Someone had mentioned about what it's like to be in a caucus in Iowa. I was there in 2004 and witnessed something that was much more incredible than I actually thought it would be when I ventured out.
I've grabbed portions of those impressions from my DU journal and here they are:
Part One: I Remember Seeing the AFL-CIO Trucks Rolling into Des Moines on Caucus Eve 2004
It was the night before the caucus was going to happen. I remember it being cold and rainy, not snowy and blizzardlike as I thought it would be. A bunch of us were heading out for a couple brews and some grub after canvassing and phone-calling all day. There was a lot of work to do and the feeling on the streets was electrifying.
Months had gone by and the grassroots efforts, political ads, political calculations, swerving polls, pricey political brochures, rumors and innuendo, hours and hours of speeches by all the candidates and passion on all sides was riding high. It all came down to this final episode. It was overwhelming to think about and beautiful to imagine people so dedicated to Mother Democracy.
However, Iowans were exhausted of the whole thing and wanted tomorrow to be over. Answering machines were full of messages from phone bankers, mail boxes were bloated with campaign literature, doors were knocked at odd times doing campaign canvassing and the radio and TV were vomiting out political ads at every commercial break with the usual overpromising and demonizing of other candidates.
We were all walking in downtown Des Moines, a surprisingly modern town for this current Bay Area Californian, and decided to hit some glorified burger joint. It was starting to get misty and a chill was in the air.
As if out of some Star Wars movie, about 50 huge tractor trailor trucks rumbled from a distance and slowly made an intimidating processional parade by us. "What the hell?", I remember hearing myself say to the others.
These monstrous trucks all had big signs mounted on the side "Gephardt For President 2004" on them. There was an AFL-CIO logo seen as well. These trucks were decked out and seemingly ready to rumble.
After they parked in a couple rows like great dinosaurs around a lake, we went in the restaurant and pondered what we saw over dinner and some pool.
The next day, the caucus was to happen. Doing all of our appointed duties before going to various caucus locations to be a witness to the event, we finally saw the finishing line getting near.
As the night came, it was obvious that Kerry pulled out a surprise victory. I was standing next to James Carville when he said something about being happy that Dean lost in some Cajun analogy. Morton Kondrake even came up to me (mistaking me for someone else) and asked how I knew Kerry was going to win. I forget what I said. I was smashed at that point, so I probably told him to f*ck off.
What was very memorable that night (besides the Kerry victory party and the Dean party we crashed later) was when we ran into Al Franken in the Kerry Party. He said it was great to see Kerry win, but he had to go over to the Gephardt campaign headquarters to commiserate with those folks. Gephardt was going to drop out of the race that night with a dismal showing. His poll numbers had been in the lead and slightly behind Dean for much of the race up that night.
What the big union trucks did to be a big presence but not really make a difference hit me. With the next union endorsements about to come soon for all the candidates by the management in most cases, I'm not sure what difference their endorsement means in the end. In Iowa anyway...
Part Two: Caucus Day 2004
I can give you an impression of what it was like in 2004 in Des Moines.
First and foremost, it's all about the "ground game". What that means is that you need to contact and make sure people who support your candidate will get out and caucus on Caucus Night. You can drive people to the caucus location if they can't make it on their own. Saying you support a candidate is not enough. You need reliable supporters who will caucus.
The caucus locations are set up in a local neighborhood precinct, usually in a library or school auditorium or gymnasium. The caucus times start at 6:30 and continue to around 9:00 at the latest. Caucus goers need to be at that location and there is a cut-off time to show up, usually 7:00pm. If you're late, too bad.
You can switch parties that day at the caucus location as well as can register to vote that day. You show up at the site and sign in. You are going to caucus with your neighbors out in the open.
You then go into the caucus room and see that there are places in the room for all the candidates. The Obama people would be in one corner, the Clinton and Edwards and Kucinich and others in their defined location, usually a sign or campaign rally sign to mark the location. You gather with other supporters for your candidate.
Then people for each supporter have a designated speaker to represent their candidate speak about why they support their candidate. Once that is done, people can ask questions or raise concerns, etc.
Each candidate that is represented gets to make their case. This can be very interesting as people try to sell their candidate over others.
Then it's time to vote.
People go back to their candidate sections and the votes are counted. Those people with numbers that are not viable then have to join other candidate sections or leave.
This is a chance for people to speak again about their candidate.
Then another tally is counted. Here's the initial formula:
Delegates = (Number in candidate group) X (Number of delegates in precinct) / (Total of caucus goers at that location)
The caucus numbers for each candidate are tabulated and sent to party headquarters, which are then tabulated into 3,000 statewide delegates.
On the whole, it is an exciting way to watch democracy. The big thing is that it's all about showing up. I think 160,000 caucus goers participated in 2004, which is perhaps 20% of the voting population in Iowa.
I'll be there again in 2008.
Part Three: Watching The Dean Campaign in Iowa
Too many people signed on and weren't trained to go out an canvass well.
Joe Trippi was too scared that he was going to get fired that he holed by in Vermont and wasn't returning Howard's phone calls.
The orange hats on the untrained canvassers was a sign to Iowans to shut their doors and turn their lights out when the door knocked.
The Dean campaign made overly nice 4-color direct mail pieces that were sent in triplicate to Iowan mail boxes every other day.
The mainstream media exploited the "scream". But Howard was gaffing every other day on one issue or another.
What was particularly shocking was a TV ad that aired the last week before the caucus where Howard was filmed against a stark white background, hence bringing out every "flaw" on his face and actually causing a lot of TVs to buzz because of the unengineered use of "illegal white". It looked and sounded awful. It ran a LOT. Hint: don't produce an important ad in some guy's basement in Cedar Rapids.
There's a lot more to pick apart in the campaign, but the Iowa caucus demands that people SHOW UP at the caucus when they say they will. A lot of Dean caucus goers were no-shows. The caucus where I was an observer had the main Dean guy wondering where all the people were that he said were supposed to show up. We even delayed the caucus for 10 minutes or so to wait for them to arrive.
Iowa demands a very organized ground game and dedicated people who are willing to get out on a cold night and spend several hours sticking up for their candidate of choice.
More to come as I head over to Iowa (90 miles away) for the caucus in the next weeks...
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