Hail to the Hawkeye State

Again forgive the political rant, it must be that time of year because I have thought a lot about our political process recently, and a lot of my current thought process focuses on the ridiculousess of the importance placed on the Iowa caucases ... I mean, in 2004, only 122,000 white, middle-class christians voted in the Democratic caucuses, and these people set the course for the US elections that year. This is less than 5% of the population of only one state which is 91% white. Think about that. This nation has over 300 million people. And it is one of the most culturally diverse nations on Earth. And even though we reguarly spit in the face of democracy by having voter turnouts that make us look like half of us don't understand voting machines, having the political course of the next election guided in any part by that small and non-diverse a group of people is ludicrous.

And I did hear stories and read articles about how Iowa really did not represent all of the US, and how it might not forecast anything. And I thought, maybe the news is just slow and people have nothing to talk about and when anything else happens we will let this obsession with Iowa pass. But that was before the caucuses. On the evening of January 3rd, 2008, every reporter in the country was hit with an idiot ray.

And now, Iowa is all you hear about. Now, you hear about how important the caucus results were and how 240,00 people, voting in their basements and local churches might have dealt a damaging, potentially fatal blow to Hillary Clintons multi-million dollar campaign, despite the fact that she is ahead in the national polls by a huge amount, and most importantly, has not been voted on by the infinitely large majority of the nation.

Ridiculous. At least tomorrow this will all pass and we will learn all about the vital importance of the Granite State ...

Of note, we did not descend into absolute lunacy by also placing a huge amount of importance on the Wyoming caucuses. In fact, we did not report on them at all. How disenfranchised do you feel by the fickleness of the news cycle if you live in Wyoming?