There aren’t that many perks to attending a school in northeast Missouri. The winters are bitterly cold, there seem to be more tornadoes, and the nearest calzone is several counties away. I suppose if you like soybeans and Casey’s pizza then this place has all that you could ever want, but for St. Louis natives like myself we’re often left wanting. But if you count yourself among the politically engaged then there’s no place you’d rather be because just a short drive north of campus is the cradle of political civilization, Iowa. Every 4 years the political universe finds its center in Des Moines at the Iowa State Fairground and this August I decided to experience it first-hand. So, I woke up at 6AM and got in my car and began the 2-hour drive to Iowa.

For those unfamiliar, the Iowa State Fair is a political tradition during campaign season and has been visited by candidates for President dating back to Eisenhower. Currently the newspaper of record, the Des Moines Register, hosts an event called “the soapbox” where candidates are allotted 20 minutes to present their ideas to a crowd of onlookers. The event isn’t just covered by Iowan press but also by national outlets like the Washington Post, NBC, Fox, and even international media. The Iowa State Fair is an 11-day event that attracts over 1 million people (only 3 million people live in Iowa) and is an enormous undertaking. The candidates for President are spread out across different dates but they themselves are not the major draw for most attendees as the fair has so many different attractions. Ask yourself, would you rather spend 20 minutes with John Delaney or a deep fried twinkie on a stick? The question answers itself.

The drive through Iowa was rural to say the least, I frankly lost count of how many horse and buggies I passed. I was unaware at how beautiful the landscape was and how comparatively flat Missouri is, Iowa has lush rolling green hills which was a nice change of pace from the all too familiar hundred miles of row crops on I-70. It’s important to note that I’ve never attended a county fair let alone the Missouri State Fair, so I truly didn’t know what to expect because up until that point my largest festival of any kind was “Taste of St. Louis.” So, when it began to rain hard as I approached my highway exit, I figured that my drive had been for nothing and the fair wouldn’t open, but I didn’t account for the persistence of Iowans or the sheer scale of the event.

The first thing you notice when driving into Des Moines is all of the campaign signs. On the day of my visit Iowa was a full 176 days away from the caucus so everything seemed somewhat…premature.  We’re not just talking about your expected Biden, Warren, or Sanders signs either we’re talking about a very prominent “Tim Ryan 2020” which was surreal. There were people in shirts handing out literature for Joe Sestak (yes, the Joe Sestak who lost to Pat Toomey in a Pennsylvania Senate race 9 years ago is running for President) and there’s a man on a lawn chair waving a homemade Tulsi flag at the cars waiting to enter the fairgrounds. It’s very reminiscent of a college tailgate actually, right down to people with signs in their grass offering to let you park on top of their child’s slip in slide for cheaper than you’d pay to park at the fairgrounds. There were not so surprisingly a lot of takers for off street front lawn parking as the line to get into the fairgrounds was several city blocks long. After waiting for about half an hour in line my car was rushed into the fairgrounds by a team of volunteers who were parking what seemed like a dozen cars a minute and there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of rows of cars requiring a shuttle for people parked at the furthest expanse of the greenspace now turned parking lot. Thinking about the rain earlier, I’m not sure that an approaching tornado could’ve cancelled the fair.

The first candidate to speak was former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld who you’ll remember from 2016 as he was the other half of the doomed libertarian ticket lead by Gary Johnson. At the time Weld was the only Republican challenger to President Trump but he has since been joined by Mark Sanford of Appalachian trail fame and Joe Walsh, a favorite of “resistors” despite his unabashed racism and Trump support as recently as last July. Again, despite how the media presents it, the political element of the Iowa State Fair is not the largest draw and so it’s not in any location of particular prominence that is easy to find. You can tell a lot about people by looking at what they value and while the soapbox was in some less obvious location of the fair, there was something prominently displayed…the butter cow. The butter cow is the stuff of legends, it is a 600-pound sculpture made of butter which is often accompanied by additional butter sculptures ranging from John Wayne, Elvis, and this year Sesame Street (and a working television set). The butter sculptures are housed in the agriculture building, which is furnished by prize winning crops, blue ribbon corn, the largest pumpkin (over 700 pounds!), and so on. Meanwhile the political soapbox is stationed outside the administration building, it’s a little raised stage with a couple hay bales on top for full Iowa effect and it’s across from novelty fair food stands. Not a whole lot of pomp accompanies the soapbox, just a few folding chairs next to the stage for people willing to show up early and rows and rows of press gorging themselves on fair food while sweating in the heat waiting for the next candidate to arrive (and they do wait, sometimes hours in between speeches).

After visiting with the butter cow, I made my way to the soapbox and I passed the WHO 13 corn kernel polling outfit where all the candidates had their pictures and an attached mason jar for fairgoers to “Cast their kernel” to signal support. Only 4 candidates had broken double digits, Biden, Buttigieg, Warren, and Harris in that order. Some jars were more popular than others, Marianne Williamson and Mayor Wayne Messam had only gathered a handful of kernels. It was unclear whether the voting was for anyone at the fair or just Iowans, but I left a kernel in Bernie’s jar and kept moving towards the soapbox. I made it to Bill Weld during the middle of his remarks and the crowd was…small to be polite. For reference on the GOP side, Trump had 97% of the kernels to Weld’s 3%. Ouch. Watching Weld was a lot like watching Morning Joe in the sense that I was seeing a Republican who was very mediocre in his presentation given an outlet simply because he loathes Donald Trump. Weld repeated the usual lines we’ve come to expect from NeverTrumpers, Russia this and Deficit that but there was a point when Weld lost the audience. On a question about gun control Weld said that he didn’t support universal background checks, a broadly popular position even in Iowa, and he was booed by the crowd to the amusement of the bored press forced to cover his speech. After Weld left the stage an assortment of characters presented themselves who would continue to reappear throughout the day. The first was an older gentleman in a sleeveless camouflage shirt wearing a trucker cap who was weirdly belligerent and seemed to have been at the fair for multiple days. He approached the press requesting to be interviewed and his question was the same “why do the Democrats have to disrespect our president?” There were also a group of young women wearing shirts for a non-profit related to Alzheimer’s research who occupied a block of seats and asked every candidate about Alzheimer’s research funding. Finally, there was an unnamed Democratic Party county level official with an overinflated sense of importance who talked as if he was the king-maker of Iowa politics and every candidate, including Barack Obama, owed their fortunes to him.

When Weld stopped speaking the rain stopped which probably isn’t a good omen for his campaign. I had a few hours to kill before the next candidate spoke, so I decided to embark on trying fair food. There were hundreds of food stands, some of them franchises and many serving similar items but there were some unique experiences that I have to share. First was the deep-fried bacon wrapped rib on a stick which was probably as close to a religious experience that any of us can hope to experience on Earth. Next was the classic fair food, the deep fried twinkie which was covered in powdered sugar and drizzled with chocolate sauce. Then there was a Canadian import, poutine which is French Fries sprinkled with cheese curds and served with hot brown gravy. Finally, there was the apple eggroll from Applishus which can only be described as everything you love about apple pie with the handheld mobility of an egg roll complete with cinnamon caramel dipping sauce. When I finished eating and exploring the fairgrounds it was time for the next candidate to speak, Tom Steyer. Money can’t buy you happiness, but it seems to be able to buy you one hell of a campaign organization because Steyer arrived with some fanfare to the soapbox. The type of swarm that surrounded him was unexpected given the fact that he’s polling in the low single digits nationally and I’d almost forgotten he was running.

Before he spoke a woman from the Des Moines Register gave a very practiced speech that she would repeat a number of times throughout the day. She told the audience to be “Iowa Nice” which was obvious code for “shut the hell up when the candidate is talking” and she also requested that we keep our signs down if we had any. Steyer walked out and gave an impassioned speech about the threat of climate change and the importance of defeating Donald Trump. He saved time for questions, much of which was eaten up but the Alzheimer’s group and the sleeveless wonder defending Trump’s honor. Then as quickly as he appeared, he was then gone again, disappearing behind the administration building to the press scrum to be questioned. The main event had yet to arrive, waiting through this cast of background characters in the 2020 was a formality for myself and many fairgoers who were waiting for the late afternoon when Sen. Bernie Sanders would speak. But admittedly I was disappointed at the day thus far. No of course I wasn’t going to vote for Weld or Steyer, but I would like to be heard and ask a question and so far, the opportunity had presented itself, perhaps because at every event I wasn’t directly in the candidates eyeline. Therefore, I resolved myself to be heard so I decided I was going to wait the 90 minutes between Steyer and the next candidate to make sure I got a prime position.

The next candidate to speak was Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado who had amassed a very large crowd but likely not because Iowa is Bennet country but rather directly following his remarks Bernie would take the stage. Bennet looks like what would happen if a company market tested what people think a politician should look like and then they created him in a lab. Bennet came with wrangler jeans and a blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the standard uniform for a politician running for office. He was the first candidate I saw to bring his family; he brought his teen daughters and wife who stood at the side of the stage watching as Bennet spoke. He placed one leg on a hay bale and began to speak and although I’m no fan of Bennet I will say that he had the best delivery of the day so far. Then came the questions, I raised my hand and to my surprise we locked eyes and he pointed to me. Then some of the cameras pivoted to me in the crowd and the pressure was on and I knew that I needed to ask him about healthcare. So, I asked him about Medicare-for-All and why he opposes it and wouldn’t his plan for a public option necessarily lead to means testing. It was clear that he did not appreciate the question, nor did he appreciate the positive audience response. At first, he tried to deny that his plan would lead to means testing and for some reason that answer in addition to having the crowd on my side lead me to heckle him. He said it wasn’t means testing I yelled “Oh yes it is!” and then he said he said Medicare- for-All was dangerous and I yelled “Says the guy with a government healthcare plan” and when he said that he appreciated what Bernie brought to the debate my comment of “Well drop out and endorse him!” got the crowd laughing and Sen. Bennet started to get worked up. At one point he was basically screaming into his microphone and the crowd of onlookers just looked dazed as he wrapped up his remarks.

Then the main event arrived. A plane flew overhead with a banner that said “Sen. Joni Ernst…WHAT THE FLOOD? – League of Conservation Voters” and there was pandemonium in the street. There were suddenly thousands of people, some hanging in trees, others banging makeshift drums, there was a sea of red MAGA hats yelling into the crowd, screaming throngs of college students, and an army of young frazzled volunteers handing out signs to the roaring masses. Then in the distance there was the sound of a hundred cameras shuttering all at once, a ball of mass slowly working its way through the crowd and in the middle just barely visible was a tuft of uncombed white hair. It was Bernie.

Bernie couldn’t stop moving or else he would’ve been swamped and perhaps he would’ve never made the stage. He didn’t stop for pictures and people reached out their hands to touch him and he let them often grabbing hands but there were always more coming at him in a constant stream, the scene reminded me of old pictures of Bobby Kennedy out on the trail. The Bennet people were quickly pushed out and Bernie’s people were hustled to the soapbox area. Bernie stood next to his wife Jane, both peering out at the massive crowd that stretched out in all directions while they waited for the woman from the DMR to finish her “Iowa nice” speech. When she did, he took the stage and there was an audible boom from the crowd and chants of “Bernie!” with signs waving and horns blasting, the rules of Iowa nice abandoned for the Senator from Vermont. The crowd took a long time to be settled but they followed Bernie’s remarks closely, on time for every applause line and with a vigor that is usually reserved for rock stars. Bernie spoke straight for 20 minutes about healthcare, the environment, wages, and the fundamentals that his campaign has been built around. He didn’t take a single question and the crowd didn’t care, when he began to leave the stage the crowd rushed behind the building scrambling to get into the press scrum which had been roped off in anticipation of the crowd reaction to Bernie. Hundreds of people lined the area behind the cameras clamoring for a chance to see Bernie up close, they stood quietly as to not interrupt their candidate during his interviews but there was a hum among those gathered.

Finally, the candidate finished his interviews but whether it was because of the heat, a prior engagement, or the daunting task of giving time to so many enthusiastic supporters, Bernie simply waved said “Thank You!” and left the fair. There wasn’t a person standing who wasn’t a little disappointed they couldn’t meet Bernie, but they still chanted his name as he walked away. It was truly unlike anything I’ve ever seen. After some time, the crowd dispersed, and I thought very briefly about staying another hour to listen to New York Mayor Bill deBlasio but that wasn’t a particularly appealing idea, so I decided it was time to call it a day. I left the fair, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it. There was something charming about the entire experience that I would recommend to everyone regardless of their political engagement.

I’ve often questioned whether Iowa ought to be the first in the nation primary. After all it is much whiter, older, and rural than the rest of America. There are states that are certainly more representative of not just America but the Democratic electorate, like Illinois or New Jersey. But there is value in Iowa, to win it you need more than name recognition or money, you need visibility and a strong field program. Developing those things can help a candidate win a national election and if you can’t do well in Iowa, you probably don’t have the campaign skills to become President. With bigger states and lower-information electorates, it might be enough to just buy $50 million dollars of TV ads. But with Iowa candidates must go to union halls, VFWs, churches, rotary clubs, universities, people’s living rooms, and engage every part of the electorate. That’s good and it gives underdogs the chance to compete. Without Iowa we may not have known the strength of Barack Obama or the weakness of Hillary Clinton or have ever seriously changed the political debate with Bernie Sanders. Iowa encourages candidates to remember the grassroots and see voters as something other than numbers, and the Iowa State Fair for all its wackiness is an important part of the process.

The post I Went to Iowa So You Don’t Have To appeared first on Occasional Planet.

What’s so [small-d] democratic about this year’s [capital D] Democratic and Republican caucuses? Not much.

The first time I caucused–back in 1972, in Missouri–I thought we had started a wonderful, participatory, democratic revolution. Smoke-filled back rooms were out. We the people were in. The format back then was essentially the same as what I saw this year in Iowa: People signed in, congregated with others who backed this candidate or that, and were counted. But it didn’t take long to realize that the format violated at least one sacred, democratic principle: the secret ballot. Man, I really hated that. Even though I was not ashamed to caucus for my guy [was it McGovern? I can’t remember any more], I knew there was something off about the lack of privacy–and the resulting vulnerability to pressure from other candidates’ zealots.

And from what I saw via CSPAN’s coverage of the 2016 Iowa caucuses, that has not changed.

At least Iowa Republicans got to vote on folded slips of paper. But that procedure did not exempt them from other un-democracy-like system flaws. In the precinct I watched on CPAN, caucusers received pre-printed ballots. In other precincts, though, they simply wrote their preference on a blank slip of paper, running the risk that illegible handwriting could disenfranchise them.

Then, there’s that whole pesky business of counting: At Republican caucuses, we saw slips of paper dropping to the floor; counters stacking ballots into unlabeled piles, or tossing them into popcorn buckets with candidates’ names scrawled on them. In the chaotic Democratic precinct I observed on C-SPAN, it took more than an hour just to figure out how many eligible people were in the room. Then, when the Clinton, Sanders, O’Malley and uncommitted groups crowded together, they were counted by a finger-pointing operative. At the end of the counting, numbers were tossed around, added, subtracted, revised and ultimately decided upon by committee. Accountability? Personal responsibility? Fuh-geddabout-it.

Iowa Dems and Republicans are said to treasure the down-homey-ness of it, the historical quaintness, and the sense of community and small-townish-ness, where everybody gets together for a good old electoral hoe-down. But it’s all faux nostalgia for an America that never really was. And it’s not working for America today.

It’s not only the internal procedures that are undemocratic. There’s a meta problem here, too. A more participatory process for nominating candidates is a heckuva lot better than the old party-boss way, no doubt. But the weight given to three mostly rural and very conservative states–Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina–by the parties and by the media–unfairly skews the political debate toward issues outside of mainstream–and, in particular, urban–America. For the months-long runup to the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus, we heard almost nothing about Ferguson, Black Lives Matter, Flint Michigan, or Baltimore police brutality, because people who care about those issues don’t caucus in Iowa–so who cares. So much for government for and by the people.

It’s also extremely undemocratic to make it impossible for so many potential caucus-ers to express their preferences. Even the worst-offending states in the voting-rights realm haven’t tried to restrict voting to a two-hour window on only one night of the year. At least, in regular elections, voters can cast absentee ballots, or show up before or after work, or on lunch hour. But the norm for caucuses is vastly more restrictive: If you’re not in the door by 7:00 pm on caucus night, you are excluded. If you do care about who might lead your party, but you’re working two jobs and can’t afford to miss a shift, that’s just too bad for you. You don’t count. And as the over-valued Iowa caucus sets the presidential election in motion, the train has left the station without you.

For me, the bottom line is this: We live in a country whose politicians and citizens love to brag about being “the best in the world.” We continually lay claim to having the world’s largest and most successful democracy. It’s a political axiom to point with pride to the power and worldwide influence of the United States–and many politicians and military leaders have a penchant for wanting to spread “democracy” to other nations.

How are we supposed to spread “democracy” when we’re doing such a crappy job of running our own? And shouldn’t we be embarrassed that we go about choosing the leaders of such a “great” country via such a haphazard and undemocratic process?

[There are better ways. To read more about alternatives to our current primary/caucus system, click here.]

The post Democratic [and Republican] caucuses are not very democratic. appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I have a very vivid memory of being in a meeting hall in St. Louis in late 2007 as Obama organizers were recruiting supporters to go up to Iowa and knock on doors prior to the Iowa Caucuses the following January. The room was full of excitement, something that I did not particularly share. Part of it was that I did not want the physical discomfort of December and January in Iowa (the wimp factor). But an equal deterrent for me to volunteer was that I just did not believe that this was the way in which politics should happen.

I mean, what is the difference between citizens going door-to-door and asking voters to see it their way and the old Fuller Brush guy in the 1950s who would go door-to-door trying to convince people to buy one of his brooms? You might argue that voting is more important, and I would agree with that. But if it is so important, why do we leave our decisions to the whims of whether or not someone knocks on our door or not to try to talk us into supporting his/her candidate?

For those who really care about the future of our country, and the world, we study politics by reading up on the issues and the candidates. Ever since the 1950s, we have been able to receive considerable information through the air waves on television. Since the 1980s it has been from cable TV and more recently we have come to rely almost entirely on the internet.

But it’s not just politics that we learn about this way, it virtually everything that we don’t learn in a class or from someone who we already know, or from just taking some “think time” for ourselves. Whether we’re trying to figure out how to bake a cake or how to plan a vacation to another country, we don’t wait for someone to knock on our door and tell us what to do. When it comes to getting political information, look at the results of a 2014 survey by the Pew Research Center on how Millenials and Baby Boomers get their political news:

On the other hand, there is considerable evidence that “ground games” work in politics, particularly in Iowa where only the most committed voters bundle up and go out on a cold winter’s night to attend a political caucus in their area. It’s quite possible that had Barack Obama not received the jump start that he did by winning Iowa in 2008, in large part because of his team of canvassers, he would not be our president and we might be wrapping up eight years of a Hillary Clinton Administration.

What the Obama team knew in 2008, as many other campaigns have known before and since is that many American voters are malleable and pliable prior to an election. Often times they really are not aware of who the candidates are and for what office they are running. They are as susceptible to a door-knocker as young children are to a stranger who offers to give them a ride home.

This is where Trump comes in. He presently does not have much of a ground game in Iowa as we approach the February 1 date of the 2016 caucuses. But does he really need a significant ground game? He is all over the television, the radio and the newspapers. He’s equally omnipresent on social media. He gets so much attention that he hardly has to advertise his presence or his ideas.

When I wonder why he has received such media attention, I remember that when he announced his candidacy, when of the foremost on-line newspapers, the Huffington Post, said that they would not cover him in their news section; only in their entertainment section. Great idea, but guess what? It didn’t work and for months now he has been front and center in their news. But the Huffington Post was right to consider has candidacy to be entertainment.

Trump has brought his own campaign so much visibility that he largely makes a ground game meaningful. What conclusions can we draw from this?

1. Trump’s has engraved his identity into many Iowa voters simply by being himself and letting all forms of media carry the message for him, for free.
2. It’s possible that in the future other candidates would be able to forego a ground game in Iowa, if they are stupendous entertainers like Trump.
3. My wish that voters do not need “door-knockers” because they are independent informed about the candidates will probably not come true any time soon.

Is there any way in which we could create a “hybrid experience” in which candidates who are more thoughtful and responsible than Trump could independently become as well-known to voters? I don’t think this will happen in the near future. But let us not let the Trump phenomena pass without thinking how much better our political process would be if voters really knew a great deal about candidates.

The post Why a progressive would not mind seeing Trump win Iowa appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The first contest for delegates to our national political conventions is the Iowa caucus. In 2012, it will be on Monday, February 6.

Iowa is a small state, with less than 1% of the nation’s population. But anticipation for the caucus consumes a huge portion of our national attention as we approach that fateful Monday evening. And money that is spent in Iowa to receive a mere handful of votes in comparison to those in primary states is astronomical.

Progressives across the country have been desperately waiting for President Barack Obama to support their ideas for reform in a variety of areas. They want more than rhetoric or cautious actions. They seek a boldness reminiscent of how Franklin Roosevelt pulled us out of the Great Depression. Throughout his presidency, Barack Obama has tempered the idealism of progressives with caution that sometimes can be mistaken for paralysis. He has successfully defined himself as a centrist who works for bi-partisanship whenever possible.

However, there are certain areas in which bold change is possible where it previously had not been so. The reason, spelled out, is L-A-M-E D-U-C-K. Even before a president hits a second term, issues come and go, not to return again, even if he or she serves a second term.

Such is the case with the Iowa caucuses. It is indeed very much alive for the Republicans in 2012, but with President Obama facing nominal or no opposition, he will waltz through it. Where prior to the 2008 Iowa Caucus he and many in his entourage almost lived in Iowa, prior to the 2012 caucus he’ll make only a couple of pro forma visits, so as to not offend the Iowa voters to the point that they would feel that he cares so little about them that he does not value their votes in the November general election.

So what we have is a perfect storm, or more accurately, a perfect opportunity for President Obama. Factor No. 1: the 2012 Iowa Caucuses already have has name in the winning column for Democrats. Factor No. 2: the caucuses represent one of the greatest aberrations to democracy that exist in the American political system. The result of the “storm” is that President Obama can essentially say anything that he would like to about how the Iowa caucuses are designed and run, at no particular political loss.

What is so bad about the Iowa caucuses?

1. They essentially determine who the front runners will be for each party’s nomination, as a result of the preferences of just a handful of voters. Record turnout in 2008 meant that 250,000 voters attended Democratic caucuses, and another 118,000 attended Republican caucuses. Those combined voters represented a pittance of the total number of Americans who would vote for president in November, to be exact, three-one thousandth of all voters. This would be equivalent to a mere 210 fans sitting at the 70,000-seat football stadium at the University of Iowa. There would be 69,690 empty seats representing all the American voters who could or did not participate in the Iowa caucuses.

2. The money spent on the Iowa caucuses make a mockery of any attempt to limit the amount of money in the American political process. In 2008, Hillary Clinton spent $29 million to garner 74,000 votes and come in third place. That comes out to $392 per vote. In contrast, when I ran for Congress in 2010, I spent $50 thousand to gain 77,000 votes or 64-cents per vote and came in second.

3. The Iowa caucuses are in January or February, the dead of winter. Temperatures rarely reach freezing. and the roads are often covered with snow or ice. It is not an inviting time to go to an evening caucus, and it is downright dangerous for the elderly, infirm, or injured.

4. There is no provision for absentee voting which means that anyone who works the night shift or who is at home taking care of a child is excluded from the process, no matter how strongly they have a preference among the candidates.

5. There are voters, particularly in rural areas, who do not live close to the nearest caucus location. They are either excluded from the process or face special hardships.

6. The African-American population of Iowa is 2%, compared to the national percentage of 13%. The Hispanic population of Iowa is 5%, compared to the national percentage of 16%. Iowa is hardly a demographic microcosm of the United States.

For these and other reasons, the influence of Iowa on selecting our candidates running for president is both excessive and a mockery. However, it persists from one election cycle to another. The change will not come from the state of Iowa because tens of millions of dollars are spent in the state that would not be if it was not first in the nation. Additionally, it receives priceless news coverage, generally portraying the state as quaint and idyllic. It has no motivation to initiate any changes.

Any candidate who will be running competitively in Iowa in the future would be foolish to challenge the system. The only thing that he or she would gain is the enmity of the voters.

However, President Obama is free to challenge the Iowa system. This is different from taking on the Electoral College because he still needs to wind his way through it on a presumed path to victory in November, 2012. Challenging the system in Iowa now is preferable to waiting until 2016 because the Democrats will once again be competitively involved in the caucuses at that time.

There is a line of conventional wisdom that President Obama has chosen a cautious path during his first term, but if reelected he will utilize his position as a lame duck to propose and energetically advocate the reform that so many of his supporters thought he embraced when he ran in 2008. However, if we have learned anything about this man of many mysteries, it is to judge him on his actions rather than our own interpretations of what he really supports.

We can only hope that President Obama presently initiates discussion on reforming our electoral process, with an initial focus on the undemocratic nature of the Iowa caucuses. If he does not, the travesty of Iowa will continue until some other reform-minded president wants to take it on. Additionally, engagement by the president will stir his liberal base into thinking that the reform-minded president for whom they thought they voted in 2008 is only waiting for the right opportunity to advocate that reform. If President Obama remains silent about the Iowa process, it bodes poorly for what kind of agenda we could expect from him in a second term.

The post Iowa caucuses: A reform opportunity for Obama appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Newt Gingrich has been the subject of well-deserved criticism as he attempts to be the “outside-insider” candidate to win the Republican presidential nomination. Because he is such a fun target for many Republicans as well as virtually all Democrats, there is little discrimination in the criticism directed his way. Many of his opponents acknowledge that he has smarts – perhaps more than any of the other Republican candidates. However, whenever he speaks truth to power, he is treated as the same piñata as when he pontificates on family values, while having left two wives who were recovering from serious illnesses in hospitals. He also led the impeachment charade against Bill Clinton, while having his own affair a few hundred feet from the House floor.

Democrats have good reason to fear that Republican presidents will be reckless. Criticizing a candidate for being potentially dangerous and a loose cannon is fair game and within the bounds of political correctness. However, to speak about a candidate not being intelligent or educated enough to be president is not acceptable, either politically or to the P.C. police. So when Democrats want to talk about the intellectual capabilities of a George W. Bush, Dan Quayle, or Sarah Palin, they have two choices. They can whisper to one another, now more feasible with the growth of the blogosphere. Or they can leave it to comedians such as Jon Stewart or Bill Maher to say what everyone else is thinking. Particularly in Stewart’s case, he validates his mocking of intellectually challenged candidates through use the magic of TiVo and by nailing them with their own quotes.

But Newt can’t buy a break. Shortly after announcing his candidacy, he appeared on Meet the Press. In response to a question from David Gregory about Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) voucher plan to cut Medicare costs, Gingrich said, “I don’t think that right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering.”

Gingrich was not criticized by people on the left, because they see right-wing engineering as curtailing reproductive rights, gay rights, civil rights, and a host of other human rights. While they may not agree with Gingrich on many things, the “Meet the Press” statement with a libertarian tinge to it was acceptable, perhaps refreshing.

However, Gingrich was immediately skewered by Republicans for violating Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment, “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” Clearly, Gingrich’s propensity to consider ideas not in the standard Republican playbook is unacceptable, because that playbook does not include any provision for free thought.

Regrettably for Gingrich, he often undermines his independent thinking by allowing himself to be bullied by his colleagues. While Anthony Weiner showed how awkward it is to step back from an indiscretion, Gingrich showed how awkward it is to step back from truth to falsehood. First he said that he didn’t mean what he said on Meet the Press; then he said that David Gregory’s question was a “gotcha” (listen to the question on the tape, and you’ll find that hard to believe); and finally he took Apology Road and professed his respect for Paul Ryan and loyalty to the party line.

Gingrich appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, May 15, and the next major event for Republican candidates was a so-called debate  in New Hampshire on Monday, June 13. Many of the other candidates were beating the hustings in Iowa where the first caucus will be, and New Hampshire, where the first primary will be. Gingrich, who certainly did not have the reputation of a family man, decided to take a two week Mediterranean cruise with his latest wife, Callista. Apparently, her name means “thoroughly beautiful” in Greek,  and that was important enough to her for her to want to visit the country. Newt wanted to please and also saw the cruise as an opportunity to research issues and clarify his positions on various issues. That was playing to his forte; unlike some of the other Republican candidates, he knows how to study and to utilize information to form arguments.

Unfortunately for him, his campaign staff did not see the cruise as time well spent, and on June 9 they resigned en masse. This was basically unprecedented in American politics. They could not believe that he would not dedicate every waking moment to meeting with party officials and voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.

It may be that Gingrich realized the absurd importance that most politicians and pundits place on these two relatively small states. To a large extent, voters in these two states judge a candidate by how much time he or she spends in the state. The voters have every right to do this, but in a rational world, they would lose their right to accuse a candidate of being petty by not setting up camp in their state. Those candidates who focus on Iowa and New Hampshire (i.e. those who usually win the nominations) choose to play along with our absurd system of caucuses and primariess. Iowa and New Hampshire each have less than 1% of the nation’s population. Why should candidates spend close to 100% of their time in these two states over the first six months of the campaign?

Gingrich never said that he took the cruise because he felt that there was too much emphasis on Iowa and New Hampshire. However, he’s smart enough to know that the system is flawed. Perhaps he’s also impatient enough to choose to avoid the tedium and boredom of endless and mindless campaigning.

In any event, Gingrich’s decision to take the cruise was more than his staff and many of his supporters could take. When the June 13 debate finally rolled around, Gingrich showed that he was the class of the field when it came to factual knowledge and creative thinking.

It appears to all have been for naught. His liabilities as a candidate who reasonable voters could respect and support are far too great. No one has to look hard to find ways to question Gingrich’s character and his viability as a candidate. With that being the case, perhaps he can be respected for those moments when he exercises command of facts, wisdom, good judgment, and a keen eye for the absurd. There is a second side to the “Newt Coin,” and it includes a few virtues. There’s no need to criticize him for everything. Perhaps he understood this when he traveled to Greece, understanding that the best he could be was not a winner, but rather a tragic Greek figure whose flaws were far too many for any virtues to surmount.

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