Editorials say Iowa too unrepresentative

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As Democrats and Republicans prepared to vote in the Iowa caucuses on Thursday, some U.S. editorials said the Midwestern state was too unrepresentative and voter turnout too small to merit such an outsized role in the presidential election process.

Jeff Greenfield, political correspondent for CBS News, wrote in the online magazine Slate.com that the caucuses, in which Iowans gather to discuss and vote for their party's candidate in the November 2008 election, "violate some of the most elemental values of a vibrant and open political process" - the secret ballot and the principle of one person, one vote.

In the Wall Street Journal, Iowa resident and freelance journalist Michael Judge complained that the caucuses encouraged candidates to pander to Iowans, 90 percent of whom were unlikely to show up at caucuses.

"Even if you're a died-in-the-wool Democrat or Republican, you have to be a certain kind of person to do the caucus thing," he wrote.

The caucuses kick off the state-by-state process by which Democrats and Republicans will select their nominees to face off in the November presidential election. Fewer than 250,000 people are expected to take part in the voting on Thursday.

Defenders of Iowa say the state's citizens take their role in winnowing the presidential field extremely seriously and force the candidates to do on-the-ground, personal campaigning instead of relying on television advertisements.

"Sorry, but that's not good enough," the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in an editorial. It noted that the state's largest city of Des Moines had a population less than half the size of Oakland, California.

"The system favors enthusiasts with the time to attend a caucus for several hours, a process that screens out those with family duties, conflicting work hours, travel plans or disabilities," the newspaper wrote.

New York Times columnist Gail Collins agreed: