Editorials say Iowa too unrepresentative
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As Democrats and Republicans prepared to vote in the Iowa caucuses on Thursday, some U.S. editorials said the midwestern state was too unrepresentative and voter turnout too small to merit such an outsized role in the U.S. presidential election process.
Jeff Greenfield, political correspondent for CBS News, wrote in the online magazine Slate.com that the caucuses, in which Iowans gather to discuss and vote for their party's candidate in the November 2008 election, "violate some of the most elemental values of a vibrant and open political process" - the secret ballot and the principle of one person, one vote.
In the Wall Street Journal, Iowa resident and freelance journalist Michael Judge complained that the caucuses encouraged candidates to pander to Iowans, 90 percent of whom were unlikely to show up at caucuses.
"Even if you're a died-in-the-wool (sic) Democrat or Republican, you have to be a certain kind of person to do the caucus thing," he wrote.
The caucuses kick off the state-by-state process by which Democrats and Republicans will select their nominees to face off in the November presidential election. Fewer than 250,000 people are expected to take part in the voting on Thursday.
The winners can expect a tremendous wave of publicity and flood of contributions that can boost their campaigns for the next, crucial stage of the nomination battles.
Those who do badly could be out of the race within days. Both major parties' nominees are expected to be selected by mid-February.
SAME OLD
There is nothing new in criticism of Iowa and New Hampshire, the state that holds the first presidential primary vote next Tuesday. It happens every four years. This time, Iowa scheduled its vote earlier than ever before to stay ahead of other states seeking to cast ballots earlier in the process.
Defenders of Iowa say the state's citizens take their role in winnowing the presidential field extremely seriously and force the candidates to do on-the-ground, personal campaigning instead of relying on television advertisements.
"Sorry, but that's not good enough," the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in an editorial. It noted that the state's largest city of Des Moines had a population less than half the size of Oakland, California.
"The system favors enthusiasts with the time to attend a caucus for several hours, a process that screens out those with family duties, conflicting work hours, travel plans or disabilities," the newspaper wrote.
"The identity of the next leader of the most powerful nation in the world is not supposed to depend on the opinion of one small state. Let alone the sliver of that state with the leisure and physical capacity to make a personal appearance tonight at a local caucus that begins at precisely 7 o'clock. Let alone the tiny slice of the small sliver willing to take part in a process that involves standing up in public to show a political preference, while being lobbied and nagged by neighbors."
The result, he wrote, was "a double distortion mirror."
(Reporting by Alan Elsner, editing by Doina Chiacu) 