Our nomination system sucks

I guess since this is relying on opinion, I have to drop my credentials. I attended 138 democratic and republican presidential events in the State of Iowa while working for a non-partisan non-profit issues campaign. Attended even more events after I took a position with a candidate, where I was a regional field director for the last three weeks of the race, and at the same time managed to pull off 9% of my candidate's final statewide support. Having been to 138 events as a non-partisan witness, I can safely say that candidates spoke about more than just social issues. I attended candidate events in more than thirty counties, and saw a large variety of issues covered. Many of the candidates spoke to environmental issues, foreign policy issues, economic issues without being prompted by questions. However, if you only attended the events of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, you saw a greatly minimized amount of audience participation. I like that you dismiss my argument about a national primary destroying the candidacy of small candidates that draw funds by simply saying it doesn't matter. So, as opposed to give underfunded candidates a chance, you would rule them out all together. You should look at the amount of fund raising that Edwards and Kerry did, when they were 4th and 5th in the polls in Iowa and the boon that both candidate in financing with their 1st and 2nd place finishes. If a national primary had been the sole factor, the better fund raising candidates, like Gephart and Dean would have stood a better chance, even though both of their campaigns lacked the funds to run a 50 state campaign which would have sent them to special interests and lobbies to sell the votes, souls, and integrity. As an Iowan, I have no desire to see fund raising become the sole priority of a nationally based campaign. There were ways which small candidates, like Tommy Thompson, and Tom Tancredo were able to shape the outcome of the issues in their party by showing support for their positions in Iowa. Both Tancredo and Thompson would have never received any attention on a national stage, and Iowa was the only reason why their input mattered. Sam Brownback was also able to push international issues, which otherwise would have been unheard. On the Democratic side of the ticket, I can only imagine how limited the debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would have been if they had not been forced to encounter Bill Richardson's environmental issues, the depth and breadth of Joe Biden's experience in foreign policy, civil rights, and the judiciary, as well as Chris Dodd's input on constitutional matters, and fiscal matters. Joe Biden is still the only Candidate in either party who has put forth a solution to Iraq which has passed the Senate with 75 votes, and the House with 371. While the front runners have yet to place anything in stone regarding it, Biden's presidential campaign has made millions of people aware of what has become the "Biden Exit Strategy." When Biden was fund raising, he was told by large groups of donors that he was "Too inconsistent" for them to support because he doesn't vote they way his donors want him to. The man has not knowingly met with a registered lobbyist in 35 years of being a Senator, makes less than 300,000 a year including his wife's income from teaching, and his income from teaching a constitutional law class on the weekends at the University of Delaware. Do you really want to discourage a person with his history and integrity from being willing to peruse the Presidency? Iowa doesn't reflect the national demographic. The average Iowan is better educated than most of the folks living in other states, to begin with. If you want to discuss our lack of racial diversity, you must only be paying attention to certain parts of our state. We have very large pockets of both Latino and African American voters which can and have shaped caucus campaigns in the past. Iowa has always been a progressive state when it comes to many things, including having integrated education since the 1870s. The caucuses are not supposed to be a primary. I think you ignored my previous statement of such. They have their strengths which primaries lack. For instance, in Iowa, individual activists actually choose their delegates to the county convention, who then choose their delegates to the state, who then choose their delegates to the national convention. In states with a primary, a party official gets to choose their delegates. If you want to hand power directly to the party establishment and significantly limit the ability of grass roots, and neighborhood organizing to effect both state and national policies, you'll do away with the caucuses. We have the Iowa Caucuses because of how corrupt Iowa's political parties used to be, especially the Democrats. Caucuses are actually better when they're more exclusive, because each person matters more to each candidate which forces the candidates to literally spend quality time with individuals, not just hosting rallies with mobs. As far as participation goes, the date and location of the Iowa Caucuses are set months in advance, and in most cases you can arrange a evening off from work, a sitter for your kids, even though you can -bring- your kids to the caucus. Why would you want to insist that someone who doesn't care enough to change their work schedule, or make other arrangements still participate? Sometimes it should require effort to be a good citizen. The Media has made issues out of elect-ability. Because of the lack of research in their journalism, they resort to spending an afternoon talking about polls instead of spending an afternoon reading about policy after a morning of research to spend fifteen minutes providing worthwhile coverage of our nation's politicians. If we had a national primary, the media's coverage would become even more important, and given their current poor quality I'm not willing to trust the future of my nation to Wolf Blitzer and Tom O'Reily. Rudy Guiliani did not fail in early states because of some flaw within the early states, he actively decided not to campaign. Why would you want a system where a candidate that does not bother campaigning have more of a chance? Rudy Guiliani spent almost no time in the state, and his campaign managed to gravely, gravely offend about a third of the state when they backed out of an event after telling the family farmers that were hosting them that they basically weren't rich enough to host an event. John McCain is leading in the polls right now because he's a moderate politician. George Bush's presidency has been pretty craptacular, and there's been one person who has been clear opposition to many of his efforts, and that was John McCain. John McCain has done more to work against George Bush's policies in the last seven years than Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi. John McCain was leading in the polls two years ago, why should it be a surprise that he is leading now? Are you suggesting that somehow people would be talking about Mike Huckabee as a viable candidate if he hadn't won in Iowa? Name recognition is a big deal in politics. You can't vote for someone you've never heard of, so of course when a candidate wins in Iowa or New Hampshire they receive a boost in the polls. Very few people had ever heard of John Kerry before he won in Iowa. If you're unhappy because the candidate you liked was not viable in your precinct, I encourage you to talk to me further. I have a lot of feed back about this and a national primary is not the solution. Before you even complain about the media not covering Edwards enough, bear in mind all the times it was mentioned that Obama used to teach constitutional law, but it was never mentioned that Senator Biden teaches Constitutional Law while being a Senator for the last 18 years.