Iowa Caucus 2024

Donald Trump has won 98 of 99 counties in Iowa, garnering a majority (51%) of the votes.  The one county that he did lose, Johnson County, he lost to Nikki Haley by 1 vote.  It should be noted that many Democrats participated in the caucus by changing their voter registration on the day of the caucus.  Such voters invariably chose Haley.  Though Haley won a county, DeSantis was second with 21% of the votes, Haley was 3rd with 19%, and Ramaswamy - my favored candidate - was last with 8% of the vote.  Ramaswamy suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump.

With Ramaswamy out of the race, that leaves three going into New Hampshire.  Haley is expecting a strong showing and has already announced it is a two-person race after Iowa.  In fact, polling in New Hampshire indicates Trump will win with 40% of the vote and Haley will have a strong showing around 30%.  If that holds, Haley will hope for an upset in her home state of South Carolina.  If Trump wins both New Hampshire and South Carolina, the campaign is over.

Will it be Trump v. Biden again?  If so, I would expect Reagan's question: "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"

Spoils System was Better

In the early days of the nation, all positions in the federal government were up for grabs after the election.  One of the most onerous jobs of a new president was to deal with those who had supported his campaign now looking for a job in the new government.  Most presidents picked a member of the cabinet to do this, but that didn't prevent job seekers from pestering the president himself.  Every job in the bureaucracy was available.  Of course, those selected for the position were often unsuited.  It was little more than a way to pay supporters who then did a mediocre or worse job in the position.  Thus was born Civil Service Reform.  Rather than hiring a new patent clerk, why not just keep the one that is there?  It is a non-political position and should be filled by someone with the skills required, rather than some random campaign supporter.  Yes, that was a perfectly sensible idea.

However, now a new problem arises.  A system was now in place where an administration could establish a new bureaucracy and then populate it with supporters.  The next administration would no longer be able to just sweep them away.  Is it any wonder that the federal government now employs more than 23 million people?  That is more than the population of Florida, our 3rd most populous state, who are working for the government.  This is what civil service reform got us.  Worse, these people are not non-partisan professionals.  Washington DC and the surrounding counties vote 90% Democrat, showing that the bureaucracy class - the Deep State - is clearly on one side.  When a Democrat is in office, the multitude of alphabet agencies implement the new policies with vigor.  When a Republican is in office, the gears of government grind to a halt as those same agencies slow walk the new policies.

Though the idea of non-partisan professionals was great in theory, it has utterly failed in practice.  It is time to return to the spoils system.  The Augean Stable needs to be cleaned.  Vivek Ramaswamy has floated the idea of disolving the FBI and placing the various useful special agents in related agencies (US Marshals, Secret Service, Treasury, etc.) and eliminating the administrative bloat that is more than half the FBI.  He also wants to close the Department of Education, which has improved our nation's educational standing not at all since its inception.

We are supposed to have a limited government.  Let's do some limiting!