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After running around the state for months (and in some cases, years) the big day for presidential wannabes has finally come: The Iowa Caucuses. This presidential ritual comes around every four years, and while most of the nation watches, a Midwestern state makes the first pick for the presidential nomination.
So what's so special about Iowa that they get to go first? In the late 1960s, the Iowa Democratic Party ruled that at least 30 days had to pass between the caucus and the district conventions, and again another 30 days between the district conventions and the state convention. This was intended to give the party enough time to work out the details of their state convention. Since the 1972 Democratic state convention was set for May 20, the earliest that a caucus could be held was January 24, before the New Hampshire primaries.
In each of the 1,784 precincts in Iowa, voters head to their caucus location, usually a church, school or gymnasium, but also private residences. If you want to register to vote when you get there, you can, and you can caucus if you will be 18 by November 4, 2008. The doors close at 7p.m. sharp; if you don't get there on time, you can't to participate. Each precinct has a set number of delegates, assigned by party rules that change from time to time. Simple enough, but from this point forward, which party you are caucusing for determines how complex the process is. Here's how it works:
For Democrats, after the doors close, the Precinct Chair counts the people in the room and, using a complex formula based on turnout in the last two general elections determines how many supporters a candidate needs to make the first round, or "viability" - generally 15 percent. During the process called "alignment," precinct captains speak in favor of their candidates and the audience breaks into preference groups to determine which candidates will be cut. The supporters of the viable candidates then get to make a pitch for the supporters of nonviable candidates, and those supporters can switch allegiance or go home. The winner of the precinct, just like in the Electoral College, gets all the delegates in the precinct. Those delegates go on to the county convention, the district convention and then on to the state convention, where the state's nominee is chosen, and those delegates go on to the national convention to pick the nominee.
For Republicans the process isn't quite as complex. The Republican caucuses follow the Ames Straw Poll, which takes place only in years where there is no Republican incumbent. Just like in the Democratic caucuses, the doors close at 7PM, and Precinct Captains make their pitch for their candidate. Unlike the Democratic caucuses, however, Iowa Republicans cast a secret ballot, writing their favored candidate on a blank piece of paper and putting it in a ballot box. Those votes are counted and sent to the state party. Just like the Democrats, the Republicans go through a series of local conventions leading up to the national nomination.
The caucuses only take a few hours, but the ground work and strategy required to win enough delegates takes months. Although winning the caucuses in Iowa doesn't guarantee the nomination or even the presidency, their importance isn't lost on the candidates. In 1972 George McGovern took advantage of it and campaigned hard in Iowa, coming in second to Edmund Muskie. The media buzz and sense of momentum carried him to the Democratic nomination that year. Jimmy Carter did it again in 1976, and the Iowa state Republican Party followed suit, setting their caucus on the same night as the Democrats, sealing the new tradition of Iowa as the first "non-primary state" to choose their delegates in the nation.
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The Iowa caucuses are stupid and anti-democratic. That being said, also they are amazingly fun and more people drink than you would imagine. Also, occasionally fights break out.
Please explain "stupid" and "antidemocratic."
I think it's deeply frightening how much power Iowa and New Hampshire wield over Presidential elections.
The whole convention system is broken when you consider it in the internet age. You can look at a candidates whole record online, you can read about them from a variety of sources (left, right and indifferent) and even watch them debate/make gaffes in real time. The pancake breakfasts and baby-kissing rallies are just remnants of a less connected age.
The 2 year long campaign for a four year office is just a ridiculous money suck.
Thanks, Kevin, for explaining this so clearly!
>The 2 year long campaign for a four year office is just a ridiculous money suck.
Or it proves the candidate can handle the hardest job in the world.
K-rob, nice post explaining how the caucuses work.
Um, please see Kevin's great explanation. There is no "one man, one vote" in this process. Your choice for a second tier candidate in the Dem caucus can be VERY important. Also, only a small minority of Iowans participate and they are at night excluding some people with jobs and children. Also a ridiculously long time commitment.
The process is stupid because of how low Iowa's minority population is.
Spav1: There is a "one man, one vote" system in place for the Republicans.
Also, one could make the argument that the Iowa caucuses are more democratic because they are closer to Instant Runoff Voting than the "one man, one vote" that is typical of balloted primaries.
I don't think it is democratic to have more than one vote, which is basically what this amounts to.
In any case, the primaries are so stacked that in like a day everyone will be talking about NH, then SC then FL etc.
This post is shockingly similar to the CNN article about the same topic.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/03/iowa.caucuses.101/index.html
Spav - Do you think proportional representation is undemocratic? Do you think parlimentary governments are undemocratic?
Ferdy: Are you trying to say the IA caucases are similar to proporotional representation or parliaments?
If so, you are off your rocker on this one.
I kinda liked the caucuses for the reasons Kevin left out in his narrative. They use to be low rent deals, occasions for lower tier candidates to get their name out with out spending a lot of money. This was an upshot.
The bigger candidates didn’t participate. It’s still unique in that the focus is on working class folks. The problem is that these folks are mostly all white and rural. I think they should get ride of the one in New Hampshire and have another one in New York
Spook: NH doesn't hold a caucus. It holds a primary.
Ferdy: I won't even comment. The things you mentioned aren't like the caucuses.
In PR, people still have one vote, albeit for a party. Do you understand that? Like, say there is a country with a 100 seat congress and several political parties of varying ideologies. When I go to the polls, instead of voting for a candidate, I vote for a party, let's say the "X" party. If then, the "X" party gets 42% of the vote, then the party decides on people to fill the 42 seats it would get in the Congress.
In anycase, I am still voting only once.
In the caucuses (on the democratic side), my point is, that some people get the luxury of voting twice and this is unfair.
opps, I meant first Open primary, thank
Where does it say that democracy means one person, one vote? In a runoff election, you have to vote more than once. There are, in fact, laws that trigger runoff elections. There will be repeat balloting at a DNC if a candidate doesn't win on the first ballot; obviously, some people have to switch sides. In fact, that's how our Congress works to pass bills when they don't have the necessary number of votes to approve it.
As for proportional representation, it does seem to me less democratic because majority always rules. Nobody cares what Idaho wants because who lives in Idaho anyway? The Illinois downstaters frequently complain about Chicago's excessive clout in Springfield, and significantly, the people who have been holding up the budget are all from Chicago.
Please see Supreme Court decision Baker v. Carr (1962) which delineates the one man, one vote rule.
Basically the Supreme Court held that if proportianlly one man's vote is worth more than anothers in cases such as legislative re-districting, then it violates the Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment and that is anti-democratic.
So, I would say, if you are a liberal, the Warren Court says it is undemocratic and that is almost like GOD saying it, right? But only if you are a liberal.
What does that have to do with party voting? The SC decision has to do with redistricting to prevent jerrymandering.
"Seats in the US House of Representatives (the House) are apportioned among the states based on the relative population of each state in the total population of the union. The states then partition their geography into equally populous single member electoral districts where representatives will be elected to serve in the US House of Representatives. States can lose or gain seats at each decentennial census."
It has NOTHING to do with party voting, nor does it de facto prevent heavily populated parts of the country, state, or county from throwing their clout around, particularly the electoral college.
More than jerrymandering - population change.
@whymustiregister:
Nonsense. The process has been getting longer and longer for decades now and the candidates have only been getting more and more bland. The sheer amount of money they need to raise for a campaign is so enormous that they're almost assuredly owned body and soul by special interests once they get into office. A shorter election cycle that relied on information technology and open debates would give people more choices.
In my opinion Christopher Hitchens sums up why caucuses suck quite nicely.
Ok, so after 200 years of money=power in politics, it is the internet that is going to break the schackles of money=power. They said the same thing about the telegraph, then the telephone, then television.
Talk about simple...
The long process shows us who can manipulate the news media, manage to stay on message, pare down the agenda to the achievable, and generally handle the pressure cooker that an effective President lives in. The person who can do all that can also get their agenda done.
The urge for a a quick coronation is understandable, but it also netted us real winners like John Kerry and Walter Mondale. No thanks.
And for the fantasy that changing the electoral schedule means that suddenly left wing candidates will start winning elections... well, try leaving your blue state enclave sometime. Left wing candidates lose because voters don't want them, despite what the 27 year old Wicker Park residents wish.
Oh, I see, you're making a "joke" about my handle. Aren't we clever. You're so meta there, sweetie.
The idea that the electoral schedule we have not is some kind of vetting process (for either party) is simply nonsense.
The internet differs from those methods of communication because it provides background information and data, where as phones and telegraphs (jesus, could you pick a more cliche reference?) were simply point to point communication. If you want to know Obama's voting record, it's out there, or Huckabee's commutations/pardons, the information is there. We don't need endless rallies, state-fair handshaking and other homespun nonsense. We now have the means to get information about a candidate.
Can that information be manipulated? Of course. But relying on the 2 minutes or so of election coverage the local new spins up nightly is far more biased.
An effective president shouldn't spend 100 million dollars getting elected while parceling off every issue to special interest groups for funding. A shorter campaign season, more open ballots and less of this folksy, undemocratic Caucus crapola would do wonders for the system.
As for your little bit of snark about "blue state enclaves", I'd rather see fleshed out field on both sides of the aisle debating the issues robustly. My politics aside, the lack of actual content in their over-grown beauty pagents is just sad.