So why DO we caucus, anyway?
- Font Size:
- Default font size
- Larger font size
By Ed Tibbetts | Saturday, December 15, 2007 |
Gary Lane, of Eldridge, and Audrey Linville, of Davenport, try to woo a voter to their side during a simulated caucus in Bettendorf. The simulation is designed to train volunteers interested in becoming officials at their precincts. (Jeff Cook/Quad-City Times) Buy this Photo
On a snowy day about a week ago, Sherri Dietz sat in a room in downtown Davenport and got schooled on the Iowa caucuses.
It took two hours, and when it was over, Dietz, a 50-year-old secretary from rural Walcott, wasn’t quite sure she understood it all.
“I’m kind of worried about screwing it up,” she said.
She can be forgiven her fear.
Even veteran caucus-goers have to be reminded how to caucus.
That’s why the parties and campaigns hold copious training sessions.
It’s why the Democrats, in particular, drill their people on the nuances of viability thresholds, realignments, second choices and, of course, “caucus math.”
“It can get interesting,” says Scott County Democratic Chairman Sue Frembgen.
It can, indeed.
Iowa’s caucus system, while at the center of the political universe every four years, is often misunderstood.
Even less well known is why the state weighs in on the presidential race this way.
Why a caucus, after all?
And why so many rules?
The easiest answer to the first question is that it’s what Iowa’s always done. Almost, anyway.
Only once, in 1916, did the state hold a presidential primary.
However, the cost was high and turnout was low. By the time it was over, Gov. George Clarke labeled it a “farce,” and by 1920, the state had gone back to its caucuses.
In short, the caucuses are as old as Iowa.
The modern-day version, however, dates back only to the 1970s.
How that came about is where the answer to the second question really begins.
The Democrats
It was Democrats who took the first step in devising what would become today’s caucus system. After the turbulent 1968 Democratic convention, party leaders were pushed to give the grassroots more power and open the process to greater scrutiny.
In Iowa, that translated into state Democrats revamping their rules. A major change was jettisoning a winner-take-all system that left activists on the losing end angry at being shut out of delegates.
“It was just the way things were done,” says Mary Ellen Chamberlin of Davenport, a member of the party’s rules committee in the 1970s. “It was pretty cutthroat in those days.”
The party instead decided it would award delegates by the amount of the vote that a candidate gets at the precinct level. There’s a hitch, however, and it plays into one of the most controversial parts of the Democratic caucus system.
In most of the state’s 1,784 precincts, a candidate needs 15 percent of the vote in a caucus to get a delegate. That’s how a candidate’s strength in Iowa is measured, by delegates they win at the caucuses.
That viability threshold, however, is the first hurdle. Why is it there?
The idea was to foster party unity by avoiding handing delegates to small, potentially divisive factions, says Richard Bender, who was director of party operations when the rules were changed. He’s now a top aide to U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.
“We did not want very narrow, single-issue-group-focused situations to occur,” Bender says. “We wanted people to come together with broad concerns.”
The actual figure — 15 percent — was an accident of math, he added. Because each of the state’s congressional districts gets seven delegates to the national convention, capturing one of those would mean getting a little bit more than 14 percent of the vote.
“Fifteen became a very logical number,” Bender says.
People who go with a candidate who gets less than 15 percent support must realign to other candidates or an undecided group. That’s led campaigns to place great importance on being, if not first in a voter’s heart, then at least second.
The GOP
A Republican’s job at a caucus is much easier.
The party holds a straw poll at the beginning of each caucus. Like the Democrats, Republicans also elect delegates to move on to a later convention, but it’s the straw poll that expresses their presidential preference.
George Brown, a Dallas Center lawyer, who was executive director of the Iowa GOP in the mid-1970s, says the party started the straw poll in 1976 in 62 precincts because it wanted to convey the party’s preference the night of the precinct caucuses and not have to wait until the party’s state convention months later.
The Democrats, and later the GOP, moved up their precinct caucuses to earlier in the calendar.
“And there was a realization that being first in the nation had, frankly, a responsibility of indicating a preference,” Brown says.
In 1980, the straw poll expanded statewide.
As a result, in a Republican caucus, there’s no such thing as a viability threshold and math is math.
“Everybody is very happy on the Republican side that what you get is how Republicans feel in Iowa,” Brown says.
On Jan. 3, more than 200,000 Iowans are expected to walk into the 1,784 meeting sites. And it will be a lot different from the way it was in the early ’70s, when the caucuses were just getting started.
Bender, the Harkin aide, remembers those early years.
“The total press that came to headquarters in 1972 was probably a dozen reporters,” Bender says.
That’s changed significantly.
“Now,” he says, “we’ll probably have that number from Japan.”
Ed Tibbetts can be contacted at (563) 383-2327 or etibbetts@qctimes.com.
del.icio.us
Digg
NewsVine
Fark
reddit» More Local Stories
Highest Rated Articles from the last 7 Days
- articles on online dating
- Reading Online Dating Articles? Meet Your Special Date This Weekend.
- TableForSix.com
- Compare Magazine Subscription Prices
- Compare prices at dozens of online stores & comparison shopping sites.
- www.biglion.com
- Cheap Magazine Subscriptions
- Up To 90% Off Most Magazines. Get Any 3 Magazines For Just $28.00!
- www.SpeedyMags.com
- Ads by Yahoo!
