Iowa reality check

Here's a few stats that might put the intense glare of international attention and king-making status of tonight's Iowa primary in perspective.

It's a reality that Iowa caucus voters essentially pick our next president, or at the very least, have enormous influence under the current system. This is due to the entire political culture agreeing that they'll annoint whomever does well there as the official big momentum front-runner, which results in more cash, more attention, and more inevitiblity going into New Hampshire and thus on to the rest of the primaries.

A truly insane amount of importance and portent is placed on the will of Iowan caucus goers.

The storyline is already written. Obama and Clinton can go on if they don't win first place, Edwards is finished, etc.

How democratic is this? (or how sane?) A look at the numbers....

Estimated Iowa Population in 2005 based on Census Bureau data: 2,966,334

Iowa ranks 30th in population of all 50 states.

Iowa represents almost exactly 1% of the United States population.

Iowa's population is approximately 95% white, 3.7% hispanic, and 2.3% black.

The US population (2000) is approximately 77% white, 12.5% hispanic, and 12.9% black.

An estimated 2.75 million Iowans will not participate in the 1,781 precinct caucuses tonight.

Iowa has 600,572 registered Democrats, 574,571 registered Republicans, and 737,054 voters registered as undeclared.

In '04, 122,000 Democrats representing four one-hundredths of the U.S. population, and 115,000 Republicans, a bit smaller proportion, attended caucuses. The number of caucus goers participating tonight will no doubt be larger for the Dems, projected to be around 130,000 and less for Republicans, estimated to be about 80,000.

So literally the entire planet is focused on, and literally hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on, the opinions of roughly FOUR ONE HUNDREDTHS of a percent (0.04%) of our population.

And when you factor in that only a portion of that tiny fraction actually votes for the winner, you have the rather disturbing fact that barely one one-hundredth of one percent of the American population (0.01%), for all intents and purposes, determines who we have as presidential candidates.

This percent doesn't reflect the racial makeup of the country, nor does it reflect much else.

Yet this infinitesimally small and unrepresentitive sliver of our population essentially decides who the leader of the free world will be for the next four years at minimum.

Is this good government?

How did it come to be that winning or exceeding expectations in Iowa was considered a guarantee of future success? Why does a win in Iowa (a fine state, by the way) automatically assure the candidate a huge spike in the polls and in campaign cash?

Why is the political system such lemmings that they think that a speck-like proportion of us, who happen to be Iowans, must reflect the political wishes of the other 99.99.% of the United States?

Why do pundits and the rest slavishly rely on the political choices of roughly one third of the 122,000 citizens who participate in the caucuses and vote for the winner, about 44,700 citizens, and assume they dictate the will of the other 296,333,104 citizens who live in the U.S.?

Of course, a smaller number of the U.S. population are actually registered voters, but that's still a mind-boggling disproportion. It amounts to every Democrat who participates in tonight's caucus representing 6,630 of their fellow Americans. That's some kind of clout. (But thank god it's not Texans.)

Iowans are smart, educated and literate, and lord knows they get to see and hear more BS from these candidates than any decent person should ever have to endure.

But really, is this any way to pick presidential candidates?

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A few other random tid-bits.

Iowa has 7 electoral votes

Iowa will send 45 Democratic delegates to their national convention, and 37 Republicans to theirs.

Amount spent on TV ads in Iowa:
Romney $7 million
Huckabee $1.4 million

Obama $9 million
Clinton $7.2 million
Edwards $3.2 million

The Clinton campaign reports organizing 5000 volunteers in the state, and is expecting to provide 4,900 rides to the caucuses tonight.

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Anyone who participated tonight is encouraged to write in and describe what you saw and experienced.

Whether it's sane or not, the Iowa caucuses are certainly a media circus and seminal event.