Look Who's Back and Ranting Already

It's a sad state of affairs when national media types are reduced to starting their broadcasts with "Here's (insert candidate)'s LATEST position on (insert issue)...." Candidates are forced to tailor their opinions to whichever small group of voters they are wooing at the moment. The voters don't care if the candidates are qualified for the office, as long as they say what the voters want to hear.

With the exercise in futility that is the Iowa Caucus, only two days away, I have been pondering why the media types attach so much more importance to it than is warranted. They cause candidates to have to waste so much money on their meaningless contest that I'm surprised that the candidates continue to participate in the caucuses. It strikes me as patently unfair to expect candidates, who have a hard time raising funds for their races, no matter how goofy their ideas may seem, to waste those funds on a contest that will, in all probability, cause them to drop out of the race before it has actually begun.

Iowa has a population of about three million people. In 2008, the caucuses drew about 300,000 voters, which was an all time record. The caucus-goers are 90% white Protestants who tend to be wealthier and older than the average Iowan.  In the end, the caucus accomplishes nothing. It doesn't even secure a delegate to the national convention or even one electoral vote.  Surely, it's time for the caucus system to go the way of the Dodo and move on to more meaningful contests.

And, now, the caucus-goers are afraid the Occupy Caucuses people, all half dozen of them,  are going to occupy the caucus locations, so they have moved the sites to secret locations. Get real!

Since 1976, Iowans have gotten it right only once. The sideshow is almost over. On to New Hampshire.

Stay tuned.