Tuesday, February 09, 2016
It's New Hampshire Day!
I love the way the primaries force politicians to pay attentions to states they would usually avoid: Iowa and New Hampshire, in that it forces them to do retail politics rather than rely on media.
On the other hand, I don't like the way the prominence of those two states warps the political outcomes we see. Both are predominantly white states, which means that we see little discussion or race when the candidates are there-- and few new initiatives in that area. Also, it creates strange benefits for those states. For example, Iowa is a big corn ethanol producer, and candidates usually become great enthusiasts for federal ethanol mandates before the Iowa caucuses. Ted Cruz was an exception. He (correctly, I think) opposed the ethanol mandates and subsidies, and still won the Republican causes in Iowa.
Watching the candidates trudge through snow, I thought they might prefer that the first primaries be held in Florida and Texas...
Comments:
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I think the voting public should generally ignore the results in Iowa and New Hampshire! I believe it would be better to group the states into several (6 to 8) regionally diverse groups so that the groups have relatively equal populations, and have a group of states have primaries or caucuses every three weeks or so from February to June. Randomly rotate the groups from one presidential election year to another, with the selection done in October of the preceding year.
# posted by 
: 5:48 AM
: 5:48 AM
Good catch on the corn ethanol -- indeed a bad idea. Maybe they'll realize how lucrative wind could be prior to the next election.
No one likes the current system.
But its not going to change this year. And probably not in 4 years either.
Candidates need to deal with it. Just like the problems in the Middle East are not going to go away no matter how much we wish they would
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But its not going to change this year. And probably not in 4 years either.
Candidates need to deal with it. Just like the problems in the Middle East are not going to go away no matter how much we wish they would
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