GatewayRedbirds.com

Vidor wrote:Iowa always going first is a farce, and the caucus system is a farce. This is stupid no matter how you slice it.

In some ways, the influence of the Iowa caucuses stems from the tumultuous 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Critics protested the way Democratic power brokers controlled the nomination process, including the selection of convention delegates.

The party responded with new rules on picking delegates, changes that basically forced Iowa to change the calendar of a caucus system it had used since the mid-19th century.

When Iowa Democrats moved up their 1972 caucuses to January, candidate and future Democratic nominee George McGovern — who had been involved in the rule changes — traveled to the Hawkeye State to campaign.

McGovern's exertions drew the attention of aides to the then-little-known governor of Georgia: Jimmy Carter.

After announcing his long-shot presidential bid in late 1974, Carter began racing across Iowa, recruiting volunteers, appearing on local and radio television states, and creating staged events that began to draw media coverage — basically the same thing that happens today.

pioneer98 wrote:http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli ... /79426692/

In some ways, the influence of the Iowa caucuses stems from the tumultuous 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Critics protested the way Democratic power brokers controlled the nomination process, including the selection of convention delegates.

The party responded with new rules on picking delegates, changes that basically forced Iowa to change the calendar of a caucus system it had used since the mid-19th century.

When Iowa Democrats moved up their 1972 caucuses to January, candidate and future Democratic nominee George McGovern — who had been involved in the rule changes — traveled to the Hawkeye State to campaign.

McGovern's exertions drew the attention of aides to the then-little-known governor of Georgia: Jimmy Carter.

After announcing his long-shot presidential bid in late 1974, Carter began racing across Iowa, recruiting volunteers, appearing on local and radio television states, and creating staged events that began to draw media coverage — basically the same thing that happens today.

The Beltway looked at Sanders and saw a raging figure on the fringe—an anomaly. If Sanders pulls out a win on Monday, he will have proven yet again that what seemed far-out was actually the party mainstream.

Sanders’s supporters love to ridicule the notion that socialism is something scary. They embrace it—they’re glad he’s made it a word you can say in public again. “I’m also a socialist,” John Dallas, a goateed Mason City housepainter, told me matter-of-factly. “I mean, how’s that capitalism working out in the United States? It’s fine for the top one-tenth of one percent, but the other 90 percent of us aren’t doing so well.”

And so Sanders has exposed the left-wing ideals in the hearts of a substantial portion of Democrats, just as surely as Trump has illustrated liberals’ stereotypes about Republican nativism and xenophobia.

The sensibility of the Clinton voter is recognizably distinct from Sanders’s fans: Clinton voters values moderation, temperance, and common sense, and can’t understand why everyone else seems to be yelling at each other. These are the voters disenfranchised by the current moment in our politics. They don’t want to smash the system, just to improve it. And nobody but Clinton seems to be speaking their language.

cardsfansince82 wrote:

jim wrote:I still have no earthly idea how this caucus nonsense works.