Iowa Caucus Website

The Iowa Department of Economic Development has created a new website for the 2008 Iowa Caucuses. While Iowa Caucus 2008 has minimal info on the caucuses, it is more of a promo of Iowa than what it claims it is.

1st of all, I am not opposed to promoting Iowa. In fact I like the idea that it does include info on what makes us a great state. But, if it presents itself as an site about the caucuses, it should have more about the caucuses than it does. It should include more about the history of the caucuses & their effects over the years.

1 of the things is wrong is that it acts like there is Des Moines/Polk County & then there is the rest of us. I say that because besides the Republican & Democratic state party websites, it only lists those of Polk County. Granted, not every county has a website. (The DBQ Co Republican Central Committee does.) But a lot of them do. & both state party sites have info on County Committee officers.

The same weaknesses are seen in the fact that they ignored most of the state's major papers & except for KCRG-TV & WQAD-TV they only have Des Moines area TV stations linked to.

1 of the links is to a newsmedia website called Caucus Iowa. Like so much else, it is clearly slanted toward Des Moines & the surrounding area. I hate to break it to them, the state of Iowa DOES NOT revolve arround Polk County. Also, it has the date of the Republican Caucuses wrong.

I don't know if the weaknesses are arrogance towards the rest of the state or pure laziness that at best means they just haven't gotten arround to putting up info about the rest of the state, at worst they don't care (again arrogance?).

& there is clearly some bias towards the Democratic Party in both sites. (Forgive the sarcasm, but big surprize given Culver is a Democrat & the Main Stream Media bias towards the Dems.)

Both sites ignore 1 of the most im[portant leadups to the caucuses, the Republican Party Straw Poll to be held in Ames on 11 August 2007. (More prejudice against the Republicans?)

What could be some excellent resources for the 2008 Caucuses are so far a bit of a disgrazie. As they stand now, they are more of a black eye than a jewel. Let's hope they improve soon before they makes Iowa a laughing stock.