General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I want to make sure DUers know about this: [View all]SWBTATTReg
(22,112 posts)would have to travel seemingly forever to get to a presidential candidate's events (even in Missouri here).
Used to be that I would see lots of presidential candidates come stomping through here (STL), but lately (last 20 years or so, give or take), I don't see near the amount of visits from candidates that I used to. Perhaps I'm being biased, but I don't think so.
I think that this whole process has been skewed by states wanting to be the first in the country in dealing with presidential campaigns, simply because of the money. I used to think, no, it can't be the money, then I heard that in Iowa alone, this time around, w/o Bloomberg, over $300 million was spent. Big business indeed, and smells to me of rank capitalism, not raw, backroom politics. In Iowa.
Have some lost the flavor that politics used to be? Yes, IMHO. One can see some of this with the comments I see on DU by some who are with some of the establishment candidates versa outsider candidates, that 'have no way of winning, don't waste your time' remarks. Kind of sad that I would see these kind of remarks on DU like this. I thought that the forum was open to all.
What I do see is that most of the candidates seem to have all of their time sucked up by Iowa and NH, two states who combined, probably have more visits by presidential candidates than all of the upcoming future visits in the rest of the country combined. If you add in the other front-end primary states such as SC, etc., the percentages get really lopsided (initial 5 primary states, probably 80% of all presidential contender visits vs. 20% for the remaining 45 states (not counting territories etc.)). Yeah, I know the arguments that one person can only be in one place at a time, but to have a candidate spend so much time in only a couple or so states? Come on now, quit hogging.
Thus, I definitely agree w/ you. It is unfair to the rest of us. And I already know the story about getting enough delegates to be a serious contender, getting enough money to even run, etc., but like you, it's kind of hard to get interested when candidates rarely get to your state, or some tiny states (population and size wise), get all of the attention, while the vast majority of us just sits there, barely watching anymore.