NOSTALGIA CRITIC

Monday night’s Iowa Democratic Caucus showed that it is long past time for presidential nomination reform.

The continued use of caucuses to determine delegate allocation for candidates as well as its placement at the front of the presidential nomination contest calendar has come over increased scrutiny throughout the 2010s and might be crossing the Rubicon at the start of the 2020s.

For starters, Iowa’s demographics are not reflective of the entire country let alone the Democratic Party. Per the NBC News Iowa Entrance Poll, greater than 90% of caucus goers where white. How much did that demographic chasm between the national party and Iowa impacted the nomination viabilities of Booker, Castro, and Harris?

It is hypocritical for Democrats to promote fighting back against Republican efforts to restrict ballot access while the caucus process is extremely exclusionary in how it reduces the amount of people who can participate. While Iowa should be commended for making efforts to allow people who work second and third shifts to participate, it still prevents people from participating who have to care for young children, the elderly who in some instances are unable to physically attend, or the disabled who have various challenges that might impact their capability to be in spaces with large amounts of people.

The caucus system can be intimidating to some as you are publicly making your choice for a candidate to be known to your neighbors, co-workers, and family members. I was a tad disgusted with reporters at various caucus locations sticking their microphones and cameras into the faces of people who were caucusing as if discovering the results in an elementary school cafeteria would deliver some breaking news insight into who won the overall contest.

At times the news coverage felt like watching Monty Python.

The results were delayed due to the introduction of new technology without a strong secondary plan for if that technology failed – either by an unforeseen glitch in the programing code of the application being used or the most likely culprit being human error in the lack of familiarity with that type of technology. There wasn’t some grand conspiracy to prevent a candidate from capturing any or all of Iowa’s 41 delegates. If that was the case, there would have been a huge departure from the polling prior to the Iowa caucuses to what the actual results were.

Speaking of the results, as of this posting only 71% of the results have been reported showing that former South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg has captured 26.8% of the states delegates, followed by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders at 25.2%, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren with 18.4%, and former Vice President Joe Biden in fourth place with 15.4%. As of this time, the Associated Press has made no call in the race due to the number of precincts that have not reported in.

The Iowa Democratic Party did their caucus process no favors with only releasing incomplete results. I understand why they did it in part due to they wanted to placate the campaigns as they head into the next contest of the New Hampshire Primary held this coming Tuesday, give them some chance to spin the results (albeit incomplete results, but it is better than nothing), and where the Iowa Caucus fell on the calendar this week.

Sunday was the Super Bowl won by the Kansas City Chiefs 31-20 (I got that pick correct!); last night was the Iowa Caucus which went total Charlie Foxtrot; tonight was Trump’s State of the Union; tomorrow will be Trump’s (likely) acquittal in his Impeachment Trial on two charges in the Senate; and Friday is an upcoming Democratic debate. There were a lot of high-profile events to start off February, and the full results of the caucus might have ended up getting lost in the twirling news cycle had the Iowa Democratic Party waited later in the week to post completed results.

Understanding does not mean that I am defending the Iowa Caucus, nor the idea of using caucuses. As I stated earlier, using caucuses have a plethora of a problems. The only defense I have found for this process and allowing Iowa to go first is out of tradition which in many instances is a terrible defense.

Both major political parties have tried to make attempts to reform the nomination process system in recent years. The Democrats tried but when Florida and Michigan moved up their primaries earlier in the 2008 process, the party reduced their delegate strength for doing so and rightfully faced backlash for doing so. Former Republican Party Chair Michael Steele recently revealed that his party looked at reforming their nominating schedule and eliminating caucuses, but faced pressure from doing so. It certainly would have helped to avoid their Iowa caucus disaster in 2012.

Prominent Iowa Republicans have stated that they will continue to use the caucus system and improve upon it for 2024. By then, Iowa might be the only state using this process as well as the state’s demographics might become negligible in determining a nominee.

Even though other states are offering to become the new first-in-the-nation state, there are some hurdles. For starters, states administer elections and can implement their own rules on how they are conducted. When I moved here from Texas to Colorado six years ago, it was a bit of a shock on how easy it was to register to vote and how Colorado gives voters an option to either cast a ballot via its mail-in system or show up in person at a polling place to do so. In Texas, there is a voter registration deadline, and voters need to cast a ballot at a polling place.

One critique I have about Colorado is that our presidential primary is in March, like Texas, but the primary for every other office is held in June. In Texas, when they hold their presidential primary it also includes every other office. Part of that has to do that when Texas holds its presidential primary, the state legislature is not in session while in Colorado, the state legislature is in session every year and in addition to having to do session work, a legislator would have to dedicate precious time to campaigning.

Another issue that comes up is which state becomes the new first-in-the-nation? Illinois can make the case as being a large populated Midwestern state as can Michigan and Wisconsin. Florida and Ohio can make the case as they are swing states having gone to the electoral college winner in the last five elections and might provide a better temperature of the mood of the country as well as testing a candidate’s strength. Florida also falls into the category with New York, Texas, and California as the top four in US population and have diverse populations more reflective of the nation’s demographics.

The solution to this problem might be to go to a stand alone national presidential primary to where it eliminates the ego trip of a state going first as well as reducing the amount of time it takes to determine a nominee. It could lead to a two-tier system where the Democrats use this system in future nomination contests and Republicans remain stuck in the past.

I stated that tradition can be a terrible defense for continuing on a practice, but one of our proudest traditions is not sticking with tradition. Had we stuck with tradition we would still be a colony subjected to British rule continuing the barbaric practice of slavery. The caucus system was an improvement upon the traditional way of a cigar smoked filled room of party bosses a la the Tammany Tigers. We may wax nostalgic for the days of citizens gathering on a crisp, icy cloudless night at a school gym in the Midwest to choose a candidate, but unfortunately those days might be coming to an end.

And more critics to the process will continue to question the status quo.