First off, with Hillary actually finding new supporters at this stage (warning: PDF), she looks increasingly inevitable. As with Dean, the best hope is to puncture that momentum with an early victory. Given her steady 10+ lead in New Hampshire, the best bet seems to be Iowa, a state where Clinton and Edwards have been trading leads since the beginning, with Obama not that far behind. In a traditional poll, I’d say that really increases the likelihood that at least two people could come out of Iowa calling themselves winners.
Explanations for the Iowa process abound, but as someone who witnessed them in 2004, I’d point out three big things that affect youth voting:
Caucuses suck: Doors close at a certain time, they’re filled with procedural crap, they take a long time, and they aren’t particularly welcome to newcomers. They’re pretty much designed to be hostile to young voters.
Votes are public: Joe Trippi has a story about witnessing a 1980 caucus where a child was forced to change her vote by her father. See, caucuses take place with public division, where you literally stand in the location in the room designated to your candidate. Which means that the more dependent, less politically confident people are more easily influenced and/or threatened. This may include children living at home (and demure spouses for that matter — one woman in Iowa told me that her husband hadn’t informed her yet for whom she’d be caucusing).
Not all votes are equal: Each precinct has a set number of delegates to the convention where the delegates are actually selected. That number does not change, regardless of how many people show. In 2004, for instance, the only precinct we won in the Cedar Rapids area was Mount Vernon South, home of Coe College. The students loved us, came out in force, and Dean won 5/7 of the vote there.
And in some cow pasture in the middle of nowhere, the Kerryatrics came out, and he got 3 of those 4 delegates. The fact that the voters in MVS outnumbered the voters in, say, Cedar Rapids 38 by 3 to 1 didn’t matter.
In all likelihood, college will be in session during the caucus, unless things really spin out of control. Which means Generation Obama will be concentrated in college/urban areas (both of ’em). He’ll likely sweep those precincts, but not outside those areas. That’s Hillary territory. Simply put, territory is a basis for the caucuses to a much greater extent than it is for traditional polling.
And that’s my Iowa caucus thing for tonight.
Cool to hear more from someone who was there. The last part about delegate counts isn’t something I’d realized.
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So, you’re saying that polling Iowa is kinda ridiculous, right? Because the percentage of delegates won, which determines the winner, does not have an exact relationship with the number of people who show up for a candidate?
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Each precinct has set number of delegates (usually 3-7) allocated, and the delegates are divided proportionately to the percentage of people who show up for the candidates. If a candidate cannot clear 15% of the room s/he is not counted* and supporters can go elsewhere. The number of actual total voters is irrelevant to the process.
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In addition to those mechanics, the ridiculousness and hostility of the process makes “likely voter” screens notoriously unreliable in Iowa. I”m not saying polls are worthless, but their predictive value is much lower than those in, say, New Hampshire. Polls in Nevada are even less worthwhile, due to the fact that the caucus process has been drastically changed and expanded this year.
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*Interesting note: a 15% threshold is considered undemocratic by most election monitoring organizations. Turkey’s party threshold of 10% of all votes is regularly assailed by the OSCE.
There are two rounds, so campaigns try to cut deals if say Richardson had 14%, his precinct captain could cut a deal with Hillary’s captain person to switch votes. That could redistribute the votes away from a rival.
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On the other hand, Hillary is so far ahead everywhere else, Iowa may be the only hope to stop her.
I don’t know that I agree with your premise. Iowa is a crazy system but Obama is tracking pretty well so far, second, within the margin of error of Clinton & Edwards.
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Regardless of the voting he has looked very strong, the campaign is all over the state, and a top 3 finish in Iowa is not a loss but will show he has the support to really compete.
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He’s still the most charismatic candidate in the field and that will come across to voters when it gets close.
“He’s still the most charismatic candidate in the field”
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I find him kind of boring, actually. Truth be told, for two fairly large fields, I don’t think there’s a lot of charisma to be found. Maybe it just seems too easy to qualify for the “charismatic” label.
So people who gathered into groups that had less than 15% have to join with their second choice. I’ve heard this “2nd choice” factor was what gave John Edwards his second place finish in 2004.
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The saddest thing is that even after all these undemocratic characteristics of Iowa’s caucuses (only 6-10% of voters show up, strange procedures, military members can’t vote by absentee ballot), the pundits and political reporters will talk about Iowa as if it were representative of the nation–as if the winner of Iowa must necessarily be the winner of bigger states.
One of the main factors is those candidates who aren’t “viable” — who don’t receive 15%. Kucinich and Edwards cut a deal in 2004 that they would support each other in case of non-viability. Since Kucinich wasn’t viable in many precincts, Edwards scored an extra delegate due to that deal. Without it, there was a decent chance that Edwards would have finished third rather than second.
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The fact that Kucinich dealt with Edwards instead of Sharpton, Gephardt, Dean, or Clark — all candidates who were running on platforms closer to his own — tells me a lot about his sincerity when the rubber meets the road.
Do you mean Kucinich trusted Edwards’ sincerity to deliver on his promises of economic populism in presidential policy?
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Or Kucinich isn’t sincere?
I’m not in Kucinich’s brain, so can’t know his level of sincerity or anyone elses. However, I would never cut a deal with someone who had a platform closest to mine but who i thought would be a poor performer as a leader. As you well know, platform is only part of a candidate’s appeal. Brains and leadership capability come to mind as reasons to ally with some and not others. Is it possible that in Edwards Kucinich saw the best average amongst all the factors? I prefer not to assume that he’s just a poser.
…which of course turned out to be a fatal error.
People still showed up at caucus who supported him. In some precincts, they had direction about which candidate to support, and in others they didn’t.
I have never been to Iowa — It always looks surreal to me from afar and lends itself to a lot of speculation. I wonder if there will be trade off’s for other lower – ranked candidates support. I am getting the feeling that even though he has not raised big funds that Chris Dodd really wants to contest this, but I wouldnt be surprised to see him throw his delegates to Obama. I’m just blabbing here—It feels like fantasy hockey to me at this point.
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Four years ago in Iowa, Dean had the headlines and the national polling numbers. Kerry had the experienced ground organization.
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While raising issues and issuing warnings has a place, complaining about the process doesn’t win the competition. The rules is the rules. Work to change them before hand – that is far more productive.
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What makes Iowa interesting this cycle is that the experienced organizers are spread out among Clinton and Obama (and to a smaller degree Edwards). The campaign that goes into the caucuses with a GOTV plan that includes scooping those less than 15% groups wins.
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At its roots politics is still just counting numbers.
I’ve been to Iowa too.
Winning there is all about IDing supporters, making sure they’re solid and getting them to the caucus. You also need good precinct captains.
Mickey Kaus thinks your boy Gov Richardson has a shot in Iowa. What do you think?
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ugh.
leads to a good example of Mickey Kaus making a wrong prediction. So, Mickey’s got a sense of humor about his own argument.
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But Mickey Kaus’ argument aside, the man himself has a history of writing that makes me say “ugh!” every time I see his name. He’s one of those ‘liberal’ writers who spends little time criticize the awful things about the Conservatives who were in power and instead focused on the not nearly so awful things desired by liberal interest groups who had little to no power.
i like reading a variety of people, including many i disagree with.
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what i like about kaus is he often makes arguments that nobody else is making, like the richardson nugget.
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i certainly agree with your point that he writes rarely about conservative idiocy, but as a consumer, why do i care about that? i have plenty of good writers to choose from who do that for a living.
I was there in 2004. I drove people to the caucuses for John Kerry. That is how he won. I had a van load of people senior citizens most of whom could barely walk— who made it out any way— and they put Kerry over the top at the causcus location they went to. I am not saying that a caucus is a great way to pick a candidate if you are concerned about making sure that every Democratic vote is heard, but there is a way to win the Iowa caucuses. It is called organization and GOTV. I also think it is too simplistic to blow caucuses off as a completely bad way to pick the candidate for a political party. The people there take their politics seriously. The people who go to the caucuses are made up of a lot of party activists and other people who really are into politics. There is some benefit to that.
interesting diary – thanks!
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a question: children are allowed to caucus?! since when can someone who can’t vote caucus. that aint right.
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another question re: youth vote. IA is famously a farm state. what percentage of the youth (say, 18-21 y.o.) go away to college? i’d be surprised to learn that a fair chunk don’t stick around the home/home town to work. or are you saying that only the college-bound ones care to vote?
I think he meant 18+ year olds living at their parent(s) home. Iowa is a “farm state” but I’d be surprised if young Iowans don’t go away to college at a similar rate to other states. After all, you’ve got two massive state universities [Iowa: 21k undergrads; Iowa State: 23k undergrads], and a number of other colleges and out-of-state opportunities. Combine that with the reality that more Iowans have lived in urban areas than rural areas since about 1950, and I don’t think that by population Iowa has as many kids staying home to work the land as you might be suggesting.
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However, the kids who do live at home [for whatever reason] as well other non-heads-of-household are more vulnerable to influence in a public vote.
What support do you have for this statement? I think you are underestimating the youth of Iowa. Not only have I been to the Iowa caucuses, I went to law school there, so I have a lot of friends with kids almost at voting age. The kids I know who are into politics would not be intimidated by the older people at the caucus. In fact, that is just not in the make-up of any of the people I know who are into politics in Iowa and what I have seen. I think Joe Trippi’s statement about what he saw in 1980 is the old Joe Trippi spin because he is just clueless about people in Iowa. And that is why Howard Dean did not win Iowa or even do well. The people I talked to told me they thought the Dean supporters had been too pushy and too arrogant so they went with someone else.
but I am just flabergasted by the misperceptions about people who live in Iowa.
chew a straw in the corner of their mouths and are missing a toe lost to a John Deere combine? Heavens to Betsy!
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Joe Trippi may have actually seen one or two parents in Iowa intimidate their kids into voting with them. But he’s got little reason to generalize that statewide. At the very least, Sabutai is right about how the caucuses are more difficult for young people to participate in than for older voters. Trippi probably just took the one anecdote and decided it was illustrative of the broader idea.
The comparison wasn’t to people from other states — it was a comparison to the head of household.
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Look: if you’re not the head of the household and your vote is public, you’re subject to the mercy of the head of the household. In the vast majority of cases, that’s probably nothing or, at worst, a little ribbing. In some cases however, the head of household is a bully, and others living in that household feel coerced into voting the way the h-o-h wishes.
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It’s not specific to Iowa. It’s specific to an imbalance of power and public disclosure of votes. You’ll kindly note that nowhere in the paragraph you quoted does it mention or refer to a specific location. That wasn’t an accident on my part.
when you made your statement, does that mean that your statement is not based on facts, but just assumptions?