Reading this story at The Politico the other day made me chuckle. It’s vintage Iowa:
Pat named her cat Hillary and when she heard that Hillary, the presidential candidate, was coming to town, she got a friend to help her and they managed to get Hillary (the cat) to make a paw print on a picture of Hillary (the cat) to give Hillary (the candidate.) … She also said, “I have never heard a national candidate with such a fine-tuned knowledge of children. Thank you for your service to children.”
Hillary voter, right?
“I am not satisfied with her explanation about the Iraq war,” Pat said. But come on. After the cat, the blue eyes, the paw print, the red blazer, the knowledge of children, the 12 TV cameras and international press corps taking down every word, after all this, you are really not going to commit to Hillary? “Well, she is one of my top three,” Pat said.
It doesn’t matter who you are, what you’ve done, how much money you have or how much star power you bring to the table. They don’t care if you are not right on their issues.
These are votes you have to earn.
And there’s a very simple reason about why they are able to put you through the ringer to earn that vote: the caucus rules.
The rules are very complicated and the longer someone is a participant, the better they know them. Rural areas can yield you as many delegates as urban ones because of the previous year’s attendance and because many committed activists over a large area are grouped together into a caucus location. You have to attend a 3 or 4 hour meeting to cast your vote and then the viability rule might nullify your first choice.
Then the real fun kicks in. Every staffer who’s ever set foot in Iowa will tell you a story about the one “activist” you had to get because that guy or gal was the person who could reel in the delegates who pick candidates that don’t meet the viability rule.
Markos and other bloggers don’t like this system.
Sometimes I wonder why. After all, there’s something special about a group of people who both have power and are unimpressed by it.
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