'Quirky' Iowa an accurate predictor?

While the caucus itself is healthy democracy, the losing candidates grouse about the process, and with good reason, especially on the Democratic side where party rules impose a 15 percent threshold in each precinct.

If 300 people showed up in a precinct and 40 of them were supporters of Richardson, you’d say Richardson had 13 percent support in that precinct, right? Wrong. Richardson would not have met the 15 threshold and would come away with nothing at all.

Multiply the outcome in that precinct by several hundred other precincts and you get a suppression of support for second-tier candidates, and an inflation of support for the front-runners, who can oftern appear stronger than they are.

If Iowa were a straight primary, Richardson, Biden, and Dodd would have shown better numbers.

Richardson complains
Speaking to Fox News Friday morning from New Hampshire, which holds its primary Tuesday, Richardson said, “Right now New Hampshire is going to be the key because we don’t have the complicated caucus rules” in the Granite State.

“You know, actually I got close to 10 percent of the vote; (but only) two percent of the delegates,” Richardson said, pointing to the quirkiness of Iowa’s process.

But Richardson’s complaint will be to no avail. No matter how odd the process, Obama won and that is the headline, not “Quirky process gives Obama the win.”

What Richardson is up against is that because Iowa is the first contest after so many months of polling, with all of polling’s uncertainties- pundits tend to binge on over-interpreting the results.

They give a couple of hundred thousand people here a significance that may seem absurd in comparison to the national electorate of 122 million.

Thus USA Today in its Friday edition called Obama’s 37.6 percent of the vote a “stunning victory” over Clinton.

'Stunning' or to be expected?
Victory, yes.

“Stunning”? Only if you were asleep for the past few months and didn’t see:

• The intense commitment of the Obama fans in Iowa
• How skilled his organizers were: for instance, tracking down out-of-state Iowans who come back to vote in the caucuses, calling them on their cell phones to recruit their support
• The polling data here that indicated last week that Obama was ahead

Also keep in mind that Obama's 37.6 percent is an estimate.

Here’s the official Iowa Democratic Party explanation: “These are the State Convention Delegates a presidential candidate can expect to have at the 2008 State Convention based on the number of County Convention Delegates he or she earned in each county.”

Got that?

Obama will get an estimated 38 percent of the delegates to the party’s state convention.

The Democratic caucus process is arcane and that’s why rational people might want to wait until there are a few real broad-based primaries.

Obama had proven months ago that he was competitive with Clinton – by raising $80 million, just $10 million less than she’d raised.

Iowa simply performed the function of validating with real voters that he had support.

MORE FROM

Section Front

Obama campaign head gets big book deal Officials turn down Franken request Joe the Plumber to become war correspondent Franken lead at 49 with absentees left to count Minn. Senate winner won't be known in 2008 First Read: 'Twas the seventh week of recount... Franken opens first lead in Minn. Senate race Mom of Palin daughter's boyfriend arrested Minn. court weighs rejected absentee ballots Minnesota panel reviews disputed ballots Section Front   Add headlines to your news reader: