We got the perfect result out of Iowa tonight. My main complaint about the Iowa caucuses is not that it’s a lily-white state or that caucuses are inherently undemocratic, although those are both good reasons not let Iowa go first every single time. My main complaint is that the results are basically meaningless in terms of votes or delegates, and yet the media treats them as hugely significant, which makes them hugely significant.

Someone won in Iowa, and if they follow up by organizing at the later state party conventions, they will actually be awarded the most Iowa delegates at the national convention in Milwaukee this summer. But there’s no assurance that will happen, and there’s no reason why anyone should get a big bounce out of Iowa or why it should cull otherwise worthy candidates from the field.

When the winner is eventually announced, their supporters will have the right to feel like they were robbed of the spoils of victory and that much of their hard work went for nothing. I will sympathize with them and understand their point. But the whole thing is a sham from beginning to end, and the best outcome is that the whole thing is treated as exactly important as it should be.

I had to laugh when Pete Buttigieg declared victory. And, why not? He might as well have won even if he really came in fourth place. There’s no real difference in how many delegates are won. In some caucuses, a third place finisher gets the same delegates as a first place finisher. It literally doesn’t matter.

Now we go to New Hampshire where people will actually cast ballots. The state is also lily-white, and independents can participate and usually do in large numbers. This means the preference of Democrats is not measured, and who cares because nothing matters. Then we get another caucus in Nevada. The process is stupid, but in the end it is about winning delegates. I always cover primaries from the perspective of who is winning delegates and in Iowa, there looks to be five candidates who accomplished that in significant numbers. Almost nothing separates them, so mathematically, Iowa may as well have passed rather than voting.

If no one gets a bounce in the polls and no one gets bounced out of the race, that will be the best result for the American people.