Why Should The Iowa Caucus Change Your Vote?

Russell Roberts takes up this question at Cafe Hayek:

The standard answer is that if you vote for a candidate who now appears to have a dramatically lower chance of winning, you might be wasting your vote.

But your vote isn't likely to matter anyway, in the sense of breaking a tie. Why is it wasting your vote to vote for a candidate who has a diminished or minimal chance of winning? You get no credit for voting for the winner. It's not a bet. Doesn't the morality of democracy demand that you vote for the candidate closest to your views regardless of the probability of victory?

By the way, I'm going to castrate the next person who uses the word "Obamentum." Hopefully, New Hampshire will strike "Huckaboom" off the MSM's phrasebook.

But He Got Shot!

I was desperate to find this video somewhere throughout the tubes, and this is the best I could find. I actually watched the Democratic Caucuses on C-Span. Not the coverage, but one of the actual caucuses that they filmed. What a supremely stupid process. Jaw-droppingly stupid. If you watched one of these things and didn't have an sudden impulse to wander around in West Baltimore with $100 bills visibly taped to your body...well then, good for you. I wanted to kill myself. Watch a caucus and witness the power that these activist hacks (Iowan activist hacks at that) hold over the rest of our country through their completely unfair, and undemocratic political machinery. Disgusting.

Anyway, check out the first video in the link. It was one of the many unintended comedic moments of C-Span's caucus coverage. An Obama supporter is trying to convince an undecided voter to join their camp. Undecided says, "What about his lack of experience". Supporter repeats the Lincoln-had-the-same-experience line. She says, "But he got shot!". Watch it. Plays great on film.

Waching C-Span

I conclude that no one under the age of 60 participates in the Iowa caucuses. And that's a generous guess.


Update--Looking good for Huckabee, and Thompson, and Edwards.

"As Iowa goes so goes the nation? [Mark Steyn]
Peter is right that we'll all have to start being more respectful of Huck after tonight, but, before that dread hour arrives, let me say there is something slightly jaw-dropping about a two-party system that presents voters with a choice between Mike Huckabee and (if early numbers hold up) John Edwards."

Fox gives it to Obama and Huckabee. Probably by a wide enough margin to make it count for something.

I want to beat Anderson Cooper over the head with his floating pie chart board. I can't explain it, but it keeps causing himn to stare at me. It's uncomfortable.

Iowa Predictions

Romney 31%, Huckabee 26%, Thompson 15%, McCain 12%, Paul 10%, Giuliani 6%

Clinton 33%, Edwards 30%, Obama 28%, Biden/Richardson/Dodd 9%

I could give as many reasons for this outcome as I could for 3 others but you gotta' pick one if you're gonna' pick any. In short: I'm buying the Thompson bump noticed by Zogby, I don't see where Paul pulls the additional 5-7% needed to grab third, and the Democratic race is essentially a push in Iowa.

I think Hucakbee comes down 5 points tomorrow (or really -- later this morning, as I write this at 2am), and I think Thompson takes most of that, if not all of it. Rest of field remains largely unaffected. Big winner is this scenario is Romney. Knocks down Huckabee, keeps McCain in 4th.

Hitchens on Iowa

Now, something as absurd and counterdemocratic as this can be so only if the media say it is so, and every four years for as long as I can remember, the profession has been promising to swear off the bottle and stop treating the Iowa caucuses as if they were a primary, let alone an election.

Read the whole thing.

Democrats Violate the Sunday Morning Relaxation Rule and Debate; No One Watches Them

I can't imagine that anyone other than Beltway insiders, who are used to tuning into the Sunday morning tv spin, and Iowans watched this morning's Democratic debate in Iowa.

My only involvement in the political process today was to read this tidbit in the New Yorker over a martini and dinner at the bar at Buck's.

At this preposterously early date in the 2004 election cycle, the candidates for the Democratic Presidential nomination had participated in exactly one “debate,” as, for lack of a better word, these overpopulated, overmoderated, your-time-is-up Q & A panels are called. Two cycles ago it was zero debates. This time around, it’s—already!—eight.

The New Yorker is dated August 20th, which is tomorrow, so I don't know if they counted today's brunch snooze.

And for all of you citizens who represent the 99% of the country who are not Iowans, brace yourself for more candidate Iowa fawning and its attendant disenfranching feeling, as it has only just begun!

the first major Democratic debate in Iowa and, for the contenders, perhaps the most important one as they approach Labor Day, the unofficial start of an intensive four months of campaigning until the nation's first caucuses here.

As another indication of how insane the primary system is, the NYT has its best political reporter, Adam Nagourney, camped out in Greenfield, Iowa, while the huge population bases in California and the North East Corridor get no attention.