States Eye Economic Windfall of Replacing Iowa as First Contest

[question everything]

STATES JOCKEY TO REPLACE IOWA as the first contest of the Democratic nominating process following the counting debacle. Criticism that the state is too white and the caucuses too archaic to go first already put its status at risk. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker jumped into the debate early, suggesting his was the “most representative state in the country” and therefore an ideal first primary location. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is also supportive. A Pennsylvania congressman made the case for Delaware.

Other possibilities: Have all four current early primary states—Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina—go on the same day, since together they roughly match nationwide demographics. Some warn against a national primary, arguing that it would kill retail politics in favor of campaigns that can afford huge media budgets.

The benefits are myriad for the first state, and Iowans are terrified of losing them. The process nets Iowa tens of millions of dollars in economic impact, with over $10 million in the Des Moines metro area in the final week alone. The total impact is broader: The Des Moines tourism bureau estimated that national media coverage gave the region $228 million in advertising value equivalency in 2019, not counting the final month before the contest.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/states-eye-economic-windfall-of-replacing-iowa-as-first-contest-11581071400 (subscription)

[frazzled]

1. I'm not sure it would work

I’d love for Illinois to be first. We’re so diverse, both in race and ethnicity, and rural and urban populations. But I’ve spent a lot of time working primary events and canvassing in New Hampshire in the past. It’s a state of 1.3 million people. Iowa is a state of around 3 million people. Illinois has a population of nearly 13 million people.

Is it possible for candidates to develop the kind of intimate contact with voters at backyard barbecues, library town halls, and VFW breakfasts that these smaller states can cultivate?

I hope so, but it would have to be different. I deplore the unrepresentative nature of the two states that have enjoyed first in nation status all these years. And it’s time to change. But reaching into a state four to ten times bigger will be a challenge to candidates’ time and resources.

I hope it can work!

[question everything]

4. This probably sounds like blasphemy

But is "retail politics" the way to go?

[frazzled]

5. I think the retail politics is essential

In a culture where people are getting their information from splintered television sources, Facebook, and Twitter, and for a few , a televised debate or two in which candidates have 60 seconds to respond, at best, to journalist-conceived questions, there is great danger of falling into a “Bachelorette” style, reality tv type of decision making. And that can lead to very skewed perceptions.

Maybe you have to have experienced it, but there is a method to the madness of a campaign reaching out to very small groups of citizens in informal settings to listen to their real concerns and having to respond in depth, in places both rural and urban. The citizens, in turn, get to assess a candidate’s character, thoughtfulness, and positions outside of the canned television formats or the journalistic gotchas. Both candidates and citizens learn a lot. These small encounters grow over the course of many months into larger town halls, attended by more friends and neighbors who have heard about this or that candidate, and finally, just before Election Day, into larger rallies of volunteers and supporters that have accrued to a candidate, in order to get out the vote.

We should fear the day when expensive tv ads, pundits’ jibber jabber, and the loudness of Twitter are the means to democracy., replacing the judgment of the farmer and the school teacher and the student and the grandmother who have come out to listen and judge for themselves. I’d rather we returned to the parties choosing the candidates themselves in back rooms.

How can an unknown candidate, like an Obama or a Buttigieg or even a Klobuchar ever get a shot to be heard if they don’t start small and build organization over time and attain ground-up grass roots support from ever widening circles of people who have come to ask, and observe and judge?

[msongs]

2. make Iowa a primary, keep it on first day but ADD a few more representative states. first is

not the primary issue IMO

[SMC22307]

3. I like the idea of IA, NH, NV, and SC on the same day.

Share the wealth. Better representation of population and geographically diverse to boot.