I totally underestimated the importance of visiting until I went to Iowa earlier this month. (My wife went to high school and college there and we went back for the state fair and some campaign events.) It shattered my East-coast preconceptions about how elections work. Because of the caucus system,[1] you actually have to meet people in person to encourage them to advocate for you at the caucus. My wife got selfies with nearly every democratic candidate. I met the mayor of New York at a Buffalo Wild Wings. (He was just there for a snack, as were we.) You go to a diner with like 20 people and a presidential candidate has to sit there and field rambling questions from 80 year old ladies. It’s completely nuts, but the people who engage in the process (and they are completely ordinary people) are incredibly committed to their role.

The other thing I came away with from the whole process is a newfound appreciation for the “who would I like to have a beer with” factor. The issues and policy proposals you read on the Internet don’t really matter—none of that stuff will ever get through Congress. Being able to look the person in the eye, and see how they carry themselves while shleping to half a dozen events every day—that really makes an impression.

[1] In the Iowa Democratic caucuses, registered party members in a precinct get together, discuss the candidates, take a first round vote where some candidates are cut, discuss the candidates some more, and then take a final vote.

"None of that stuff will get through Congress"

I have a different opinion. Sanders and to a lesser extent Warren have created massive volunteer networks that do have a pretty big impact, like everywhere. Obama had that too, but it was dismantled when he took office (insanity). There's a good argument to say Obama would have been far more impactful had he kept it going.

Sanders has no intention of shutting down his "revolution" (not my words) whether he does or doesn't get the nomination. There's going to be some serious pressure (like there already has) on congress in the years to come. I don't think the same ol' same ol' will continue much longer.

I don't mean to be a fan boy, but it's pretty phenomenal what he / they have done since 2016, and it resonates with a lot of people. CNN and MSNBC don't talk about it too often, but it's very real.

Don't take my word for it though. Easily researched.

It's a 50/50 country. It would be alarming if, after one election, which will at best be decided 60/40 in their favor, a radically different (from their immediate predecessor) President was actually enable to enact their agenda. The system we have is literally designed to prevent that thing from happening. "Volunteer network" or not, Sanders isn't passing his agenda. If he was serious about doing that, he'd stay in the Senate.

Let's agree to disagree. I actually think big alarming changes are coming (and have already happened). I'm just a Canuck though, and not out to convince anyone. I'm really fascinated with the political changes I see happening (or think I see happening at least).

After 10 years in DC working in political circles, I can tell you that very little is actually changing. The giant, faceless bureaucracy still runs most of the show.

If you look into many of the "unprecedented events" you'll see that most of them aren't new and some of them are decades old.

Though if the events really are bad and were ignored before, it's worth asking "why?"

> After 10 years in DC working in political circles, I can tell you that very little is actually changing. The giant, faceless bureaucracy still runs most of the show.

Maybe but aren't you in danger of missing the big changes coming precisely because you are inside the bubble?

A political equivalent to "let them eat cake".

As an outside observer to the US it does seem like the pressure has to give somewhere soon at some point (and in a few other western democracies including my own though I think the US is further down the pipe on this one).

Valid line of reasoning but I'm 10 years out from that world specifically because the bubble was/is ugly.

I think you're 100% right that there's building pressure and something will give but that's precisely because things haven't changed much. If the general populace decides "no matter how I vote, things don't change" some will lose hope and give up.. while others will look to other approaches.

(And those other approaches aren't usually good.)

Canada is very different, because the party in power in the House of Commons can basically do anything it wants. By contrast, the political system of the US is effectively designed to produce gridlock. The Canadian Senate rarely blocks and introduces legislation unlike that of the US, just to name one example.

There are benefits and drawbacks to both systems. Right now I'm pretty happy with this aspect of the US system. (There are other parts of the US system I'm less happy with—such as the Electoral College.)

A lot of people think the changes Trump is making are radically different, and the system has turned out to be a gentleman's agreement that doesn't prevent anything.

Except that it's prevented all sorts of things, including the two biggest-ticket items in Trump's agenda --- the repeal of "Obamacare" and the construction of a wall on the southern border. I'd extend the argument by observing that the widespread belief in the Republican party that anything and everything was on the table ended up royally screwing them; it is, for instance, why they failed to repeal the ACA.

The reason why they failed is because they were the dog that caught the car - they had no plans that were remotely workable.

They pounded it with demagoguery to get elected but they didn't have anything behind the policy and knew it. They also knew that going forward with their disasters would hurt them even more.

Trump has been able to get almost nothing done. He got a tax cut, which was billed as radical but mostly just brings our corporate taxes in line with Western Europe. And he put tariffs on China—one of the few things the President can do without the support of Congress.

Is was my understanding it moves our nominal rates in line with the rest of the world, but this reduces our effective rates to below the rest of the world.

It’ll take a few years for the data to play out, but that’s likely not the case. A CBO study found that our effective corporate tax rate before the Trump tax cut was 18.6%. https://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/541797699/fact-check-does-the.... France, Australia, and Canada were from 8.5-11.2%. The Trump tax cut dropped the nominal rate by about 1/3 (accounting for state corporate taxes, which didn’t change). Assuming a proportional drop in the effective rate (which is a wild ass guess), that would move us below Brazil, Germany, and India, but keep us slightly above France, Canada, And Australia.

The US media coverage of Trump’s corporate tax cuts really misrepresented how completely mainstream it was: https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/wp-content/uplo.... While the US nominal rate of almost 40% total was around the OECD average in 1990, the rest of the OECD dropped to just over 20% by 2017. Meanwhile, the US nominal rate didn’t drop at all.

Ahh ok thanks for the information and the links I appreciate it. So the tax cut brought us from the top of the pack to the middle of the pack.

He got a judge.

From wiki;

As of August 14, 2019, the United States Senate has confirmed 146 Article III judges nominated by President Trump, including 2 Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, 43 judges for the United States Courts of Appeals, 99 judges for the United States District Courts, and 2 judges for the United States Court of International Trade.

I stand corrected. He got judges.

So for a citizen in California or Texas, who will never get or see this personal treatment, how is this helpful?

Visiting here is a proxy for overall campaign message initiatives, which includes physical visits, but also ad buy and even shaping the candidates message and platform to better appeal to the swing stage demographic. Arguably the last one is the biggest potential problem since it means some minority has an outside influence on candidates.

It's not just visiting, it's pork too, there's a reason why there's a net wealth transfer through taxes from those states that are not in play to those that are.

A NPV would go some way to spread the federal spending around a little more fairly

As an example of this imbalance shaping platforms see American policy on Cuba, where conservative policy is enduringly punitive appeal to Florida voters

That's right. Whats at stake is in which markets and demographics the ad spend goes.

Isn't the program also partially being tailored to those states?

No, at the end of the day. People are humans and are affected by face-to-face interactions. Communication via television and internet feels impersonal. When a candidate visits your city, they discuss how your local and state politics tie together. So candidates can personalize their speeches towards a specific region per visit. Some people might not care about this, but many others will

You can't discount Trump's stadium tours as an important part in his campaign strategy. It's essential for emotionalizing the base. Almost the same way a Spotify stream compares to a live arena concert. I would even go so far that offline events have in these digital times a much higher voter activation potential.

Probably the biggest reason for physically visiting places is to get bigger donations from people and interest groups. Also to generate buzz that will land in the 24 hour media cycle.

Nobody cares about visiting. They can craft their policies to entirely exclude or screw over states that aren't worth their time. For example, favor specific industries over others that are heavy in one state vs another. They'll do that anyway, but may think twice if they need to build a coalition of smaller states vs just winning the popular vote.

This idea doesn’t seem obvious to me. The biggest states are:

  California
  Texas
  Florida
  New York
  Pennsylvania 
  Ohio
  Illinois 
  Georgia
  North Carolina
  Michigan

Which major industry unites them? Which major industries are not represented? You have tech, finance, automakers, agriculture, tourism, and oil. Maybe not much mining and fishing? Probably something else, but these are very different states.

It's worth adding that those states aren't even close to as homogeneous as most tend to assume. Only 60% of California voted Democrat in 2016, and you have to assume the turnout for Republicans would be higher if it wasn't guaranteed that their vote (for president) was meaningless. With the current system, you can cater only to the populous parts of California and win the whole state, and that goes for most other states as well. With a popular vote, that ~30 to 40% of California is relevant again, along with significant chunks of other states.

It's also worth noting the math really doesn't work out, the electoral college makes it easier to win the whole thing while carrying less states/votes (Which really shouldn't be surprising). With both the popular vote and the electoral college, you only have to take the 10 most populous states to win the whole thing. But the difference is that, with the current electoral college you generally only need to get 51% of the vote to win the whole state, which is significantly easier and turns states like California from a 60% to a 100%. With the popular vote, to actually win in that fashion you would have to take almost every vote in those states, which is practically impossible considering the diversity.

If it takes about visiting why to the campaigns spend so damn much time in Iowa?

Iowa and NH are targeted because of early caucus and primary, key in nomination contests because perceived momentum drives donations, media coverage, and later votes.

An early primary, I believe.

Yes, but if it's really about ad spend and not being physically present, why do they spend so much time being physically present in a tiny state?

Because of primary campaign dynamics where those are literally the only stayed voting at the time, and underperforming there means you have no money, no positive news coverage and no reason to campaign anywhere else. So all energy goes into them at a certain point in the nomination campaign. (As a rough approximation.)

Totally different dynamic than general elections, which happen all at once rather than different dates in different states.