It's Deja Vu All Over Again

“This fiasco means the end of the caucuses as a significant American political event. The rest of the country was already losing patience with Iowa anyway and this cooks Iowa's goose. Frankly, it should,” Iowa journalism legend David Yepsen tells Politico https://t.co/0fk2oROXPg

— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) February 4, 2020

Sure, sure, sure...

I was listening to the news this morning (punctuated every 10 minutes, by the clock!, with word we still didn't know the outcome in Iowa) realizing I hear these same stories every 4 years, which is probably why the media likes this so much.  It's routine, it's predictable, and they get to lather, rinse, repeat with dull regularity.  Who doesn't love a perfectly predictable job?

Every four years, it's Iowa, a place nobody pays attention to the rest of the time, and it's the caucuses, which nobody understands, and it's less than 200,000 people, and it's all VITALLY IMPORTANT!  And the results are never known by the next morning, and if they are it's uncertain because caucuses and second assignments and final tallies and mixed results and late reporting and then, like the swallows returning to Capistrano, it's the prediction that THIS IS IT!  NO MORE!! NEVER AGAIN!!! IOWA AND US IS QUITS!!!!

And of course, four years later, it happens again, as if it had never happened before.  Thank goodness it happened this morning.  Now we can get on to New Hampshire, another tiny rural state (quick!  Name a major city in New Hampshire!  Now name another one!  Texas has 5, at least.  California has more, but as 2016 proved, California doesn't count anymore) nobody will pay any attention to for four more years by the end of next week, or the day after the day after the primary, whichever comes first.  (Nothing against rural states, but Jeebus, we might as well hold the first primary in Arkansas or New Mexico or Montana.)

Honestly, I've seen this movie before.  At least the announcement that "Iowa is doomed!" means the credits will finally start rolling.  On this film of the, what...tetralogy?  Does any primary really matter after Super Tuesday?