{"id":503,"date":"2004-01-20T15:12:22","date_gmt":"2004-01-20T20:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2004\/01\/are_we_relevant_yet\/"},"modified":"2004-01-20T15:12:22","modified_gmt":"2004-01-20T20:12:22","slug":"are_we_relevant_yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2004\/01\/are_we_relevant_yet\/","title":{"rendered":"Are We Relevant Yet?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thus far Democratic contenders have paid very little attention to Tennessee. General Clark is the only candidate who’s been advertising in the state.
\nSupposedly, however, that may be changing<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The surprise emergence of John Kerry \ufffd who finished first \ufffd and John Edwards \ufffd who finished second \ufffd in Iowa last night means Tennessee has a better chance of seeing a more spirited primary that might decide the Democratic nominee, political watchers here say.
\n”What you’re seeing is a turning of the undecideds toward Kerry and Edwards,” said Randy Button, chairman of the Tennessee Democratic Party. ”Going into the primaries, that makes Tennessee more relevant.”
\nTennessee’s primary is Feb. 10, earlier than the usual March date. Early voting begins tomorrow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Call it jealousy or whatever, but I’m a little ticked off that voters in Iowa and New Hampshire–which, incidentally, don’t represent America as a whole–get so much attention while voters in states such as Tennessee are basically ignored.
\nDemocratic candidates spent at least $12 million in Iowa<\/a>, a state where they’re lucky to get a 10% voter turnout. Consequently:<\/p>\n

The estimated spend for every Iowa caucus goer is $100 – compared with an average $1.50 that will be spent on every American voter in the elections in November.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s crazy.
\nWe need to revamp the primary calendar so that more voters matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thus far Democratic contenders have paid very little attention to Tennessee. General Clark is the only candidate who’s been advertising in the state. Supposedly, however, that may be changing: The surprise emergence of John Kerry \ufffd who finished first \ufffd and John Edwards \ufffd who finished second \ufffd in Iowa last night means Tennessee has […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}