Do you think the Iowa caucus is a truly democratic process?

Here are my beefs with the caucus and with Iowa's presumed power role:

1) Physical attendance at a set time impedes turn-out What about the nurse who had to work at the hospital that night?

2) Lack of an absentee ballot for those who cannot attend physically impedes quantity of voting

3) If everyone over 18 is at the polling place, who watches all of the kids? Should my wife and I have grandma come watch the kids? Oh, wait... she needs to be at the caucus as well!

4) The democrats don't use a secret ballot in their caucus??? That can impede an individual from voting true belief if there is pressure from others to vote a certain way.

5) Hello... Iowa represents 1% of the US population, and the place is like 93% white. How indicative are a bunch of Bible-toting corn farmers going to be of the US demographics?

I'm ignoring Iowa altogether and asking them to get a clue about their democratic process, unless some of you can convince me otherwise. Perhaps you have a great rebuttal to my arguments above. If so, I'd love to hear them.

Give me a break! I was there!
Have you read about the record turn out????

Now, that being said, I would not be opposed to a change to a primary. For the simple reason that there probably were many not able to attend.

Babysitting was offered all over the place, rest assured. But many kids were there which is great as we want them to grow up to be responsible Americans and vote.

As to your #4, it is very invigorating to go and debate with your neighbors. And come on, if someone changes then I guess they weren't all that sure in the first place.

Rest assured we are not all Bible toting "corn" farmers as you so small-mindly put it.
Can't argue with the small population but rest assured we do have electricity and indoor plumbing.

And how about you give some credit to the percentage that turned out. Remember our education system here puts most states to shame. Let's see if other states have this kind of turn out. I hope they do, I hope they follow our lead.

Caucusing was great. A true American event. People coming together and not just voting but talking about the issues, arguing them or coming together on them.

And to sum it all up: If Iowa isn't all that important than why were ALL the candidates here for what seemed like FOR FREAKING EVER. I can honestly say I have seen, in person, the last 6!!!! Presidents and I haven't even left my state.....and that is AFTER they are elected!

NO offense to pointing out we are 93% white but don't let that you believe there are no blacks. LOL The county I live in has a black County Attorney, my best friend's husband and believe me if you don't think we have Mexican immigrints you'ld be ctazy Report It

I live in a city of 80,000 and we're in between Omaha (400,000+) and Sioux Falls SD (120,000+) there are many places I go where I am a minority. Report It

I thik politics is all rigged, and is as crooked as a cork screw.

only if you're white

There's only one thing worse than the system in place and that's all the others.

I am pro Obama, but the Iowa stuff is not representative of the nation. A good indicator but there are so many other states to factor. The secret ballot stuff seems to be set up though. Think of Florida and Bush.

It's plenty democratic for Iowa, and if it works for them that's great. It's not indicitive of the whole country, nor should it be. This whole "frontrunner" nonsense could be easily cleaned up by holding the primaries and caucuses of every state on the same day, to force the candidates to campaign across the whole country. The only potential loser in that scenario is Iowa, but 1 out of 50 ain't bad. Only candidates running for the Governor of Iowa should pay THAT much attention to Iowa.

If the people of Iowa wanted something different they would change it. Look at history. Do the winning candidates in Iowa always win at the national level? No, so let them do their thing. The politicians love the place, so it can't be all bad.

I totally agree with you! The whole thing was messed up! But you have to realize that this year, a heck of a lot of stuff is going to get messed up, due to the presidential elections...
All of your points are well-made, and to add to it I'd like to say some people should not have been ranked as they were.

No hanging Chads!!!

It's a caucus, not an election. Ok it's an election for convention delegates.

3) I was babysitting at 15. Certainly 15 year olds are more mature today than they were 40 years ago?

4) Ok the republicans are more democratic. But as one lady said, my neighbors and I have discussed this for months. If they don't know my opinion by now, they just weren't paying attention.

5) Obama won in a hugely white demographic. That's interesting. He also out-polled Hillary among women. And here as on election day, its all about who shows up to vote.

Slow down people. Who said anything about the democratic process? This isn't an election yet, its the preliminaries. The caucus process and primary process are NOT in the constitution. Candidates can be on the general ballot even if they never were in a caucus or primary.

That said, the caucus isn't supposed to be a 'one person, one vote' entity. It is supposed to simulate the electoral process, while the primaries are supposed to simulate the general election. These processes were put in place by the parties for their own benefit, not ours. If one has a problem with the caucus or primary process, they should just ignore them and wait for the general election.

As for Iowa being first: Iowa only carries as much weight as we (and the media) allow it to. As of 10:01 PM last night, no candidate cares about Iowa ever again until the next election. It is very over-rated, and if that bothers you then you are succumbing to the media's ploys.

By the way, you should delete point #5. Makes you sound racist, anti-Christian, and anti-agriculture. Watch your tongue.