The Poetist

I have finally seen first-hand an Iowa caucus, that ground zero of American presidential politics. I saw it and it was entirely overwhelming. Caucus locations across the state were literally overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people that showed up on January 3rd. My caucus expected 85 people and 243 showed up! I arrived at the cafeteria to witness 3 separate lines of people crowding the doorways and another small mob of people signing up at the caucus and registering to vote. The caucus chair, whose home I had canvassed prior to this night, was obviously not prepared for the huge crush of people. When it became clear that the amount of caucus-goers would just not fit into the cafeteria we had to move to the auditorium. Comparing war stories later that night and checking in with my precinct captains in the following days it became clear that this was the trend across Iowa. I heard of caucuses expecting 200 people and having 800 show up!

Of the 10 Des Moines precincts I was responsible for I attended the one not with the most identified support for John Edwards, which would have been easy, but the one with the highest delegate count, which was certainly the most challenging.  A portrait in numbers:  The caucus in this precinct elects 8 delegates (people who go on to vote for a candidate).  In 2004 75 people were expected at the caucus and 85 people showed up.  According to entry polling none of them caucused for John Edwards.  For 2008 we were expecting 96 people to show up and caucus.  Given that number, we needed 15 people to be viable and gain 1 delegate.  Our goal was to have 54 people caucus for John and thus earn 5 of the 8 delegates.  Given that nobody caucused for John in 04, having 54 supporters was certainly aiming high, but we had also identified 25 supporters and 5 leaners so the chances of us getting 2 delegates looked certain and 3 wasn’t even a stretch.  Of course we couldn’t know exactly how many supporters we’d need until we knew the total number of people at the caucus but one of our math-oriented organizers created a chart for us that showed, given the total number of people in attendance how many supporters we would need to earn an extra delegate.  Armed with that information I felt confident that we could make a showing in this precinct.

And then I walked into the room.  If I wore hats I’d tip mine off to Barack Obama for mobilizing 100,000 first time caucus-goers state-wide.  As it were in my precinct, we estimated 96 and 243 people showed up; viability leaped from 15 to 37.   Unfortunately a few of our supporters didn’t show up and had we been able to absorb the Biden and Richardson people we still could not have been viable.  After weeks of build-up and hard work (months even, for others) it was certainly a sobering sight to behold.  But we did well.  Even having been outspent 6 to 1 we beat the Clinton machine, and I believe that speaks volumes about the strength of John Edwards’ message

The final Des Moines Register poll came out last night; the results have Obama in the lead at 32, Clinton following at 25 and Edwards trailing at 24.  The most recent CNN poll put Obama and Clinton in the 30s and Edwards at 22.

I’m not worried.  The media has closed Edwards out of the race from the beginning, although anyone who takes a look at credible numbers has to acknowledge that the race is a veritable dead heat.  Let’s go over the numbers from the Des Moines Register Poll.  60% of the poll respondents have never caucused before.  This is significant because caucusing is not voting; it is far more complicated and requires a significantly longer time commitment.  People without caucus history are much less likely to caucus.  Obviously there are new caucus-goers every year, but I believe that number is generally around 20%.  Second, 45% of the respondents are Independents or Republicans.   I really fail to see why the latter group is relevant to a Democratic caucus.  It is true that both of these groups can change their registration and participate in a Democratic caucus but Republicans have their caucus the same night and their own competitive field of candidates to choose from.  Third, 40% of the respondents said they could change their decision before the caucus.

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A lot of my friends wonder why I support Edwards over Obama.  Obama is a great leader and has done wonderful things for the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois.  But he is not going to do great things for the country.  One of his major points is bipartisanship and ‘working across the aisle’.  It’s no surprise to me that this worked for him in Illinois, a solidly democratic state.  The governor and both senators are democrats; the Republican party in Illinois is so weak that they didn’t even have a candidate to run against Obama for a few weeks during his senate campaign.  And then the best they could do was Alan Keyes.  Don’t get me wrong, I think Obama won legitimately and that he has worked hard; I’m just saying his experience has not prepared him for the presidency.  He ‘fought’ the Daley political machine in Chicago as well, which is commendable given Daley’s seemingly interminable grip on the city.  But once again Chicago is a democratic city, and at the end of the day he was participating in intra-party politics; that is hardly an example of bipartisanship.  And bipartisanship itself is not the answer.  Compromising and working together is great and there hasn’t been a lot of that over the past 7 years – but it’s not for a lack of trying among the democrats; and the game is not going to change even if Obama channeled all the willpower and determination he could muster.

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So you can see why I support Edwards (previous post) and why I don’t support Obama.  If I can get some blog time soon I’ll go more in depth on both.