A few minutes ago, on PBS's newshour, I heard Michael Beschloss* glorifying the Iowa caucuses as a salutary throwback to 19th century retail politics. In solemn tones and stern, Beschloss reminded Americans that if we had a national presidential primary, we would only ever hear candidates speak from TV studios in New York and Burbank. Clearly, therefore, disenfranchising the vast, vast majority of Democrats and Republicans in their own parties' nominating processes, is a small price to pay to subordinate the primary elections to a historical recreation party in one tiny, white-as-driven-snow state. Why not preempt the Iowa caucuses with a straw poll of employees in Colonial Williamsburg? Or is there something particularly special about 19th century politics that's worth celebrating?
Plenty of people have pointed out that the absurdity of the Iowa process, and the immorality of delegating national electoral decisions to Iowa, are both sufficient reasons to put an end to the caucuses. There is a further reason to be rid of this ridiculous farce that has gone largely under the radar, namely, that the caucus system creates an incentive for candidates to commit crimes. To wit, several days ago, CNN reported that candidates are offering babysitting and snow-shoveling services to their supporters to bring them out to the caucuses. All day today, MSNBC has been making the same claim in its news crawl. (Unfortunately, neither source specifies which candidates are doing this, or to what extent.)
How can these tactics be construed as anything other than open, unambiguous, criminal bribery? It's fairly straightforward to establish the labor costs of hiring a babysitter, snow-shoveler, etc., as well as the costs (in time spent and phone charges) of acquiring a babysitter or snow-shoveler. Would it be kosher for campaigns to ask their supporters to submit itemized expense reports, to be reimbursed after the caucuses? What if a campaign just gave every one of its supporters $50, approximating two hours of babysitting and snow-shoveling plus a little change? This last case, clearly, is bribery. I'm no expert on election law, but I can't imagine the FEC, and possibly the Justice Dept., wouldn't taken an interest in such a scenario.
After all, if a campaign approached a voter and offered her an envelope with cash, with a message attached reading "Best wishes from Sen. X, here's hoping you come out to caucus on January 3," it's no less a case of bribery than if Sen. X offered cash explicitly in exchange for a vote. Why should offering babysitting, snow-shoveling, or any other service or commodity with a cash value, be any different?
By the way, the disgraceful farce that's about to be perpetrated on the American people is the work of Patrick Caddell, the water-breathing slickster who's found a second-life as a permanently aggrieved pundit, and whose other major achievement is engineering the Jimmy Carter presidency.
Sarah Jessica Parker is really very very beautiful specially during her younger years’
Where do you come up with this? Just saying you are very imaginative. I wish I had your blogging style.