The current presidential nomination process of both parties has justly received criticism for the dispositive roll it gives to the small, idiosyncratic states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
To be fair though, if you are going to have such an intensely flawed and unrepresentative system there is at least the minor consolation that the two states given such absurd preference are fairly distinct from each other ideologically.
On the Republican side, the rural social conservatism of Iowa is balanced in short-order by the individualistic, libertarian-conservatism of New Hampshire. The Midwest is countered by the Northeast, which is then countered by the South in South Carolina.
There are better ways to do it (a string of regional primaries perhaps), but the system does have some Madisonian logic undergirding it.
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