An Inside View of the Iowa Caucuses

Commenter Jim C., who caucused in Iowa for Paul Simon in 1988, answered the call. Thanks, Jim!

I can't imagine you mean me ...

The Iowa Caucus (in which I participated in 1988) is different for each party.

The Republicans gather at precinct locations and participants indicate presidential preference by secret ballot. After they do this, those who choose to can stick around to discuss party platform issues, and vote on such things. Otherwise, the ballots are tabulated and sent on to local/state party HQs.

The Democrats take a lot more time. Participants also gather at local precinct locations to determine the proportion of delegates to the District Caucus the most viable candidates can send.

Unaffiliated/independent voters (who will be legal age by Election Day) can register on-site (declaring party affiliation to participate, naturally. And this is also the case at GOP caucus sites). You then enter and group yourself by candidate of choice (Obama supporters here, Clinton supporters there, Biden supporters in back, 'Uncommitted' also associate together in an area, etc.)

A head count is then completed determining the totally number of caucusers present. You candidates' group must be equal or larger than 15% of the total number of people present to remain a "Viable" candidate in the precinct. (This 15% is apparently the smallest number of people that can receive a single precinct delegate)

Once groups are deemed Not Viable, they can then reaffiliate themselves with a second-choice candidate. This decision can be done either independently *or jointly*. The group can then deal with the larger groups, agreeing to caucus with a larger group in exchange for the right to select one of the precinct delegates Large Group would be winning from their non-viable supporters (who would then be able to again stand for their preferred candidate at the District Caucus). After these realignments are made, there is a final count, and the delegate proportions are assigned to the still-viable candidates. After this, people who are so committed can also decide platform issues. This process is repeated throughout every precinct in Iowa (over 1700 according to the NYT). Statewide organization is paramount.

Will Saletan wrote a great paragraph explaining this much better than I did, using 1988 candidates (he was writing about a controversy regarding results reporting at the time - though it was news to me):

That's the sausage; here's how it's made. Say 100 people show up at precinct caucus X. The caucus chair designates eight stations around the room, one for each candidate and one for undecided. Twenty-eight people go to Simon, 27 to Gephardt, 18 to Dukakis, 9 to Jackson, 8 to Babbitt, 1 to Hart and 9 to Uncommitted. Now, caucus rules say you need 15 percent of the total to elect a precinct delegate. So the caucus chair announces that Jackson, Babbitt, Hart, Gore and Uncommitted aren't "viable." Members of those groups can then band together or defect to their second-choice groups. Say six Jackson people move to Gephardt, two to Simon, one to Uncommitted. The Babbitt group moves over to Uncommitted to elect one of its own as an "uncommitted" delegate who can vote for Babbitt at the county level; the Hart oddball defects to Gephardt; two uncommitted people defect to Gephardt, another to Dukakis. Now the chair counts again: Gephardt has 36; Simon, 30; Dukakis, 19; Uncommitted, 15. Of the seven delegates precinct X will send to the county convention, each group wins one delegate just for meeting the 15 percent threshold. Gephardt is awarded two of the remaining delegates; Simon gets one. So the chair phones in the results to county headquarters: Gephardt, three delegates; Simon, two; Dukakis, one; Uncommitted, one.

Full story here.

The district caucus takes place in a month or two, followed by a state caucus later on, by which time no one is paying any attention anymore.

Personally, I think it is a lot of fun. Of course, I enjoy being an election official (aka Election Judge), too, so that might give my enthusiasm some perspective. My experience in 1988 was as a Simon supporter in a campus precinct in Iowa City. The largest groups were the Simon and Jackson camps, with Dukakis third. Non-viable groups included Babbitt, Uncommitted, and Gary Hart. The Hart group was amusingly pathetic looking, a motley band of four with only a loose-leaf piece of paper with HART written in ballpoint. (They scattered quickly.) The horse-trading session was quite heated - the Babbitt group was being wooed by both the Simon and Dukakis camps. (I was acting as a runner for our lead organizer between the main guy talking to the Babbitts and herself. She was trying to pull in the uncommitteds. IIRC, they ended up with Jackson. Or with us for nothing. They weren't as relevant as the larger Babbitt group.) The Dukakis offer wasn't as good as the Simon offer - Simon's group offered a delegate to the District caucus, while the Dukakis group only offered the chance of a delegate if they reached a certain delegate level, which wasn't going to happen. It actually got oddly personal, with such Dukakis supporter pleas as, "They're LYING to you!!" and a football player threatening to bash our skulls in. (He probably could have done it, but he wasn't that imposing, and it was just so ludicrous that we were laughing, and I think that made him even more angry. Good times, good times.) I think that was actually unusual, since I've watched CSPAN coverage of caucus sites since, and never seen that kind of silly passion.