By Dan Irvin
I’m not saying the Iowa caucuses are meaningless. I will remind you that Mike Huckabee “won” – you can’t see but I’m doing air quotes around the word “won” – Mike Huckabee won there in 2004. Rick Santorum won there in 2008. So……
I will say, I’m certain that the caucuses were not meant to be the subject of national focus that they are. Probably as recently as 20 years ago nobody even talked about them at all. New Hampshire kicked off the campaign.
I get the feeling that the national media wanted us to care and they wanted to sell advertising for a million debates. They have treated the Iowa caucuses like the first two minutes of a ball game and we all know how important the first two minutes are and I had an inspirational flash this morning about where this is headed.
You know how during both the college basketball and football seasons, sports fans can’t wait to see the polls every Monday? Even though they’re not a real thing the media have made the polls a real thing.
I bet you in 2020 – make that 2019 – the media are going to start trying to get us to care about their polls. And there will be so much push and advertising behind it the candidates are going to have to play to the polls. They’ll be a thing.
Acch. I don’t want to think about it anymore.
Locally….I am so sorry to hear of the much, much too early passing of Lee Newcom, the former McLean County Recorder and County Board member.
For at least six months, Lee used to do my radio show on these airwaves every Friday. We had almost nothing in common politically, but I enjoyed our discourse. I enjoyed the argument because I never for a second believed that Lee was being self-serving.
I never for a second doubted that what Lee Newcom wanted was to make life better for everybody here and everywhere. He had a different route to get there than I did, but our destination was the same.
Why can’t we learn something from that?
Dan Irvin is Vice-President of the Bloomington Public Library Foundation Board, and a member of the Heartland Community College Foundation Board.
The opinions expressed within WJBC’s Forum are solely those of the Forum’s author, and are not necessarily those of WJBC or Cumulus Media, Inc.
