http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/12/new-years-resol.htmlNew Year's resolutions
Give the rest of the country a chance: Rotate regional primaries
According to The Des Moines Register, Republican party officials predict that participation in their presidential caucus in Iowa Thursday will be in the range of 87,000, about what it was in 2000, the last time the GOP nomination was contested. That means that an important vote potentially affecting the future of the entire country will be undertaken by a population smaller than the attendance at Sunday's Dallas Cowboys-Washington Redskins game, or any home game in Washington's 90,000-plus stadium, for that matter.
The Democrats are projected to do a bit better. The 150,000 or so they expect is bigger than a ball park. But in a state of 3 million, and a nation of 300 million, it is still microscopic.
If it seems odd that candidates would spend months, and millions of dollars, in Iowa in pursuit of an electorate that would barely constitute a neighborhood in some large American cities, it should. Iowa is not tiny, 30th in population according to the Census, but its time-consuming caucus process means that only 8% of the state's population will participate.
The system is even more convoluted this year because Iowa moved up its caucus to Jan. 3 to stay ahead of other states that have moved up their primaries. That means that many would-be voters would have been away for the Christmas and New Year's holidays. It also means that millions of people across the nation who might have paid attention at a later date are tuned out now.
Call it what it is, a broken system, a system rigged to the benefit of early states such as Iowa that is further perverted by their efforts to maintain their advantage.
The impact of this can be measured on supermarket shelves and in profligate federal spending policies.
Because Iowa is a major corn producer, Iowans love the subsidies the federal government hands out to encourage production of ethanol, which is made from corn. Inevitably, the subsidies have created huge new demand for corn, pushing prices to record levels. This is great for Iowa and the rest of the Farm Belt, but everywhere else, people are paying heavily for the largesse. They pay first in taxes to support subsidies of $2 billion to $9 billion in recent years — and then again at the checkout counter. And all of this despite the fact that producing a gallon of ethanol requires more energy than the ethanol saves as a replacement for gasoline.
Support for these foolhardy polices goes well beyond Iowa. But giving Iowa such a crucial power over the nominating process means that most of the major presidential candidates are ethanol apologists. The major exception is Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a maverick in many ways.
If political parties made New Year's resolutions, a worthy one would be to end this absurdity by devising a system of rotating regional primaries that would be in place by 2012.
A more diverse and varied system for selecting nominees would help both parties, improve the public policy debate and make voters less cynical. It would also allow more people to share in the privilege of being first.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
