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The Iowa Caucuses Explained
by John Little on 3/01/2008The process in Iowa is bizarre and the audience is incredibly demographically limited but, as Al hompkins points out in his excellent guide to the process, it’s still incredibly relevant for one reason:
Out of this morass, the media crowns a winner and political fortunes rise and fall. The leadership of the most powerful country in the world hangs in the balance.
Howard Kurtz describes the effect:
one Democrat, one Republican — will blast into the stratosphere as if they were strapped to a booster rocket.
It’s an immutable law of political physics that those who prevail in Iowa will hurtle toward New Hampshire with bulked-up poll numbers, gathering blinding momentum on the path to nomination.
But the chief reason for the Iowa effect is an explosion of media coverage that treats the winners as superstars and the also-rans as lamentable losers. Without that massive media boost, prevailing in Iowa would be seen for what it is: an important first victory that amounts to scoring a run in the top of the first inning.
So, like it or not (I think it stinks actually), Iowa winds up being a big deal. It isn’t guaranteed to make or break a campaign but the impact can be substantial. BoW readers are typically hype-resistant but if you need to get up to speed on the process I’ve collected a few more resources:
NPR: What Goes On During the Iowa Caucuses, Anyway?
Los Angeles Times: Why Iowa? And what’s a caucus, anyway?
Christopher Hitchens: The Iowa Scam
Wikipedia: Iowa Caucus
Reuters: Iowa caucuses – small turnout, big impact
VoA: Iowa Caucuses Provide Grassroots Democracy
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