There has been considerable debate about the role of Iowa and New Hampshire with the changing face of politics. Not long ago, presidential candidates launched barnstorming campaigns across the entire states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
Now, because of the increased influence of super PAC’s and the sheer amount of money involved in presidential campaigns, there’s less of a need to mount the state-wide bus tour because you can just run a bunch of ads if your pockets are deep enough.
The greater number of debates is also giving voters more of an opportunity to size up the candidates before voting, I leave it to the readers to determine whether this is a good or bad thing.
There is a danger in this, because candidates who aren’t in Iowa and New Hampshire enough can be seen as aloof or detached, which is obviously never good for a campaign.
And the new debate heavy format has obviously caused candidates to falter (Rick Perry.)
Iowa and New Hampshire still matter. Without Iowa, Rick Santorum is a footnote candidate in otherwise fairly obvious race. Santorum ran a very traditional campaign leading into Tuesday night’s caucuses and almost won.
This indicates that the “old way” of doing things in Iowa can still pay major dividends, even if Santorum is now the exception, not the rule.
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