Harry Reid is lucky he is retiring rather than running for president. Shortly before the first Democratic debate, the Senate minority leader challenged the sacrosanct first-in-the-nation status of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
Reid complained that these states don’t deserve their disproportionate influence over the presidential selection process because they don’t reflect the demographic diversity of the country. “You go to New Hampshire. There are not any minorities there. Nobody lives there,” he groused. “You go to Iowa. There are a few people there, but again it’s a place that does not demonstrate what America is all about, for a lot of different reasons.”
New Hampshire Democrats pushed back and Reid issued a sarcastic apology. Neither state has seen a serious challenge to its place in the 2016 primary calendar. And Reid has an ulterior motive, since the Nevadan has been trying to make his state’s caucuses, 20 days after Iowa, a more important part of the process.
But New Hampshire and Iowa guard their first-in-the-nation status so jealously because Reid’s objection is widely shared. Scott Walker had to fire consultant Liz Mair because she said some impolitic, Reid-like things about the Iowa caucuses. Even Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus has said, “I don’t think there should ever be any sacred cows as to the primary process or the order.”
The caucuses have a mixed record of predicting the eventual nominee. George W. Bush is the only GOP non-incumbent to go from winning the Iowa caucuses all the way to the White House, although his father probably wouldn’t have been president without winning the state in 1980.
Iowa has also tended to elevate the conservative candidate with the least money: Pat Robertson over Jack Kemp, Pat Buchanan over Phil Gramm, Mike Huckabee over Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson, Rick Santorum over Rick Perry, all of whom lost the nomination. The argument for having small states with relatively cheap media markets lead off is that it prevents the big-money campaigns that can afford to advertise in multiple cities simultaneously from just running the table.
Bobby Jindal is trying to revive his cash-strapped campaign in Iowa. John Kasich has more support in New Hampshire than the rest of the country. Bernie Sanders’ Granite State lead is the only reason the Democratic race is competitive at all.
Diverse electorates or diverse presidential fields, the parties may have to pick which they would prefer.
