A (Partial) Defense of the Iowa Caucuses
I know, I live in Iowa, so a defense of the caucuses that comes from me is just going to seem like I’m greedy. I should say that before I moved to Iowa for college four years ago, I shared the opinion that the importance of the caucuses is unjustifiable, and that a national primary would be more democratic. Then I experienced the caucuses (in 2004), and I changed my mind.
Over on MyDD, desmoinesdem published the second part of her diary series, “How the Iowa caucuses work.” She echoes concerns that we brought up here about inequalities in the caucus system based on delegate assignment, demonstrating that it takes more caucus-goers to elect a delegate in precincts with higher concentrations of activist Democrats who have free evenings than in precincts with lower concentrations of said activists. (E.g., it took about 70 caucus-goers to elect one delegate in the Poweshiek County, where I caucused in 2004, while in less-Democratic and less-populous Fremont County, it only took 22 caucus-goers to elect one delegate.)
The conclusion of all of this? The caucus system (according to our own Geraldine) “favors the old over the young, the rural over the urban, Western Iowa over Eastern Iowa.”
Why is this wrong? Well, while the caucus system seems to create inequalities on the surface, it can compensate for deeper inequalities. Many have complained, here and elsewhere, that the Iowa Caucuses are unfair to families with young children, workers who have evening shifts, handicapped persons, and, generally, people with busy schedules, because it requires them to take several hours out of a weekday night to argue with their neighbors about politics. Not everyone can do that, and it’s understandable.
That is why precincts are assigned delegates before caucus night: if a disproportionate number of Democrats in X precinct have to work the night shift or have young children (or even if there’s a blizzard), the system currently in place ensures that their precinct will still be important. And precincts are the smallest geographic unit our election officials recognize for general elections, so it is assumed that others in your precinct likely represent similar interests to yours. Think of it as a much more geographically specific version of the electoral college. (Maybe you have your problems with that system, too, but at least this caucus math has a constitutional precedent.)
Aside from that, though, here’s a question nobody has asked: what is the harm in giving Iowa’s downtrodden rural hamlets and agricultural areas a little attention from the rest of the country every four years? It isn’t like John Edwards is going to spend the last week before the caucuses camped out in Keokuk and Grundy Counties just because each caucus-goer is worth more there. At the end of the day, Keokuk and Grundy still represent a tiny fraction of the total delegates needed to win, and putting on events and doing GOTV work is easier and far more efficient in urban areas like Des Moines and Cedar Rapids.
While disparities in caucus-goer to delegate ratios from county to county may seem a little alarming, the truth is that urban areas are still immensely important, and that a candidate can win the caucuses without putting practically any resources into the less populous half of Iowa’s 99 counties. A campaign will hire more than 10 full-time field organizers for Polk County before they will hire a single full-time organizer for Grundy County. And most importantly, I don’t know a single Iowa Democrat who will argue that Polk County (Des Moines area) Democrats don’t have enough influence on state politics, the state party, or the caucuses.
I hope this will be the start of a series of posts written here as a defense of the Iowa Caucuses. Toward that end, I’m looking for more arguments to respond to. So, dear readers, please participate: What arguments against the Iowa Caucuses do you find most compelling?
7 comments March 6th, 2007
