# Iowa caucuses 2016: Still relevant or not **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 6, 2013, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504 "2013-08-06T17:35:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/21 "2013-08-07T19:39:46Z")
Circular reasoning there. Iowa caucus-goers are certainly as subject as anyone else to the bandwagon effect - many supported those guys \*because \*they were being sold by the press as major contenders. Which, having early funding from their fundie base and patrons, they were. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/22 "2013-08-07T22:58:15Z")
That’s certainly not true of Santorum. He led a very modest campaign in Iowa as far as money goes and was mostly ignored by the media. Rick Perry was raking in money like a madman and getting crazy media attention and flopped big time. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/23 "2013-08-07T23:23:06Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If they can pass a state law that they always go first, then any other state can do the same thing. What happens then? It becomes [a game of chicken](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7hZ9jKrwvo). “We’re caucusing next week.” “Well, then we vote tomorrow.” “Well then, darn you, we’re promoting last night’s beerfest and drunken brawl at Suzie’s Dance Club to be our caucus.” Do click the Youtube link. Its ending may be reminiscent of some GOP primaries. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/24 "2013-08-08T03:20:44Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > In other words it ignores everything that counts: campaign contributions, news coverage, how a campaign is perceived. Little things like that. Iowa and NH don’t decide the GOP’s nominees. If the Democrats believe they have a problem, they can change their party rules. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/25 "2013-08-08T13:49:55Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > They do not determine the course of anything, unless the people of places like New York and California and Texas just blindly follow their recommendations. No, the field gets winnowed down so that the people in New York and California and Texas don’t get the opportunity to back anyone else. Maybe I would have really liked to put in my vote for Chester Bluster, but by the time it gets to me he’s been knocked out. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/26 "2013-08-08T14:32:19Z")
I think Iowa and New Hampshire serve useful purposes. They make the candidates interact with actual voters and do politics at the retail level rather than see who has the best ad campaign. If we started with say Florida, the state is so large that it comes down to money and ads. In the small states, the voters can look you in the eye and take their measure of you and then winnow down the field for the larger states to choose from. It isn’t perfect, the Iowa GOP skews very far to the right so fairly reasonable Republicans really have no prayer there, making New Hampshire the make or break state for the Iowa also-rans. I’d rather keep it this way than have a one day national primary where money talks loudest. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/27 "2013-08-08T14:40:58Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I think Iowa and New Hampshire serve useful purposes. They make the candidates interact with actual voters and do politics at the retail level rather than see who has the best ad campaign. Is that desirable? I’m not sure being good at glad-handing the locals and kissing babies really has anything to do with either the type of skills that makes for a good President or even a good national campaigner. It probably doesn’t hurt either, but it hardly seems important enough to design our primary system around. Plus Prez. candidates are almost always drawn from the ranks of successful lower-level politicians, so most have already proven they’re good at that kind of thing. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/28 "2013-08-08T15:20:03Z")
Conventional wisdom is that IA and NH don’t create winners, but they do reveal losers. A candidate who’s phony, overprogrammed, a creation of his handlers, unable to connect with people on their own level does get exposed as such while kissing hands and shaking babies. I have no problem with the size of those electorates, but I do think we’d be better off with the earliest primaries that are both small enough to require retail politics, and demographically more representative of the US than of the NHL. But the system generally works. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/29 "2013-08-08T15:45:08Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Conventional wisdom is that IA and NH don’t create winners, but they do reveal losers. A candidate who’s phony, overprogrammed, a creation of his handlers, unable to connect with people on their own level does get exposed as such while kissing hands and shaking babies. Mitt Romney won New Hampshire, and John Kerry Iowa in their respective cycles. Both men could serve as the poster-children for phony and overprogrammed. I think the conventional wisdom is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/30 "2013-08-09T12:39:09Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > ^Exactly. 2012 Iowa Caucuses elevated Rick Santorum from irrelevence.( Even though I think Paul managed to finagle most of the delegates.) He did. Paul managed to get 22 out of 28 delegates, in spite of coming in third. Santorum, who came in first, didn’t get any, and Romney, who came in second, got 6. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/31 "2013-08-10T22:36:15Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > He did. Paul managed to get 22 out of 28 delegates, in spite of coming in third. Santorum, who came in first, didn’t get any, and Romney, who came in second, got 6. That’s because the only thing the Iowa Caucuses do is select delegates to Iowa’s county conventions - which, in turn, select delegates to Iowa’s congressional district level conventions - which (a) select the district’s delegates (75% of the state’s pledged delegate total) to the national convention and (b) select delegates to the Iowa state convention - which, in turn, selects the remaining national delegates. I don’t know if a delegate at a lower level convention is required to vote for the person he/she was supporting at the previous level - especially if that candidate officially drops out. Also, I’m pretty sure the 15% rule applies for the Democrats at all levels; if a candidate at a convention does not have at least 15% of the votes, that candidate sends nobody to the next level. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/32 "2013-08-10T22:55:33Z")
So basically, it’s like the Electoral College on steroids. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/33 "2013-08-11T00:35:02Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > He did. Paul managed to get 22 out of 28 delegates, in spite of coming in third. > [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > That’s because the only thing the Iowa Caucuses do is select delegates to Iowa’s county conventions - which, in turn, … which select … So Ron Paul got his support not from the moochers and loafers at the local level, but from the more charismatic adults to whom authority was eventually passed? Scary. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/34 "2013-08-11T19:33:20Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > So Ron Paul got his support not from the moochers and loafers at the local level, but from the more charismatic adults to whom authority was eventually passed? Pretty much. Santorum ended his campaign on April 10, which was about two weeks before Iowa’s district conventions, giving the Paul campaign a shot at talking the Santorum delegates into voting for Paul. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/35 "2013-08-12T12:07:05Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Mitt Romney won New Hampshire, and John Kerry Iowa in their respective cycles. Both men could serve as the poster-children for phony and overprogrammed. I think the conventional wisdom is wrong. You would expect a frontrunner to win at least one of the first two contests. For me, the contests are only a problem if they elevate someone who the herd then follows unquestioningly. The 2012 Republican contest, as much of a train wreck as it was, is how a competitive primary system is supposed to work. There was very little discernible bump from any candidate winning any particular state. They had to grind it out state by state. The 2004 Democratic primary is an example of what a herd mentality looks like. Kerry, written off for dead, wins Iowa, and then just cruises. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/36 "2013-08-14T10:01:35Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > You would expect a frontrunner to win at least one of the first two contests. For me, the contests are only a problem if they elevate someone who the herd then follows unquestioningly. > > The 2012 Republican contest, as much of a train wreck as it was, is how a competitive primary system is supposed to work. There was very little discernible bump from any candidate winning any particular state. They had to grind it out state by state. The 2004 Democratic primary is an example of what a herd mentality looks like. Kerry, written off for dead, wins Iowa, and then just cruises. The Democratic nomination process in 2004 was just painful. Kerry was weirdly overhyped by party and media types early on, and those people just abandoned Dean. Still, I liked John Kerry over GW Bush, who was pretty much anointed the nominee in 2000 before a single primary. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/37 "2013-08-19T11:15:05Z")
[Scott Brown](http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2013/08/18/former-senator-scott-brown-visits-iowa/oPmxyXAcq28993Kls8SbCP/story.html) thinks he has a chance to convince Iowans that yet another one-partial-term\* Republican from Massachusetts should be the next nominee. \*As in, Romney quit on the job halfway through so he could go campaigning while badmouthing the constituents he was still being paid to serve. Then he quit for real. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/38 "2013-08-23T00:58:35Z")
> [@Elv1sLives](#): > > Ask President Santorum or President Huckabee how much good winning Iowa did them. It’s a little better than the Ames straw poll, maybe, but not much. Winning Iowa is indeed meaningless, but Iowa does provide a way to demonstrate one’s ability to campaign–not just winning delegates, but garnering media attention, party insiders, and rich donors. And it does it in a state that is small enough that money provides an overwhelming advantage, yet not so small that targeting a few insiders will decide the race. > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Paul managed to get 22 out of 28 delegates, in spite of coming in third. Santorum, who came in first, didn’t get any, and Romney, who came in second, got 6. This is true, and shows the naivety of Paul supporters more than anything else if they really believe winning the delegates is the only criteria to winning a campaign. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/39 "2013-08-23T01:56:42Z")
> [@CJJ](#): > > This is true, and shows the naivety of Paul supporters more than anything else if they really believe winning the delegates is the only criteria to winning a campaign. Ummm…winning delegates to the national convention is, in fact, the only way to win a major party primary. Perhaps you were trying to make some other point? Something about how winning Iowa’s delegates doesn’t necessarily translate to winning delegates in other states? Maybe? ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504/40 "2013-08-23T13:55:34Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > Ummm…winning delegates to the national convention is, in fact, the only way to win a major party primary. Perhaps you were trying to make some other point? Something about how winning Iowa’s delegates doesn’t necessarily translate to winning delegates in other states? Maybe? You mean like how this discussion was about the Iowa caucus? And that the delegates referred to were Iowa delegates? Maybe? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucuses-2016-still-relevant-or-not/665504.md?page=1)