Oh, What A Screwy System

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Party discipline, waning in the mid-'60s, had its last hurrah at the 1968 Democratic Convention, where the barons forced the nomination of Hubert Humphrey. That provoked a spasm of reform that had stunning (and debilitating) success. The first in a series of party commissions radically altered the rules in favor of "open democracy." Increasingly, delegates chosen by primary or caucus would be bound to actual candidates rather than to party leaders who might use them in brokerage. Though the movement was a Democratic invention, Republicans were also affected because many changes were imposed by Democratic legislatures.

Since no central authority had the power to establish a logical sequence of contests, a few enterprising state party officials were able to seize the initiative. Iowa Democrats moved fastest, pushing their 1972 caucuses ahead of the New Hampshire primary. George McGovern, chairman of the first reform commission, understood the new dynamics well. The obscure Senator from neighboring South Dakota had both cultural affinity and the antiwar movement going for him in Iowa.

The press, looking for new gauges of political credibility, gave McGovern a publicity boost when he finished third in Iowa (behind Edmund Muskie and "uncommitted"). Muskie won in New Hampshire as well, but McGovern, trailing by only 9 percentage points, again triumphed in the expectations game. He rode that wave to the nomination -- and then to a resounding defeat as traditional Democratic voters, appalled that ultra-liberals had taken over the party, defected to Richard Nixon.

For 1976, Iowa Republicans took the Democrats' cue, moving their caucuses to the lead-off position, and the press began to make Iowa the First Great Test. While New Hampshire had been significant for decades, it and Iowa together suddenly became critical. From 1976 onward, candidates would have to lavish time on these two unrepresentative states, massaging less than 2% of the population, while the other 98% of the electorate awaited the outcome. Without victory in at least one of these two rounds and a good showing in the other, a candidate would flunk the momentum test, lose his ability to attract contributors and watch his press coverage disappear.

Iowa and New Hampshire leaders argue that their states allow lesser-known candidates to conduct low-cost "retail" campaigns for months, testing their wares and encountering thousands of voters face to face. True, but the demands of that kind of campaigning work against prospects who hold difficult jobs -- New York Governor Mario Cuomo is the best current example -- and pressure candidates to lavish attention on small, well-organized interest groups. In the actual caucuses, less than 15% of enrolled Iowa voters usually participate, and the reported results are sometimes misleading. Drake University Professor Hugh Winebrenner, in a new book on the caucuses, The Iowa Precinct Caucuses: The Making of a Media Event (Iowa State University Press; $15.95), points out that even if his state were a microcosm of the country, the peculiar machinery fails to produce an accurate measure of Iowans' sentiments. "Essentially meaningless caucus outcomes," he argues, "are reported to satisfy the media's needs for 'hard data' about the progress of the race."