The caucuses are valuable for showing which candidates can field an organization. Since there is a relatively low turnout, it rewards candidates who might not have money but have a broad base of dedicated supporters who are willing to stand up for their candidate at a caucus. You expect candidates like Dean, Gephardt and Kerry and Edwards to do well. If candidates like Kucinich can't get 15% support, which is the threshold for getting delegates, it is a signal that their supporters need to look to some other candidate who has a chance and Kucinich needs to look towards getting re-elected to the House. If Kucinich did somehow reach 15%, it should be a big boost to his campaign (although the national media no doubt would find some way to play it down). On the other hand, if a candidate like Lieberman or Clark don't even bother to campaign in Iowa, the media should ask why they should get a free pass for writing off the state.
And I know Iowa is criticized (as is New Hampshire) for being relatively small and unrepresentative of the US as a whole, but at least candidates can cover both states on relatively modest campaign budgets. (Or, if you waltz in late, as Clark did, you can at least cover N.H.) And we should thank those Iowans and Hampshirites for watching all those political commercials and putting off the time that the rest of us have to watch them.
>On Saturday, January 17, 2004, at 06:18 PM, Doug Henwood quoted:
>
>> It isn't so much what happens at the caucus as the press reporting
>>on a candidate's viability that matters.
>
>Events like the Iowa caucuses have become, as far as the media are
>concerned, events that exist basically to be talked about. After
>all, we all recognize that it is the media which predominantly
>select presidential candidates these days, but to maintain their
>pose as "media" they have to have something to "mediate." Hence they
>seize on whatever event suits their purposes and pump up its
>significance to the level they need for their purposes. The
>importance of the event is merely that it gives the pundits an
>occasion to discuss amongst themselves who would be the worthiest
>knight to break a lance with King George in the November tournament.
>
>I saw a story, I believe it was in today's Times, that openly
>discussed the way in which the media hyped Dean "too much" when his
>campaign was starting, and now is going "too negative" on him to
>compensate for the initial hyping. This is obviously not reporting
>an objective external world -- it's the reporters generating their
>own world.
>
>To make the whole process transparent, it would be best to release
>the "media" from their obligation to "report." Just drop the
>pretense that they are conveying information to us about events
>which have some intrinsic meaning, let them tell us straight out
>which candidates they like, and we, like sheep, will trot to the
>polls and cast our votes.
>
>Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org