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Editorial: Why should Iowa caucus have so much clout?

The eyes of the nation will turn to Iowa this week as Monday's caucuses officially kick off a presidential campaign season that seems to have been taking place for the bulk of our lifetimes.

(It's hard to believe that it's taken so long just to arrive at the beginning.)

But whatever the case, from Iowa, the campaign swings to New Hampshire, then to South Carolina and Nevada.

Eventually, on March 15, it finally gets to us.

That's really only an eye blink away. Our primary election will be here before we know it.

But by the time campaign season ambles through Illinois, primaries or caucuses will have taken place in more than half of the states in the union, and it's anybody's guess what presidential campaigns still will be viable.

Why our nominating system is set up this way, who knows. Tradition mainly, we suppose. But it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Nothing against Iowa or New Hampshire, but it's hard to say those two states are particularly representative of the nation.

And even if they are, it's hard to say why voters there should have more say in eliminating candidacies than voters here.

Or for that matter, voters in California, the Dakotas, Montana, New Jersey and New Mexico, who likely will have no say whatsoever in who the picks will be by the time they all but wind up the primary season on June 7. (The distinction of being the last to vote actually goes to those in the District of Columbia on June 14.)

To be clear, Iowa and New Hampshire aren't kingmakers. The results in those two states seldom sew up a race for anyone.

But the results there, and in South Carolina and Nevada to follow, often end candidacies. And no doubt, they will end some in Campaign 2016 as well.

It's possible that by the time the campaigns get to Illinois that the outcomes in one party or the other or both will still be up in the air, and that voters here will get to influence the nominations.

It's possible, It has happened before.

But it's also just as possible, even likely, that by the time the campaigns get here, in one party or the other or both, it will be all over including the shouting.

And it's a certainty that by the time the primary election gets to Illinois, the crowded presidential fields that you see today will have been winnowed significantly - by voters elsewhere who will have more say than we do here.

Why does that make any sense?

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