Iowa is an interesting state. You don't necessarily move here to become famous or dig deep in politics. You don't live here because you want to run into celebrities at your local bodega. But somehow, every four years, we become the center -- the absolute stress-inducing center -- of a political media frenzy that grows so all encompassing and maddening that we practically sing when it is all over. We are The Iowa Caucuses.
I moved to Iowa from outside of Washington D.C. when I was 18 years old, because I had heard of the renowned Iowa Writers' Workshop and I wanted to figure out a way to become an author. I wanted to find a community of writers too, and I did, almost immediately, in Iowa City: I did my undergrad at the University of Iowa, traveled with a band, worked graphic design, fell in love with kids from Des Moines, Anamosa, Keokuk, Burlington, Harlan, attended the workshop, and slowly lost the slight East Coast accent that everyone said I had (I didn't hear it).
During all of this, in 2004, after having lived in the state for years, I found myself in the middle of yet another round of Democratic caucuses, this time looking to find a person who could oust George W. Bush. First I thought nothing of it all (I had never caucused before and didn't really understand it) and then -- suddenly -- I feel head over heals for Dennis Kucinich. It was a newcomer's fresh-faced political crush -- he was saying all the right things! He was passionate! I could totally obsess! Getting over a heartbreak (even Iowans break hearts) and with nothing much else to do but sit around and weep, I decided to jump right in: working for the tirelessly campaign, through blizzards in Des Moines, and below-temperature canvassing (when you knock on all the doors), and playing accordion at his rallies and in long long parades (I "made up" a song called "Vote for Kucinich," which was just the Beer Barrel Polka with my added brilliant lyrics).
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Dennis Kucinich and some dorky accordionist (me).[/caption]
Then caucus night came. It was the middle of February. And here is how the Iowa Democratic Caucuses work:
You live in a precinct, which is seriously just your neighborhood. You caucus in your precinct. You are a "caucus-goer." Precincts are small. You are going to know many of the people there. Ours is usually in an elementary school gymnasium, which always feels both adorable and slightly underwhelming for all the hype. People bring baked goods, candy -- it is like a strange potluck. Basically imagine a block party, but with much higher stakes and no kids or booze.
At the start time -- 7pm -- the doors to the gymnasium are closed and the precinct leader counts the number of people in a room. This is where the math starts to come into play ("I was told there would be no math"). Each precinct gets a certain number of "delegates" A candidate "wins" delegates by having enough caucus-goers in their group, and then candidate with the most "delegates" across the state of Iowa at the end of the night is declared "the winner" of Iowa.
So the math goes like this:
Number of caucus-goers in a precinct / number of delegates available = the number of people needed to gain a delegate.
So if 135 people show up, and the precinct has 5 delegates to assign, then a candidate needs 27 people to get one delegate. If they have 27 people, they are "viable" for one candidate.
But they don't give you this magic number outright. You have to figure it out. The total number of people is announced at the start of the caucus and then the whole room divides into groups depending on their candidate and proceeds to hysterically try to figure out if they have enough.
I was caucusing for Kucinich that night, having worked the neighborhood hard, having sent out reminders to all the listed Democrats in a five block radius, having been appointed as the "official" Kucinich precinct captain. As soon as the caucus started, I would have 45 minutes to gather enough people together to be "viable."
The gymnasium was bright but cozy, echo-ey but quiet, the way every gymnasium environment tends to contradict itself. On the other side of a large curtain people were actually jogging (many people simply don't caucus). I was so nervous I was about to barf. I was wearing my one and only "nice outfit". Underneath my "dress" pants, I had put on soccer socks, pulled them all the way up. Game on.
At 7pm, the precinct leader announced the number of caucus-goers present and rang a bell. And so it began. As soon as the bell rang, this is what happened: the room erupted in nervous mayhem. Every candidate's precinct captain takes out a calculator, and tries frantically to figure out the number of participants needed to make a candidate "viable". At our precinct, this magic number was 29. A lovely, prime thing.
Already I had a small group of neighbors congregated around me. We saw the number on the calculator and began counting our group. We had fourteen people. We counted again. (We would end up counting endlessly, continually, through the night.) We would need more people. So I took off in the direction of the undecideds.
The "undecideds" were a group of people without a candidate yet. For a precinct captain, they were your main target. Get enough of them to join your group and you are golden. And I was not going into this cold turkey: I had memorized the talking points. I had a checklist for each topic burned in my mind. I was a walking, talking political dork.
Many of the undecideds I knew personally. Remember: this is your own neighborhood. I convinced a few of them quickly. But the group began to dissipate. And here is where more math comes in: once your group is "viable" for one delegate, you need to add the same number to get the second delegate. So if you have 28 people, you are viable for one delegate with the first 27, but you need 26 more people (28 - 27 = 1; 27 - 1 = 26) to get a second delegate. Each delegate costs the same amount. So there are a lot of groups with extras.
So you start scraping from other groups. You make deals. You say, "if you give me 5 of your extra people, we will secretly dedicate one delegate to your candidate at the next level."
Man, I am get tired even trying to explain this. Are you guys getting tired? It is intense. But it is also one of the most pure forms of democracy I have ever witnessed. It is so so personal. You are talking about REAL topics with people, face to face, in a place you have all decided to call home.
Back in 2004, time was ticking down. Our group for Kucinich was gaining people, but we were still a few away. We made a deal with the Dean group (remember Howard Dean?) We made a deal with the Edwards group. We needed one more. There were two minutes left. My roommate, Doug, was standing with the Kerry group. Doug is a born and raised Iowan farm boy: kind, sincere, goofy, and very very tall. I walked over to him. Very calmly, I looked up to him and said, "Doug, please. You know how hard I've worked on this. You've seen it all in action. We need one more..." And he nodded. He walked over. We were viable.
That night, I was nominated by my group to be that delegate, the one that we'd won by becoming viable. From the precinct level, I moved up through the ranks of becoming district (a few weeks later), state (a few months later) and finally national delegate to the convention that summer. Many more deals were made. But that is a story (involving puppets, secret signals and crying in front of a Slate reporter) for another time.
As for what will happen tonight, well -- I have no idea.
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Below the fold exclusive: the candidates's hands.[/caption]
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A week's worth of political mailers[/caption]