The Sunshine Empire

The Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary are the customary starting gun of the official United States Presidential election. The mavens of the media spend hours with the candidates, as they spend days shaking the hand of every corn stalk and bowl of clam chowder. The traditional strategy aims to win the two sparsely populated states as a spring board to the nomination. These contests are said to be steeped in the tradition of first in the nation voting, yet nobody seems to ask why this is the case.

First on the matter of the long tradition, which stretches back to. . . . 1972? The tradition really started in earnest with the 1952 New Hampshire primary. Harry Truman was defeated and nobody cared because there were no other primaries. The Iowa caucuses did not become nationally known or discussed until the 1972 Democratic caucus that gave us Ed Muskie, the man from Maine. Muskie won the New Hampshire primary that year too, and that catapulted him to being stomped by Nixon’s bitch George McGovern. Many of the current candidates for the 2008 nomination for both parties where of voting age by the time New Hampshire and Iowa became the age old venerable traditions that the media tells us they are. In 1972 only 23 states even held primaries for their delegates to the two respective nominating conventions. Yet the winner always goes on to win the big one, if by that you mean lose.

In the 1976 Democratic Iowa caucus, Jimmy Carter was beaten by Uncommitted. This feat was not topped until John Ashcroft lost an election to a corpse. To look at the list you see frustration of promise, yet rarely the eventual nominee being the winner. Edmund Muskie, Gary Hart, and Paul Tsongas all won the New Hampshire primary and lost the nomination. The Republicans do this less in New Hampshire, only having Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. defeating Goldwater in 1964. With Iowa it has always been the eventual nominee with the Republicans. Having said that we feel that the Democratic party should refuse to hold their first two primaries there. They should choose Vermont and Illinois as their first two. Plus, as many people understand the byzantine rules of the caucus as much as know the rules to baccarat.

They have been around for as long as the Big Mac, and give us mixed results, yet we continue to give a damn about them. With the super primary looming just moments afterward, a candidate could not be faulted for ignoring them altogether. There are delagate rich states like Florida and California to worry about and I think you get half a delegate for winning the Iowa caucuses. Good luck.