My Simple Life in Ithaca

I’ve actually watched the proceedings at one of the Des Moines, Iowa Caucus Precincts. I must say I am absolutely speechless. (Well not THAT speechless cause I wouldn’t be writing) But still, the scene is crazy.

The people get into groups for their candidates, and those that don’t have enough support (ie the Dodds and Bidens of the world) have to get with a more ‘viable’ candidate.

But my question is, say if there are 25 Biden supporters at each location, with more than 1700 locations isn’t that viable? It is soooooooooooooo disorganized. If you know me you know that I would totally lose my mind. They don’t even know how to count efficiently. They have to count over and over and over again. Is it 150? Are we on 152? Who knows. The people are all over the place.

I have to think to myself we have been waiting a year for THIS?!?!? Ay ay ay. I don’t even know that I can trust the counts. I am so disappointed. And then to find out that they are not even choosing a candidate…they are choosing delegates to go to a district caucus or something to then go to a state caucus and then to the national convention. Its nonsense.

They just announced in the precinct I’m watching that Obama had 186 supporters, Edwards had 118, and Clinton had 74. And now through some abstruse calculation Obama is awarded 3 delegates Edwards gets 2, and Clinton gets 1. I have no idea what that means. This system is not the best. Not the best at all.

This is the why we vote for our american idol by the millions but sit out of congressional and presidential elections. This is just nuts.

A couple of days ago there was an article in the USA Today or maybe it was the Des Moines Register begging for us to get rid of this Iowa craziness.

You can read the whole article here. But it says in part…

If it seems odd that candidates would spend months, and millions of dollars, in Iowa in pursuit of an electorate that would barely constitute a neighborhood in some large American cities, it should. Iowa is not tiny, 30th in population according to the Census, but its time-consuming caucus process means that only 8% of the state’s population will participate.

…

If political parties made New Year’s resolutions, a worthy one would be to end this absurdity by devising a system of rotating regional primaries that would be in place by 2012. A more diverse and varied system for selecting nominees would help both parties, improve the public policy debate and make voters less cynical. It would also allow more people to share in the privilege of being first.

Preach on Sista!

After almost a year of campaigning, there is just 3 days to go now. On Thursday the good people of Iowa will tell us what they think of all of the candidates.

I swear there are like 20 candidates now, and just about all of them have been living in Iowa since Christmas. In the last 2 days I’ve seen each of them and half of their family members on CSPAN (I think I watch more CSPAN than ESPN now. Shocking).

Here are my predictions:

Red Side

• Huckabee Wins! The Baptist preacher bit is cute, even tho he’s starting to believe his own hype.
• Romney second. The other day I heard Michael Dukakis also a former Massachusetts governor AND presidential candidate call Mitt a FRAUD. Then days later the newspaper in New Hampshire called him a Phony! Unfortunately, I think its too late to make a real dent in the Iowa caucus.
• Third is a toss up. Sometimes I think McCain, other times I think Fred Thompson. Fred is crazy.When I hear him talk its like lines of a Law and Order episode. He’s funny, but I think he would take us back to the Nixon/Ford era.
• Then there’s Ron Paul. “Dr. Paul” as his supporters call him, has a lot of fans and a lot of radical ideas. I have no idea what happens to him after Iowa.
• Rudy may also get some votes even though he basically told the people of Iowa to bug off. He is spending his time in New Hampshire and Florida. We’ll see how that works out for him.

Blue Side

• John Edwards Wins — I don’t know why I think that. Just a feeling.
• Hilary second — big money. I really can’t stand Hil.
• Barack third. I love Barack and Michelle. I hope they win. I think they would be fantastic!! But as Barack has been saying for the last week, people have to be ready for real change.
• Poor Bill Richardson and Joe Biden. They have no chance. Their best bet is to not upset any of the front runners, and hope for a Vice President or Secretary of State post.
• Dennis Kucinich will get some votes, if only because people think his wife is cute.
• Duncan Hunter is not going to get any votes. There is nothing there. Sorry Duncan.

Actually, I think a Barack/McCain or Barack/Biden pairng would be good. If they don’t win their party nominations, they should go out as independents. Whatever gets me Barack near the white house.

A word of warning to Barack, no matter what happens on Thursday, keep your cool. 4 years ago Howard Dean was trying to pump up his people in an innocuous pep rally that basically ended his presidential run. The people at Fox news are very clever. They played this video over and over again as if it was some huge thing (and the dummies at CNN followed suit) before you knew it we had slow talking, long winded John Kerry, swift boat ads, and another 4 years of Bush! Let this be a lesson Dudes and Dudette.