Reporting in from Dubuque County precinct 45

[47of74]

I went to the caucuses this evening.  I had been on the fence about going but decided to do my civic duty since I was off today.  We had just over 100 people there.  It was split between Hillary and Sanders with Hillary a bit ahead.  I think O'Malley had four people pulling for him plus a few other undecided.  Sanders gained 5 after O'Malley didn't meet the threshold (16 people).  So we're sending three delegates to convention for Hillary and two for Sanders.

[notfundy]

So cool to hear from someone in Iowa. Great that you participated.

I can't believe what a big deal your "first in the nation" status has become. I follow politics pretty closely and don't remember Iowa getting quite this much media attention.

Do you / did you find it intrusive or irritating to have all the candidates and media there??

[47of74]

6 hours ago, notfundy said:

So cool to hear from someone in Iowa. Great that you participated.

I can't believe what a big deal your "first in the nation" status has become. I follow politics pretty closely and don't remember Iowa getting quite this much media attention.

Do you / did you find it intrusive or irritating to have all the candidates and media there??

Yes I do find it intrusive and irritating.  We've been flooded with political ads for the past six months.   I wish there was a better way of doing this that didn't involve all this crap.

I don't like the caucuses because it cuts people who aren't working out of the process.  Regular people can't do it absentee - you have to show up at your assigned location to participate in the caucus.  (There's a teleconference one for members of the military or other government employees).  I wasn't able to participate in the 2008 one because I was working that night.  I wish we could have a primary and everyone started later in the year, like six months before.

I thought of not going but decided to go and I was glad I did.  It's nice to get together with other Democrats - regardless of who they support right now after week after week of T-bag stupidity.

 

[Fascinated]

I just don't understand the US system at all. The election is still almost a year away.  Two years and millions (billions?) of dollars spent on campaigning. A lame duck president for two years. It is so strange. Our process in Canada, and most countries I think, is measured in weeks, rather than years. It seems like a senseless waste of everyone's time and resources.  

[47of74]

24 minutes ago, Fascinated said:

I just don't understand the US system at all. The election is still almost a year away.  Two years and millions (billions?) of dollars spent on campaigning. A lame duck president for two years. It is so strange. Our process in Canada, and most countries I think, is measured in weeks, rather than years. It seems like a senseless waste of everyone's time and resources.  

I don't either and I've lived in this country for almost 41 years.

I wish to Christ we could get something better here.

[Bethella]

On 2/3/2016 at 7:04 PM, Fascinated said:

I just don't understand the US system at all. The election is still almost a year away.  Two years and millions (billions?) of dollars spent on campaigning. A lame duck president for two years. It is so strange. Our process in Canada, and most countries I think, is measured in weeks, rather than years. It seems like a senseless waste of everyone's time and resources.  

It also pisses me off. The current format gives more value to the voters in early caucus/primary states. We've already had candidates withdraw from the election based on the results from only one state which shouldn't be considered representative for the whole country. I really wish we had a single primary election, held on the same day across the country.

[AlysonRR]

On 2/3/2016 at 4:04 PM, Fascinated said:

I just don't understand the US system at all. The election is still almost a year away.  Two years and millions (billions?) of dollars spent on campaigning. A lame duck president for two years. It is so strange. Our process in Canada, and most countries I think, is measured in weeks, rather than years. It seems like a senseless waste of everyone's time and resources.  

I much prefer what I know about the parliamentary system that many other countries have chosen. I really would like to see a several week/month political season and even more, I would love to have multiple parties who have to form coalitions and compromise in order to get things done.

Honestly, I think the two-party system is a failed experiment.

[OnceUponATime]

On 3/02/2016 at 1:04 AM, Fascinated said:

Our process in Canada, and most countries I think, is measured in weeks, rather than years. It seems like a senseless waste of everyone's time and resources.

You mean that in Canada the local politicians don't start rushing out the 'popular' policies a year ahead of the elections to try and up their chances? and  then plan all major openings of things where they cut a damn ribbon for about 7 months before elections happen? That sincerely sounds so nice
 

I tend to view political time between elections as having three or four major time periods:

1) you promised A so you try and start the process to delivering it. This lets the general population get some confidence in you because you are trying to achieve your promises.

2) Rush through all the things through that may be not popular around election time through so people have time to forget (think tax rises etc)

3) A short period in time when government may run as it should. All sorts of things get discussed, party lines may fade a bit. Things with positive, neutral and negative public perception can occur but one is careful to hold this in balance. The opposition brings in things that sometimes people of the majority don't find evil and no one has a heart attack. This period doesn't always occur and if it does becomes part of the collective memory loss that happens in election times.

4)Pre-election time. This can start anywhere from about two years out of an election. It is the time when the major players/parties want to be seen as positive so all nice things that should garner them support finally get rolled out. Finally promise A either gets delivered or you get a really long drawn out debate about how the opposition stonewalled, made it impossible or scientific studies showing that plan B is a better option. Plan B becomes their promise for the next campaign.

 

3 hours ago, AlysonRR said:

Honestly, I think the two-party system is a failed experiment.

Unfortunately I think a lot of multiparty systems are getting very close to a two-party system (ie more than 80% of the votes are going to the two largest parties). I'm not sure if anyone has ever researched it but to me having voted in such systems the more popular the bigger parties get the more I seemed to hear comments along the lines of: 'vote for blue not red because red would be evil. Voting green will not be stopping red, you must vote blue'. Before that I used to hear a lot of people commenting they would vote for purple, pirates, green, unicorns etc because they had a chance of becoming part of the majority-coalition.