IT’S A SHAME that so many candidates for president have dropped out already. Forty-eight states and all the territories have yet to vote.
Here in Arkansas, come March 3, voters won’t be able to cast a vote for Kirsten Gillibrand or Beto O’Rourke or Cory Booker or Kamala Harris. The guilty-pleasure part of our brains kinda wanted to see a Kama-la Harris-Donald Trump debate in the fall.
Oohweeee!
But after the primary in New Hampshire on Tuesday, the dropout list got longer. Andrew Yang, gone. Michael Bennet, gone. De-val Patrick, gone. Joe Biden, gone.
Well, technically Joe Biden is still in the race. But things don’t look good.
Why did they drop out? Because they didn’t win in Iowa or New Hampshire—or even place or show. (Sigh.)
Every four years we tout the plan that John McCain endorsed several years back: Divide the nation into quarters, schedule four Super Tuesdays among them on a rotating basis, and let the people—all or at least most of them—decide the nominees for the two major political parties. Why should two cold, small, northern, and overwhelmingly white states get to narrow the selections every presidential campaign season? It certainly isn’t written in stone; that is, into the United States Constitution.
But even more than that, Iowa and New Hampshire aren’t even good at it. After all those weeks, all those candidate forums, all those weeknights-at-a-junior-high-auditorium, voters in Iowa and New Hampshire aren’t as good as Las Vegas in picking winners.
Look at some of the results from the Iowa caucuses:
• In 2016, Ted Cruz finished first among Republicans.
• In 1992, Tom Harkins finished first among Democrats.
• In 2012, Rick Santorum won after a recount and confusion.
• In 1988, Bob Dole won. But he’d have to wait eight more years before his turn at the nomination.
• In 1992, Bill Clinton finished behind “uncommitted” with only 3 percent of the vote. How did that turn out?
Here are some of the past results from New Hampshire:
• Bernie Sanders won the primary four years ago.
• But few remember that Hillary Clinton beat out Barack Obama in New Hampshire eight years earlier.
• Paul Tsongas won in 1992. Gary Hart in 1984. Pat Buchanan beat out Bob Dole in 1996. And somebody named Estes Kefauver won the New Hampshire primary twice in the 1950s.
One has to wonder: With this track record, why do candidates drop out so soon?
One has to wonder even more: Why does the rest of the Union put up with it?