One (Loud) Person, (Maybe) One Vote.

"At the same time, Iowa's vaunted precinct caucuses -- especially those of the Democratic Party -- violate some of the most elemental values of a vibrant and open political process. As far as a mechanism for selecting a president is concerned, you might end up with Iowa's model if you set out to design a system that discouraged participation and violated basic democratic values." Whoever wins the Democratic caucus in Iowa tomorrow, CNN's Jeff Greenfield reminds us, it's a pretty lousy process. "What if you're in a union and want to pick someone your union hasn't endorsed, and your shop steward is there, watching you from across the room? Or the person who holds your mortgage? Or your spouse? Tough...[In addition] a candidate who won a lot of the precincts narrowly would wind up winning a bigger portion of the delegates than a rival who piled up votes in one corner of Iowa -- even if that corner yielded a higher overall number of supporters. It's all the disproportional representation of the Electoral College, in miniature. And that was the price for forming the Union, not a guide for running elections."