A couple of things up front. First, I have NOTHING against Iowa. I think Iowa is a fine state, I have friends who are proud Hawkeyes, and I have enjoyed both visiting the State and driving through it.
Second, while the subject matter of this section is the Democratic Party and the potential to upend the “traditional” Presidential nominating process, I wish NOT to be counted among those who pontificate about what parties they are not part of ought to do to be more like parties that they are part of. I find it annoying when some conservative talking head opines on what is good for the Democrats, and I feel similarly about liberals who offer helpful advice to the Republicans. Nine times out of ten, there are ulterior motives in the advice that renders it unattractive to the stated target.
In this case though, I am not a conservative giving Democrats advice. I am a conservative opining on the way that we nominate Presidential candidates in this country, and I am seeing the Democrats do something that I find helpful to improving this (broken, ineffective) process. It is at best a half measure, but I applaud it nonetheless.
It seems there is a move afoot among the grandees of the party of the left to remove from the (rural, white) State of Iowa its exalted status as the location of the first primary. From the link, here is why:
For years, Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire have battled criticism from others in the party who argued that the two states are not racially diverse enough to kick off the Democratic nomination process.
New Hampshire, to its credit, at LEAST has an actual primary, where people go to polls and vote during the course of an election day. Iowa holds “caucuses” where one must “caucus” at an appointed time and place, listen to reps of candidates bloviate, and then vote.
I am not bothered by the racial diversity of either state (after all, Barack Obama did fine in his race, and the whitest dude in the field in 20202—Joe Biden—lost both Iowa and New Hampshire. No, I am bothered by the entitlement of Iowans and Granite Staters, this “we do the work for the rest of you” approach to politics that for some reason assumes that the skills and talents for such appraisal are tied to geography.
The first person I heard offer a better way (than the current scattershot and expensive method) of holding primaries was one put forward fifteen years ago by University of Virginia (natch) Government Professor and all around legend Larry Sabato. Sabato suggested a system of grand, regional primaries, and this piece lays it out. Sabato is onto something here, but I’d prefer a “time zone” primary (I’m not the first to think of this by far), in which there would be four giant primaries conducted in March, April, May, and June. The sequence would change with every election, so each time zone would get its crack at going first every sixteen years. All candidates would spend most of the up front time working hard in the first primary region. Let’s take the Eastern time zone for example. With a February primary, starting the year prior candidates would begin to work their way up and down the coast and westward into parts of the Midwest. You want diversity? You get diversity. You want rural and urban? You get rural and urban. You get the liberal Northeast and the Conservative Southeast—in the same primary. The those who do well in this primary are by definition, “national” candidates, and you’d see a great deal of attrition from the field at the end of this first large primary. For the next thirty days, whoever is left then moves into the next time zone and works like the devil to keep their momentum.
“Well Wahoo”, you might say, “the Central and Mountain states are pretty solidly Republican, doesn’t this argue against your plan?” Why no, no it doesn’t. Because there are STILL Democrats in those States, and this approach would incentivize “closed” primaries in which only members of those parties vote. Same goes for Republicans in Connecticut or New Jersey.
Or you might say “Well Wahoo, the population in the time zones is nowhere NEAR equal ( Eastern Time Zone has 47.6%, the Central Time Zone has 29.1%, the Mountain Time Zone has 6.7%, and the Pacific Time Zone has 16.6%.), so why would we give so much power and authority to less than 7% of the population every 16 years? My answer is two-fold—first, why not? I mean, we give IOWA and NEW HAMPSHIRE a ridiculously disproportionate influence now—and it appears my approach certainly is better than that. And to put it bluntly, why shouldn’t Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and Utah (among others) get some love from potential Presidents? Secondly, when the election starts in the Mountain Time zone, it is likely that the the second zone will have considerable influence too. Meaning that candidates might avoid “shooting the moon in the Mountain Time Zone and only hope to “survive” to move onto a larger population primary.
I have little hope of my plan being accepted in my lifetime because of the complexity of getting two major parties to agree to something of this scope. In the meantime, I’ll take any sign of movement in breaking up the sclerotic and past its prime way we do things now.
Final UVA Basketball Mention of the Season
UVA beclowned itself in the ACC Tournament this year, demonstrating offensive capabilities that were….offensive… in barely beating Louisville and then getting creamed by UNC. The UVA Hoops social media mavens took to their platforms of choice to comfort all of us with words like “I’ll take a winning season in the ACC as a down year” and “Nineteen wins including at Duke—I’ll take it”, statements that reinforce the plain fact that the not only is the PROGRAM not ready for Blue Blood status, but the fanbase is clearly not there. Can you IMAGINE Kentucky or Duke fans saying that kind of gack? No. You can’t. Because Kentucky and Duke fans EXPECT 25 wins and Sweet 16 runs EVERY YEAR. So should UVA.
I thought that was where UVA was leaving the 2019 Championship season, but then all three of the big three (Guy, Jerome, Hunter) left for the pros and the 2020 season was a regrettable, offensively ugly, mercifully COVID-shortened affair. 2021 was equally frustrating, ending with a COVID shortened ACC Tournament and a loss in the first round to mighty….Ohio University.
This year’s team can ONLY be considered a step back even from last year. In fact, the team has declined for three straight years. A lot of fans said that the Natty win means we are playing with house money for five years, and I sort of accepted that. Until now, when the PROGRAM looks flaccid. We have two seven footers and a nearly as tall coach who “specializes” in the play of centers, and our play in the paint is terrible. We have the STILL college basketball three point percentage leader as our head coach, and our BIG TRANSFER from Indiana shoots considerably WORSE from 3 points than he did in the Big 10. We played two point guards 90 per cent of the time while talented (presumably) wing men sat on the bench getting little or no playing time, and to the extent that there was a wing man coming off the bench he was mostly a liability. Additionally, one of those two point guards disappeared for half a game most games, and most frustrating of all is that you could never tell which it was going to be.
But—the homers tell me—we have a GREAT recruiting class coming in next year, which I am ready to accept. But I’ve spent thirteen years listening to experts tell me how hard it is to learn Tony Bennett’s system, and I believe them. How many of the “never take off my warm ups” riding the bench all season are going to come back next year, what with the benefits of the transfer portal offering the tantalizing prospect of actually PLAYING college basketball elsewhere (without sitting out a year)? And those four splashy, shiny recruits? Next year it seems likely that one or more of them will NOT PLAY as much as they have during their senior year of high school and their star-studded summers of AAU ball. After years of being told how good they are, that they are can’t miss pros, they’ll come to a program that is hard to learn and at least two of them won’t get the playing time they desire. So they’ll hop into the transfer portal for some mid-major program and we’ll be sorta where we are now.
I hope I’m wrong. My MONEY says I’m wrong, as I have already bought tickets to November tournament in Vegas. But I’m in a foul place with this team and I thought you should know. Now I will sit back and casually enjoy the rest of March Madness, hoping that (later tonight) Duke and Va Poly Tech can both lose.
It is now Sunday night, VPI beat Duke, and the bracket is out. Warren Buffett needs to get his checkbook out, because THIS bracket will be the Billion Dollar Baby!
Sucker Punched 3/12/22
I wrote last week in this space of the annual “crocus” sucker punch that lulls me into thinking that spring has sprung. Right on time, the snow and freezing rain arrived on March 12.
I like this idea! The whole “the Iowa caucus is historic and traditional” thing was always a canard since it isn’t. The primary process is broken and since we’re unlikely to go back to smoke filled rooms and repealing the direct election of senators, this time zone process seems a step in the right direction.