text: Essentially, this view is based on the fact that the two States have their nominating processes (the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary) at the very beginning. Candidates want to make a good showing here in order to demonstrate that they are viable within their own party. However, I feel it's overstating the case to say they "choose.....with limited input"  Recent campaigns have not borne that idea out. Voters in New Hampshire and Iowa do not, as a rule, represent opinions and concerns of the rest of the country.\n\nViewed as a horse race, which is how the media cover campaigns and elections, these two States do have an inordinate amount of attention paid to them, again only because they come first in the cycle-------they're the only show in town in the early stages. Most years, they're quickly forgotten once the next round of primaries come along.\n\nThinking back, the last time I remember these States  having real impact was in 1968, when Eugene McCarthy got 42% of the N.H. vote in the Democratic Primary to LBJ's 58%, but that was enough of a shocker to cause LBJ to take his hat out of the ring.\n\nThe reality is,not the early state contests but the wheeling and dealing that bring the foregone results at the National Conventions. You have to go back 46 years, to 1960, to see a Convention where the outcome was in any doubt.