Occupy Iowa and Healthcare NOT Warfare had been attempting to organize a protest vote for a slate of uncommitted, progressive delegates in Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses. With most eyes on the super-tight Republican contest, it’s hard to find any complete results for the Democratic caucuses. In fact, we may never know what happened in some of those Iowa meetings.
However, turning to Twitter, it is possible to see some scattered reports of uncommitted delegates being elected at the county-level.
Iowa City’s precinct 15 appears to have elected 3 Obama county delegates and a single uncommitted delegate. Iowa City’s precinct 17 elected 5 Obama delegates and 2 for uncommitted.
Another commenter to Bleeding Heartland, a progressive blog in Iowa, notes that he was the person who put uncommitted over 15% in his precinct — resulting in 6 Obama delegates and 1 for uncommitted.
Click here to keep up to date as the results are collected.
It will be interesting to see if the protest vote builds with next week’s New Hampshire primary. Candidates cannot vote uncommitted in that race, but several progressive protest candidates are on the ballot — most notably Darcy Richardson, who is waging a multi-state effort.
Well, it could have really been significant if there weren't so many Spoilers just trying to mess with Republicans by raise Ron Paul's numbers.
And if you follow the one link,
http://www.bleedingheartland.com/diary/5208/2012-iowa-caucus-results-thread
Democratic turnout statewide appears to have been only around 10 percent of the 2008 turnout. I’ve heard from several Polk County Democrats who had 10 or fewer attendees in their precincts. The Iowa Democratic Party released this statement from chair Sue Dvorsky:
“Tonight’s caucus successfully brought our supporters together, and we’re overwhelmed that more than 25,000 Iowans turned out to talk about the President’s record and vision for an economy that restores security for the middle class. We not only saw how excited Iowans are to support President Obama, but to also work for his reelection. The Iowa caucus was a great opportunity to test our campaign organization and expand our volunteer base as we move toward November. In a strong show of support, more than 7,500 Iowans tonight pledged to volunteer for the campaign over the course of the next year, underscoring their commitment to continuing the change the country has seen under President Obama’s leadership.”
I’d be more impressed if I didn’t know that roughly 50,000 Iowa Democrats showed up to caucus in 1996, when President Bill Clinton was unopposed for the nomination.
I don’t know what was the bigger problem: lack of enthusiasm for President Obama or the Iowa Democratic Party’s decision to consolidate so many precinct caucuses in central locations. Many counties had just one caucus site for the whole county.
If Ron Paul’s numbers are artificially high due to the number of independents and Democrats voting for him, it is likely that Newt Gingrich should really be in third place.
Geller, on her site Atlas Shrugged, was voicing exasperation at the high numbers of Democrats voting for Ron Paul.
Only two presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, have come out of the pack in Iowa to become president.
In 1976, Carter finished second to Undecided.
In 1980, Reagan finished second to George HW Bush
. In 1992, Clinton received 3% of the vote but won the nomination.
In 2008, John McCain finished fifth or sixth.
Second place has the best record of ultimately getting the nomination.
The Iowa vote is non binding; Iowa is one of the last states to conduct a state convention, which is binding.
The Moral of the story -- obvious to everyone but Rick Perry -- everything is far from over.