Liberty's Blog

Why Iowa?

Andrew Sullivan is irritated

How is it that we persist in allowing these unrepresentative, yahoo infested, pissant states decide who gets to run for President? The notion that the Ames straw poll matters would be preposterous were it not so pernicious.

He can't understand why Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire get to have so much sayso in the primaries and speaks pretty negatively about these states.

Joke: What's considered a solid hour's reading in Iowa? The back of a cereal box.

New Hampshire? Smaller than Iowa. Whiter than Iowa. And, as Alexander Theroux once observed, " is literally shaped like a dunce cap."

South Carolina? The birthplace of secession? A state of which it has been justly said that:

Throughout American history, South Carolinians have led the fight to preserve and defend slavery, white supremacy, racial segregation, and race fear. South Carolina is the soul of the Confederacy. It is safe to say that South Carolina gave birth to Dixie, so much so that it is a matter of pride to many South Carolinians that their state was the first to secede from the Union and that Citadel cadets fired the first shot of the Civil War.

Its folks like him which explain why we can't let smug New Yorkers and Californians run things. As Glenn succinctly puts it.

"How is it that we persist in allowing these unrepresentative, yahoo infested, pissant states [to] decide who gets to run for President?"

Now that's not very nice. But I think the answer is, to piss off Californians and New Yorkers, something that the rest of the country agrees on . . . .

Well said.

posted by Liberty @ 6:54 PM