Overcoming Caucus Chaos (How the Iowa Caucus Works)

Henry County Auditor Carol McCulley was thumbing through her mail earlier this week when she found a surprising letter. A resident was going out of town Monday and wanted two absentee ballots for the presidential caucuses.

And who can blame them. To the uninitiated, the quadrennial mayhem known as the Iowa caucuses are somewhere between rocket science and professional wrestling ? the only thing certain is a headlock.

"Lots of people don't go to the caucuses because they're afraid of looking stupid," said Burlington Democrat Sandy Krell?Andre. "They don't realize, at a caucus everybody looks stupid."

With four candidates clawing for a victory and undertaking huge get?out?the?vote campaigns, political observers are expecting an unprecedented number of new participants at the Democratic Party caucus this year, many of them under 30 years old. So there should be plenty of confused looks Monday.

But for those people who still fear looking cockeyed at the caucuses, here is a small primer. That is, if you can trust it.

"I don't think," said Tom Broeker of the Des Moines County Republicans, "there are two people in the state that truly understand the caucuses."

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a caucus is "a meeting of the local members of a political party especially to select delegates to a convention or register preferences for candidates running for office." The word reportedly derives from a Medieval Latin term meaning a drinking cup.

Local Democratic Activist Linda Lentine Clark found a different root for caucus in her 1913 edition of Funk & Wagnall's dictionary ? the Algonquin Indian word Caucaufu, meaning "one who advises."

According to old Funk and Wagnall, political groups of the 1700s often took American Indian word names.

"Now it has sort of a pejorative connotation," said Clark, a retired teacher who happened to grow up with Adlai Stevenson as a neighbor. "Now a caucus is nothing more than a cabal."

The second word needing a definition, and the biggie for Democrats Monday, is "viable."

To be viable, a preference group ? the supporters of a particular candidate ? must make up at least 15 percent of the caucus attendees.

Put in real world terms, if 200 Democrats show up at a precinct site, a viable preference group will have 30 people or more. The formula is simpler in precincts with fewer than four delegates to the county convention.

The caucuses begin at 6:30 p.m. with a call?to?order by the temporary precinct chairman.

Only Republicans and Democrats living in the precinct can take part in the caucuses, but rules permit a person to register on site.

"We don't care if they go to the courthouse Tuesday and change their registration," said Kendra Wyse, head of the Henry County Democrats and a precinct chairwoman. "But they have to be a Democrat Monday night."

A 17?year?old who will turn 18 before the November general election is eligible for the caucuses. Children may attend as observers.

At 7 p.m., the precinct chairman counts the number of registered caucus?goers and calculates the "viability threshold." This essentially closes the door on the caucus ? no one entering later will be factored into the viability equation.

With the magic number in place ? remember the 15 percent rule ? participants break into their preference groups: Dick Gephardt supporters rush to one corner of the room, John Kerry backers cluster in another, and so on and so forth. First?timers need only follow other fans of their favorite candidate.

Once the preference groups are formed, those people in non?viable groups will have 30 minutes to recruit new members, join another candidate's preference group or drift in with the undecideds.

It is interesting to note that in 1976, soon?to?be President Jimmy Carter won the caucus, but "undecided" actually had more supporters.

When all the remaining preference groups are viable, the precinct chairman calculates how many delegates each candidate is awarded. The formula can be somewhat opaque ? the number of people in that candidate's preference group multiplied by the total delegates from that caucus then divided by the overall number of participants ? but the average person shouldn't worry. Only the precinct chairman needs a calculator.

The delegate totals are then phoned into Iowa Democratic Party officials in Des Moines. Those are the numbers reported on the national news Monday night.

Some folks head home once the presidential picking is done. The rest stay and debate what platform resolutions should be taken to the county convention. Anyone at the caucus can submit a plank, but approval requires a majority vote.

At 7:30 p.m., but not a moment earlier, delegates are elected to the county convention and the caucus ends.

But if, as Aristotle said, Democracy works best "when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost," would simpler be better? Why not just hold a primary and be done with it?

Krell?Andre disagrees. After living for several years in Illinois, she has learned to love the presidential caucuses.

"There, if you weren't one of the party wonks, you had no real chance of being a delegate," she said. "You had no real say.

"This process is unwieldy, it's confusing, it's apparently insane, but it's true Democracy."

This describes the Democrat process for picking the candidates. I find the process interesting in a grade school way, everybody rushes in a mob to a corner and those who don't make the cut try to strongarm everyone else into coming over to their mob. It's gotta be like being back in 6th grade again, which is would fit the Democrat mentality perfect.

We Republicans just take a straw poll and dispense with the mess quietly and efficiently, like adults. Is anyone suprised?

At 7 p.m., the precinct chairman counts the number of registered caucus-goers and calculates the "viability threshold." This essentially closes the door on the caucus--no one entering later will be factored into the viability equation.

Late-comers are not factored into the viability equation, but do they get to vote?

If so, this would have the following interesting effect: Those whose preference groups are unlikely to meet the viability threshold are better off coming after 7:00, to keep the threshold as low as possible. Those who are sure of their viability will want to get there before 7, to make the threshold high, making it more difficult for other candidates to meet.

On a night like tonight, with all four leading candidates in danger of not meeting the threshold, it would be in everyone's interest to come after 7! That way, any candidate with a preference group of 1 is gaurranteed to meet the threshold.

You know, I can't really answer that, but it is a great question. Knowing the Democrats, you probably would be able to vote after the threshhold count. They rarely seem to set up a system that they can't manipulate or strongarm to get the result some power wonk wants.

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