File under: How Can You Be This Stupid?

Last night on national television, the Iowa Democratic Party shot itself in foot, and this morning it’s holding the same gun to its own head.  At this writing at 6:00 am, results of the caucus last night are still not in, and no one can say when they will be.  Holy Jesus.  With the 2020 election being probably the most significant presidential election in US history, some genius in Iowa decided it was a REALLY GOOD IDEA to roll out a new app to report caucus results.  AND, employing typical state party incompetence, training on said new app was between lame and non-existent.  Chaos ensued during the evening caucuses and the app, as apps are wont to do, locked up.  The state party then told precinct chairs to phone it in, jamming phone lines.  Some precincts actually had to take a photo of the app screen and drive the results in.  Stupid.  Incredibly stupid.

I’ve never really understood why Iowa has been so important for the last 40 years since Jimmy Carter put it on the map.  Or why it goes first.  Or why it still uses the caucus system which has never been all that reliable. Along with New Hampshire and Vermont, Iowa is probably the least representative of national diversity.  It’s sparsely populated and overwhelmingly white. I do know one thing – the Democratic Party didn’t need this, and is a terrible start to the 2020 election cycle.  Also, I predict that this is Iowa’s last time to be first and last caucus.

I have a suggestion for reforming Iowa’s caucus system and it goes like this:

1. Print up a whole bunch of sheets of paper with the candidate’s names on them.
2. Find a whole bunch of buildings around the state (churches, schools) that people can easily find.
3. Provide some little tables that have some privacy (We can even call them voting booths).
4. Have people come to this place, take a form, and put a mark next to the name of the candidate they want.
5. Count the marks for each candidate.
6. Send the totals in.
7. Go home and drink a beer.

I know this is a really unique approach to picking a presidential nominee, but it might just work, especially if the precinct chairs could read and count.  And, it would eliminate the idiocy of hopeful candidates spending years and millions of dollars drumming up support among the three dozen or so people living in the goddam state.  Iowa never deserved to go first with it’s stupid caucus system, and richly deserves to be moved to like the last on the list of Super Tuesday (or later).

Sheesh