It's always worth reminding yourself that the Iowa Caucuses are a really fucked-up way of selecting presidential candidates: the balloting isn't secret, you can't vote for a candidate unless a sizable number of other people want to do the same, and you have to be willing and able to sacrifice several hours of your evening to participate. On top of this, they take place in a state that is, statistically speaking, whiter than Israel is Jewish.
I didn't realize, though, that the caucus winners aren't determined by some statewide vote tally, but rather by how many precincts a candidate wins, just like our old friend the electoral college. It's almost enough to make you long for the days of smoke-filled rooms.
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While I'm on the subject of disheartening election news, some of my co-workers and I got into a brief political discussion today, during which one person cited Loose Change as a reliable source, while another remarked that she couldn't vote for Barack Obama because of his Muslim background. I knew that there were people out there who believed these things, but I never thought they worked in the cubicles on either side of mine.
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