Steve Corbin: Don’t be hoodwinked by Iowa’s Feb. 1 presidential caucus

Many political pundits seriously question whether Iowa deserves to have the first shot at selecting the next president. Iowa’s profile doesn’t even come close to being representative of the United States.

Three examples: Iowa is 96 percent white, Iowa’s population rank is 30th (Puerto Rico is larger than Iowa), and visceral comments by Republican Rep. Steve King have made many Americans cringe.

Iowa’s caucus voter participation rate has been touted by experts as pathetic.

Only 19 percent of card-carrying Republicans have participated in the last two Iowa caucuses; registered Democrats have averaged a 23 percent turnout. Worse yet, only 13 percent of Iowa’s largest group of registered voters, No Party independents (36.3 percent), participated.

Iowa has a “closed caucus,” which means only declared Republicans and Democrats can participate in a caucus. No Party independents can only participate if they declare Democrat or Republican prior to attending a caucus of that party. The No Party independents can re-declare their independent status on the day after the caucus. What a mess Iowa’s closed caucus has created. This may be the greatest form of hypocrisy in Iowa’s voting process.

To better understand why people shouldn’t pay much attention to Iowa’s caucus, let’s reflect on the 2008 and 2012 presidential races. Mike Huckabee won Iowa’s Republican caucus in 2008. The voter numbers reveal that he attracted the support of a mere 2 percent of Iowa adults.

Huckabee won the Iowa caucus because he was a Christian conservative and his followers saw the caucus as similar to going to church. You know what happened to the rest of Huckabee’s 2008 campaign.

Who won the 2012 Iowa caucus for the Republicans? Rick Santorum, another Christian conservative. The Christians flocked to the Iowa caucus, but you also know the story of Santorum’s post-Iowa campaign.

Though Donald Trump appears to lead the polls, don’t be surprised if Christian conservative Ted Cruz wins Iowa’s Republican caucus on Feb. 1. While Iowa Christian conservatives may be the most dedicated Republicans to attend a caucus, they do not represent the majority of Iowa Republicans nor Republicans in the remaining 49 states.

If Iowa’s caucus attendance record doesn’t improve, Iowa should no longer have the privilege of being the first-in-the-nation presidential selecting state.

My suggestions: The two parties should make all future caucus/primaries open to all registered voters regardless of their political preference.

They should also collaborate and agree that the state with the largest percentage of registered voters participating in the 2016 caucus/primary will get the privilege of having the first-in-the-nation caucus/primary in 2020. The second election that year would go to the state with the second most voters participating in 2016, and so on. The state with the lowest voter participation would go last in 2020. And then the results in 2020 would determine the primary/caucus order for 2024.

Sadly, the 2020 presidential caucus/primary dance card will start on Jan. 21, 2017, one day after the 45th president is inaugurated. For future presidential selection validity and reliability purposes, calling on the two parties to significantly reform the caucus/primary process should be mandatory.

This story was originally published January 26, 2016 at 2:22 PM with the headline "Steve Corbin: Don’t be hoodwinked by Iowa’s Feb. 1 presidential caucus."