No subject

self-valorization as
a key motif to explain activist practices.

I have wondered aloud, why spend so much and waste so much
money/labor/time/resources on this business of electioneering, when
all that money/resources/time could be directly spent on stuff that
needs fixing.

But folks want to socialize, feel they are part of something , I guess
these are genuine needs.

 I like the functionalist view. Why spend so much on pomp and confetti
and show and grandeur and lights and fireworks and food and wine like
one big fat wedding? Why not just use those resources to repair stuff
that needs fixing?

Festivities are a big deal. Culture endorses it.

I think it is much better to consider the whole US election campaign
as one big long festival !

Gopal






On Jan 5, 2008 1:39 AM, Richard Fidler <rfidler_8 at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> A Canadian view of the Iowa caucus vote. And this guy's not even a radical:
>
> Iowa's outrageous privilege
>
> It's a helpless feeling to watch a rural backwater with an inscrutable
> voting system
> exert such an influence in selecting the leader of the free world
>
> DAN GARDNER
> [Ottawa Citizen, January 4/07]
>
> As I write this, the results in the Iowa caucuses are not known but I can
> say with great certainty that there are two facts about the vote that every
> Canadian needs to know. First, the caucuses play a significant role in
> deciding who will be the next president of the United States and they are,
> therefore, important to the future of every man, woman and child on the
> planet. Second, nobody outside Iowa has a clue how they work.
>
> Even people within the state seem to be confused, which explains why
> campaign workers distribute free DVDs door-to-door explaining how the system
> operates and how to get involved. The Des Moines Register even felt it
> necessary to construct an interactive, dauntingly comprehensive feature
> about the caucuses on its website called, sensibly enough, "Learn How to
> Caucus."
>
> The Register's remedial education effort begins by explaining that caucuses
> are not like general elections (go to polling station, vote for president)
> or primaries (go to party's polling station, vote for party's nominee for
> presidential election). A chad may hang now and then, but generally these
> methods of voting are simple, clear and fair. Iowa's caucuses are a
> different cob of corn.
>
> "Any registered Democrat or Republican can be a party activist and attend a
> caucus," notes the Register. In each political precinct in Iowa, caucuses
> are held in schools, churches or someone's living room. The Register calls
> these caucuses "a gathering of neighbours," which is a sweetly Norman
> Rockwell way to put it.
>
> How many neighbourly gatherings are there in total? I don't know. The many
> expert sources I consulted peg the number of political precincts as low as
> 1,700 and as high as 2,500. In one place, the Register's website says there
> are "some 2,000" precincts, but elsewhere it says there are 2,500. Anyway,
> there are lots and lots.
>
> However many neighbourly gatherings there may be, what matters is what the
> neighbours talk about when they gather. And since the caucuses go on for a
> couple of hours, there's a lot of talking. They talk about local issues. The
> price of corn, maybe. Whatever. Then they get down to the fate of the
> planet: Who do the people of Iowa - all 2,982,085 of them - want to run in
> the election that will decide the next president of the United States?
>
> Actually, that's not quite accurate. Most of the 2,982,085 people of Iowa
> aren't interested in determining the fate of the planet. In 2000, Republican
> nominee George W. Bush won big in Iowa with a grand total of 35,231 votes.
>
> And not even that is quite accurate because 35,231 people didn't actually
> vote for George W. Bush to be their party's candidate. They voted in
> caucuses for pro-Bush people to be delegates to subsequent county
> conventions. The delegates to the county conventions selected delegates for
> district conventions. The delegates at the district conventions chose
> delegates for a state convention. The delegates at the state convention went
> to the national convention and voted for George W. Bush to be their party's
> candidate.
>
> Yes, it is bewildering and slightly demented, but note that this description
> is quite simplified and the process is, in reality, much more complicated.
> People attending the Democratic caucuses, the Register notes, "will break
> into what are called 'preference groups,' where participants' preferences
> for a candidate become public. If a candidate doesn't have 15 per cent of
> the total, his or her supporters must realign with another group. Once
> everyone is in a group with at least 15 per cent, delegates to the county
> convention are apportioned based on the size of the group."
>
> There are lots more fascinating details like that but I'm afraid that last
> paragraph cost me half my readers so I'll skip them.
>
> Now, an obvious question arises. Why doesn't Iowa simply scrap all this
> nonsense and have a primary vote? That's how most other states do it,
> including New Hampshire, which votes second after Iowa.
>
> The answer is itself a marvelous demonstration of the depth and richness of
> American democratic politics. "In the mid-1980s," the Register recounts,
> "Iowa political leaders cut a deal with New Hampshire's political leaders:
> New Hampshire gets the first primary, Iowa gets the first caucus. For Iowa
> to change to a primary would be a violation of that agreement and trigger a
> feud with New Hampshire."
>
> This glorious win-win has delivered considerable benefits to both states,
> Iowa in particular. Iowa doesn't have a lot going for it, after all. Less
> than one per cent of the American population lives in the state and its main
> industry - corn - doesn't quite have the heft of high tech or Big Oil. But
> because it votes first, Iowa matters.
>
> Oh, how it matters. More than 2,500 national and international journalists
> are accredited to cover the Iowa caucuses this year, and it is their
> coverage - multiplied by thousands more journalists watching worldwide -
> that turns the vote into a crucial test of a presidential campaign's
> strength. A bad showing in Iowa can kill a campaign; a strong result can
> give the impression of momentum, which is half the game in politics.
>
> And so whole campaign strategies are built around Iowa and future presidents
> spend more time discussing the finer points of corn prices and ethanol
> subsidies than health care and foreign policy. A lot more. In the year prior
> to 2004, John Kerry and Howard Dean each spent more than 70 days inspecting
> farm machinery and sucking up to state poobahs.
>
> This is delightful for the people of Iowa - or at least the tiny minority
> that bothers to vote - but it's a little troubling to realize that the
> equivalent of a small city in an otherwise obscure and inconsequential
> region has such a vastly disproportionate influence over who becomes
> president of the United States. The fact that these people exercise their
> influence through an inscrutable and easily abused voting system - note the
> absence of a secret ballot in all that malarkey - only adds to the sense of
> outrageous privilege.
>
> And that's from the perspective of, say, a Californian or a New Yorker.
> Americans like to call their president "the leader of the free world" - not
> an unreasonable title given how much rides on the president's judgment - but
> we citizens of the free world who are not also American citizens have
> absolutely no say in the selection of our putative leader. We can only watch
> Iowa and remain mute. And sometimes, agog. "He fears God," an Iowan named
> Scott Bailey told a reporter from Salon about why he supports Republican
> Mike Huckabee. "Apart from that, nothing else matters to me in a candidate."
>
> Mr. Bailey is the president of a network of homeschoolers, which means he's
> just the sort of man campaign officials can use to call up friends and
> neighbours, pack a caucus or two, and help push a candidate to victory in
> Iowa - and into serious contention for the most powerful office on the
> planet.
>
> All while the rest of us can only watch, agog.
>
>
>
>
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