The Only Interesting Things About Iowa

The Iowa Caucuses happened last night. I know I should be super excited. It’s the kickoff of the 2012 election season and the only topic anyone in my world discussed all day today. Romney won by 8 votes. Santorum came in a close – absurdly close – second. Since that announcement, both Perry and Bachmann have dropped out of the race, limiting the field to a handful of other equal ridiculous and scary candidates. Frankly, I’m not that interested in the horse race predictions of it all yet. As a result, only two tangential observations from last night genuinely intrigued me:

1. Without question, the absolute best political coverage is online. Not tv. I don’t know why this surprised me since I pretty much live on the internet. In fact, it didn’t surprise me. It excited me. As someone who used to think that having a show on tv – cable or otherwise – was the promised land and the end all be all goal of my career, I find it particularly telling and encouraging, although somewhat sad for the medium, that the quality of television news has declined so much. As I watched a dozen cable pundits try to find nine million ways to say the same thing (none of which was remotely interesting or insightful) and fill up air time with mindless chatter, I was checking the results on google’s map http://google.com/elections/ed/us/results.

They were getting results straight from the Republican Party and were updating faster than any mainstream outlet. And the commentary on blogs and from my listservs and twitter, was sharper and more relevant than anything I found on the 20 tv channels airing it. This was exciting not just because it reinforced the narrative that “the future of media is online”, but it actually challenged the idea that the internet inherently lowers the quality of the content. It doesn’t have to. And in some areas, it does quite the opposite.

2. Ron Paul won most of the youth vote. 48% of eligible Republican voters under age 30 voted for him. They supported in in a much higher percentage than any other age group supported any candidate. What does this say about the future of the Republican party? A swinging of the pendulum towards libertarianism perhaps? And what does it confirm what we already know about what appeals to young voters? That seems the most obvious. That young voters like candidates who are genuine, consistent and don’t just say what’s politically correct. While I certainly don’t think he’s any formal threat to Obama, I am really taking notice of how much Ron Paul’s rhetoric is showing up everywhere. Even if he doesn’t go far, I’m curious (and a bit worried) about how his worldview is taking hold in youth culture.

Now the crazy road show goes to New Hampshire. I for one will be glued to the internets.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 5th, 2012 at 5:29 am. It is filed under politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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erica williams

The Only Interesting Things About Iowa

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