Oh No, Not Iowa and New Hampshire Again?
News and candidates are already eyeing the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary for President in 2020. Iowa is Feb. 3, and New Hampshire has to be by Feb. 11. Iowa has all of 6 electoral votes, and New Hampshire, 4. So millions of early Democratic funding and a year of campaign time is going to go to umpteen candidates for 10 out of the 270 electoral votes needed for election to the Presidency. That is a whopping 3.7% of what is needed.
In addition to our non-representative Senate, our non-democratic electoral college, gerrymandered states, the demise of our Voting Rights Act five years ago, the Citizens United ruling eight years ago, a delusional President claiming 3 to 5 MILLION illegal votes two years ago, and the continued Russsian influence campaign, s a year of emphasis on Iowa and New Hampshire is all we need. Not that I have anything against people in these states, except for their overbearing insistence in being first for every primary.
Here is what Democrats really need; Fund raising in Democratic states, dominated by California and New York; Winning back the Blue Wall of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, the rust-belt states; and finally flipping Florida with the aid of ex-con voters and voters tired of wading through flood waters.
As far as I know, now progress has yet been made in changing the Republican Winner-Take-All (ABBA) primaries which let Trump win with 35% of the backing. The Democrats have not yet eliminated the pre-selected extra Superdelegates, although those did not matter in the end. They have also not converted caucuses to Primaries to allow more people a democratic vote. Those allowed Sander’s organizers to get undemocratically selected delegates.
Asking Democratic candidates to limit their time and money to say 10% only (or better 3.7%) in Iowa and New Hampshire would probably be useless, since these are the most highly competitive politicians in the country (except for Trump who is tweeting and running all the time). That way, the primary voters who pay for the campaigns and provide most of the delegates would actually get the attention they deserve from the candidates. That also would allow the candidates to focus on the states and policies that really need to be won in the general election, which is what is most important, as we now see.
One of many voices, crying out in the wilderness.
