s caucus is not an election. The reasons
are as muddled as they are unpersuasive. According to the FEC primaries
are elections, and caucuses are elections if they have the authority to
select a candidate. Since, as a technical matter Iowans caucus for
delegates to the state convention who will stand for a candidate, it’s
not considered an election. Now, thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010
ruling in Citizens United v FEC, there are organizations called Super
PACs that can raise unlimited contributions to take advantage of this
loophole. Politico explains, “the decades-old caucus exemption allows
candidates with robust super PACs in their corners to enjoy the benefits
of unprecedented spending through the early contests without enduring
the potentially damaging stories that can accompany the revelation of
who’s behind it.” (The information will eventually be released, but not
until later.)
Read the full article from The Nation
