Collins:
Can I pause here briefly to point out that in New York there are approximately 35,000 people living on some blocks? If my block got to decide the first presidential caucus, I guarantee you we would be as serious about our special role as the folks in Iowa are. And right now Mitt Romney would be evoking the large number of founding fathers who were agnostics.
You:
That puts this idiotic primary system and its determinative fate for American politics in as fine a metaphorical setting as I can recall.
Indeed it does. It also harkens back to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, where the biggest argument was not over slavery but over representation of big (more populated) states vs small states (less populated). As anyone who remembers their high school civics classes knows, the small states insisted on "equal" representation, since they would, they claimed, be "overwhelmed" by the large states if representation was based on population alone. Hence we have the ludicrous situation where states like Wyoming and Alaska with maybe 500,000-600,000 people or so each have 2 Senators, the same as states like CA (with over 30,000,000 people), NY and TX (with close to 30m people). Although the latter do get money for larger staffs, it hardly makes up for the extra population that they have to represent. And it also gives the "small states" extra representation in the Electoral College. And, as Daniel Moynihan showed with a series of reports back in the 1990s, gives the small states more Federal money per capita than the large states (with occasional anamolies when the large states are represented in the WH as with Reagan/CA and Bush/TX). And if we go back to Madison's account of why this situation arose, we find out that it was not the result of some brilliat genius on the part of the members of Constitutional Convention. No, it pure and simple a power play on the part of representatives from New Jersey, Connecticutt and Delaware in particular. I would refer you to Madison's Notes of Federal Convention of 1787, with special reference to the dates June 26 through June 30, where the issue really came to a head (although it was discussed throughout June and into July), and the most important arguments and pronouncements were made.
We have always cloaked our little power plays in virtue. Even our "founders." Which would only be a surprise to "patriots" who don't bother to learn any actual history but only listen to rubbish. |
