Are they really that important? Like many of us, Kenyon Farrow wants to know what his vote is really worth.

So, if his election may be fraught with such tension, hope, ambivalence or disillusionment for Black people in America, why should I vote? Why should any Black person in America vote? I don’t honestly know the answer to that question. I don’t know why I do vote most of the time. But I know that there isn’t an easy answer to how the descendants of chattel slaves should position themselves trapped as we are in this strange paradigm. But as much as I feel, in the deepest core of my being, somewhat anxious for Obama and wanting to see him do well, but I am under no delusion that his Presidency (nor Clinton nor Edwards nor any of ‘em) will save any of us. And so I will watch the Iowa Caucus tonight, and all the other election brouhaha over this year, with a good deal of hopefulness and anxiety, highly skeptical that freedom can ever be found in a ballot box, but knowing full well that budgets, laws, and public policy can shrivel or spread misery.

What do you think about the Iowa Caucus today? Are we looking to these results as indicators for November? Or, are we too cynical to believe that votes in Iowa could be the beginning of something different?