On Friday, Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party wrote an article in the Union Leader which basically said what we've all been thinking: Iowa Republicans are currently driving their party off a cliff and are hurting our entire state by marginializing our caucus system.
This article, "So long Iowa, it was nice knowing ya," is a must read for everyone who has been watching with dred as social conservatives pushed out fiscal conservatives, and presidential candidates began to "reevaluate" their early state strategy.
Here are some of the important excerpts:
Two conditions make the early states in the presidential nominating process work. First, all candidates must believe they have an equal opportunity to succeed. They might not be happy with the outcome — most of them lose, after all — but they all have to feel like they had their shot and were given a fair hearing by voters. Second, the electorates have to be broadly representative of the party as a whole. This gives a win meaning and legitimacy.
The Iowa caucus may once have met those conditions for Republicans, but today it does not. Iowa Republicans have marginalized themselves to the point where competing in Iowa has become optional.
… This week came another troubling sign that Iowa Republicans are outside the party mainstream: a birther epidemic. A Public Policy Polling survey found that 48 percent of Iowa Republicans don’t believe President Obama was born in the United States, and another 26 percent said they weren’t sure if he was or if he wasn’t. It’s hard to talk about real issues when three quarters of the audience wears tin foil hats.
…Iowa Republicans didn’t set out to marginalize themselves, but it’s happened — to New Hampshire’s benefit. With several major candidates likely to bypass Iowa, and the odds rising that Iowa’s skewed caucus electorate could support candidates with limited general election appeal, the likelihood of New Hampshire being called upon to make a correction grow.
Currently, reporters in Iowa continue to ignore the harm that far-right Republicans are doing to our state with their social litmus tests. We’ve seen a few bold Republicans like Doug Gross and Kevin Hall speak out publicly, but they are few and far between.
5 Comments
reporters in Iowa
don’t want to feed this narrative, because discouraging any presidential candidates from competing here is bad for Iowa media outlets.
The differences in “political culture” between the states aren’t new. In almost every presidential election cycle the last few decades, the winner of the GOP New Hampshire primary has been different from the Iowa GOP caucuses winner.
desmoinesdem Wed 27 Apr 1:09 PM
I agree, the media sucks
It’s sad that they are acting so short sighted that they can’t see the forest through the trees. If Iowa continues down this path, with other states challenging us, and with the presidential candidates challenging us on our radical republican caucus attendees, the RNC will eventually step in. This might not occur until there is a Republican presidential candidate who got whooped in Iowa, but it’s going to happen.
The difference between the years past is that there hasn’t been an insane person (bob vander plaats) traveling all across the state and acting as a gate keeper to the crazy caucus attendees. He’s radicalizing the attendees to only care about gay marriage and religious issues. This shouldn’t come as a surprise because Bob thinks running for governor is a job — his financial background consists of bilking his donors and nonprofits to pay his bills.
A Republican with a fiscal background needs to step up and challenge these radicals.
samueljkirkwood Wed 27 Apr 8:40 PM
btw
you should put this on the front page. Everyone needs to read this article from the UL.
samueljkirkwood Wed 27 Apr 8:41 PM
you WILL hate me....
Changes in the lineup of states that take the lead in the presidential sweepstakes. I could qualify for hatelists for saying it, but there’s gotta be a better way. Perhaps an ORGANIZED way…
One idea might be to actually start the parade with states that have the fewest representatives – imagine a collection of caucus/primaries on the same day in these states: Alaska, Montana, Delaware, North and South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming.
Follow that with Idaho, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Hawaii who all have 2(yes, 2) housemembers. Moving on from there, the groups of states would have to have at least 3 included- as in Nebraska, New Mexico, and West Virginia(3 housemembers). Four housemembers would set the next group of battleground states that include Iowa, Arkansas, Mississippi, Nevada, Utah, and Kansas. From there, the groupings could grow smaller as ever larger populations are subjected to the ads, the campaign stops, the arm-twisting for money, etc.
Actually, this might satisfy a heckuva lot of US Senators!
The caucuses in the Democratic party next winter could be some of the least-attended in years, although their importance in local races for statehouse offices could be the most important in decades. Republicans, meanwhile, will have their bread and circuses.
I’m rooting for Cain. Imagine the ad: “Vote GOP – We’ll be ABLE with CAIN!!!”
hvlundberg7328 Tue 17 May 12:33 AM
If you want to be first you should earn it.
I still say the best way to lead off the presidental process is to make it competitive.. Give it to the state with the highest percentage of voters in the last presidental election. Start with the state with the highest percent of voters and the state with the lowest percent goes last.
It would be good to get more people voting. And a higher turnout generally benefits democrats.
keith-nichols Sat 21 May 11:09 PM