A little undue influence

The big political story Wednesday was Mitt Romney's "victory" in the Iowa caucuses. But with only 24.6% of the delegates, that means 75.4% of the delegates wanted someone other than Mr. Romney. The big winners would seem to be Rick Santorum who picked up 24.5% of the delegates and Ron Paul who garnered 21.4%.

Let's face it, Mr. Santorum is nobody compared to the machine the Romney operates. Romney spent enough money in Iowa to fund a Third World dictatorship while Mr. Santorum spent just a little over a million dollars. At the same time, Ron Paul, whose views are, shall we say, just a bit out of the Republican mainstream, came in a strong third.

I'm not interested in the fact that Mr. Romney beat Mr. Santorum by all of 8 delegates. I'm more interested in how he won by only 8 delegates.

And just why does Iowa get such disproportionate influence when it comes to picking a president? It's not like Iowa is in any way representative of the nation's population.

Iowa is 61% urban while the US is 82% urban. 

Iowa is 91.3% white while the US is 63.7% white.

African-Americans make up only 2.9% of the Iowa population versus 12.2% of the US population.

And it's not like New Hampshire is any more representative.