Every year, it’s the same pandermonium in Iowa: Yay, ethanol that’s driving up food prices; yay, the same rednecks that get to choose the candidates! Lame. This whole system is totally unjust, and it gives an absolutely unfair advantage to one stupid, otherwise insignificant state to make selfish decisions about policy for the whole country (no offense, Iowans). I was thinking maybe that Iowa is the “Hawkeye State” because they have scared the hell out of both political parties with their hawk-like glare as if the politicians were mice on the plains, and they’re playing a game of chicken (hawk) with candidates over stuff like ethanol and corn subsidies; but I’m just not sure. The one thing I am sure of, though, is that Iowa shouldn’t always get to be the first primary state for presidential primaries.* No one state should!
Look, it’s never fair for any one small group to decide everything for everyone all the time (I guess unless it’s Wall Street money-men, because they give the big donations to candidates! But that’s another rant.), so here’s what I would propose: All states get a chance to be first. I think it ought to be like a dorm-room lottery, where you get to draw for the good spots, but that each state should be handicapped by how recently they were first, etc. So it should be based on luck (otherwise the politicians would know way in advance who to plan on pandering to, and that’s not fair to anyone else, unless we just assume they’re always lying, which they are, but still…), but still give everyone a chance to be first, second, third, etc., eventually. I’m not sure exactly how to do the system, but you get the idea. Every state should get a chance to be earlier on in the primary system and have more influence, and a lottery system is the only way to be sure they would (unless they just want to use a revolving schedule, which would at least be better than what we have now†). It’s not really fair any other way, now, is it?
* I live in California. How would you Iowans like it if every year, politicians came out here and kissed our butts with all kinds of goodies for us, like TV and movie production subsidies, government programs for developing new-age “medicine” and kooky religious cults, and tax breaks for drug gangs? Oh, and how about surfing subsidies? Peacenik pandering? Illegal-immigrant indulgences? Does this not sound good to you, Iowans? Then just think of how tired we all are of you guys getting all your preferential presidential primary promises, programs and perks every cycle!
† The only problem with a revolving schedule is that the politicians would know way in advance what state would be next, so they would be focusing on pandering to local areas, rather than trying to develop policies that work for everyone. I hope that makes sense.
