[Note: I began writing this post Monday night while the Iowa caucuses were still going on, and long before the debacle of the delayed count came into full flower. The “dumb” and “dumber” sections below do not refer to the disorganization of the caucus administrators; rather they refer to things more basic. First, demographics, and secondly, timing. Both argue against kicking off a primary season to nominate a Democratic candidate for President in the Iowa cacophonies.]
Dumb: the irrelevance of the Iowa caucuses
The long delay in announcing the Democratic results of the Iowa caucuses Monday night gave pundits on MSNBC and CNN a lengthy opportunity to discuss the inanity of having the Iowa caucuses be the first and highly celebrated step in the Presidential primary process.
The result was music to my ears. On MSNBC, Claire McCaskill, Michael Steele, and Chris Matthews all sang variations on three themes: (1) the caucuses are not really an exercise in democracy but an exercise in local politics, although writ large by the national media; (2) participation in the caucuses represents only 15% of all Iowa voters; (3) the racial breakdown of Iowa: 85.3% white, non-Hispanic and non-Latino; 6.2% Hispanic or Latino; 4.0% African American; 2.4% Asian; 2.1% other minority groups.
This racial demographic is particularly galling when Democrats like to claim that their ranks “look like America.”
Iowa does not look like America, at least not the 2020 version.