Are Iowa and New Hampshire allowed too much IMPACT on presidential politics?

Answer 1

In 96 Buchanan won NH, it didnt have an impact then.

Answer 2

Only if voters in other states let them have that impact.

Historically, Iowa caucus winners go on to win their party nomination only slightly over 50% of the time. So, no, I don't think it has a big impact. I do think that it causes some of the candidates with very little support to realize that they have no chance, since very often there will be a few drop out in the days after the Iowa caucus....it's always those that come out at the bottom and realize they don't have nearly enough support to keep going.

Answer 3

They only have that impact because the media lets them and like most media driven events, the average Joe Twelve-Pack American goes along willingly. They are both small states and hardly representative of the entire nation. Plus in the case of Iowa, a caucus is sort of strange, since it requires people to be there at a specific time and isn't anonymous, these factors certainly add some sort of bias. I think "Super Tuesday" has much more of a credible impact on what people are really thinking.

Answer 4

There is no way to DISALLOW their impact on Presidential politics, except to trust the American electorate to weigh the results fairly and to manage the PRESS/MEDIA .

How the media can be changed, I don't know. For the large part, it is very liberal, so a talk show host (like Tim Russert) gets away with throwing soft-ball questions at Barack Obama (liberal) and grills the heck out of Rudy Giuliani (conservative).

Chris Matthews let his bias slip though every now and then, but hardballs EVERYONE. We just have to trust the American electorate to avoid the hype, succumbing to so many ads and let them make up their OWN minds, BASED ON THE FACTS.

Answer 5

They weed out the bottom. And then we get to see all the reshuffling.