Iowa DNC delegate tears rips Biden's plan to let South Carolina and more ... trends now

An Iowa delegate to the Democratic National Committee ripped a new plan by party leaders and President Joe Biden to shake up the traditional sequence of primary contests – saying the move favors 'vanity candidates' and shifts nomination fights away from voters and onto the airwaves. 

Iowa delegate Scott Brennan was the lone voice trashing the plan at a meeting of the DNC's Rules and Bylaws committee in Washington Friday, after Biden released a letter calling for early states to 'reflect the overall diversity of our party and our nation – effectively getting behind a move to move up South Carolina, a state that salvaged his own campaign in 2020. 

That would be followed up by New Hampshire and Nevada, with Georgia and Michigan then getting a crack at the early state attention, under a plan being debated. 

'Two very large very expensive states are being added to the mix. This will surely favor frontrunners and billionaire vanity candidates,' Brennan fumed at the meeting, after a series of party figures praised the changes as an 'elegant' remedy. 

He said Iowa Republicans would take advantage of the situation by keeping their own early caucuses, and make the case that Democrats 'have turned their back on Iowa,' a traditional battleground.

'We are created a self-fulfilling prophecy of electoral failure,' he said, hours after news broke of Biden's letter basically backing the plan. 'Democrats cannot forget about entire groups of voters in the heart of the Midwest without doing significant damage to the party,' he said. 

During a break in Friday's meeting, he told DailyMail.com the rules change would favor vanity candidates 'because then you have a pile of money and you just spend your time in Michigan and Georgia' – who would have big blocks of delegates up for grabs. 

'Barack Obama doesn't win. [Transportation Secretary] Pete Buttigieg wouldn't make it. They needed a place to sort of build momentum,' he said, recalling how his state launched Obama's historic rise.

'I will however say that New Hampshire does have a statute, we do have a law. And we will not be breaking our law,' said New Hampshire delegate Joanne Dowdell, whose state jealously guards its first-in-the-nation primary status. She did allow that the process has been 'open and transparent.' 

National Democrats lost all patience with Iowa after its caucus results were filled with problems in 2020, and Biden specifically tore into the caucus process as not sufficiently democratic in his letter. The state has announced changes making its obscure caucus process closer to a primary. 

Brennan predicted traditional early states like Iowa and New Hampshire would still try to maintain their early slot – which brings big economic benefits, which could lead to a rerun of 2008, when the DNC sanctioned states who jumped the official line.

'We have a statute [on being the first caucus state]. So we're locked in by statute. New Hampshire has a statute ... I assume that at least two states are going to jump,' he said. 

His comments came after a series of DNC members hailed the coming changes. 

Panel co-chair Minyon Moore bashed 'restrictive, anti-worker caucuses' that require people to show up on election night. 

'This is an elegant way of showing who we are as democrats and what this nomination process means,' said Randi Weingarten, head of the powerful American Federation of Teachers. 

Longtime DNC member and former chair Donna Brazile was one of several members who praised the state shuffling as reflecting diversity and inclusivity.

'Traditions can be passed down and transferred, especially when you’re opening up new doors and you’re helping to expand the electorate so that every American can enjoy full citizenship,' she said.

'Do you know what it’s like to live on a dirt road? Do. You know what it’s like to try to find running water that’s clean? … That’s what this is about. It is about seeing other people in the united states of America.'

'We are bringing more voices into the process earlier and we are making ourselves more competitive in a general election,' said Mo Elleithee, a former spokesman for the DNC and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign who is now heads Georgetown University's Institute of Politics.

The clash comes as Biden wants to make South Carolina - the state that gave him the Democratic nomination - the first in the process that decides the party's presidential nominee, a move that would benefit him in the 2024 election.

Such a move would cause a massive shakeup in the way Democrats choose their presidential nominee, elevating a state whose Democratic voters are largely black.

The new calendar would also turn Iowa into a complete outcast. The state, which normally has the number two slot, is made up of mostly white voters and experienced embarrassing problems tabulating results in 2020.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the new system would be Biden himself, should he face a primary challenge. Some Democrats have expressed concerns about his age - Biden is 80 - and have called for the next

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