cbs 20080102 CAUCUS2

Down to TWO days 'til the race begins.   This is DR...

No time to worry about the start of a new year, there’s a presidential campaign about to start, and I know you can't wait.   What?  You feel left out?  You feel like all the action is in just a couple of states and this is a pretty poor excuse for a democratic process?

Yes, I’ve heard that sentiment.  We are jealous of Iowa’s power – place where caucusers  are polled hourly to detect any shift.  Where pollsters would check a voter’s cholesterol if they thought it would affect who wins.

You wish YOU were that important!

Or do you?

Do you really want to be an Iowan?  Because there’s a price for being so important.  The phone never stops.  Pollsters, phone banks, robocalls!   Until you wish that just ONE mortgage lender would call.

And then -- the morning after, when you’re dropped like yesterday’s girlfriend.

And nobody asks you anymore what message you want to send, they start telling you what message you sent.

And the promises the candidates made in January – do you think anyone will remember them by November?  

Ah, but maybe these early states will be inconclusive.  Maybe caucsers will turn everything on its head and give the also rans a boost and the front-runners a scare, and it’ll keep happening in state after state after state so that the convention is a REAL convention.  A conventions where ordinary people -- the same ordinary people we so admire during the caucus process, actually have to decide for themselves who would best represent the party, not based on some slick video, but on hard compromises and good old horse trading.  That’s my New Year’s wish.  Come on -- dream with me.

Now this.