Joseph Lane: The Iowa Caucus: Chicanery or Democracy?
[Joseph Lane is the Hawthorne Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Emory & Henry. ]
Last week in Iowa, on election night, I was a neutral observer in a very polite little caucus. I stood at the back of a high school Spanish classroom with posters illustrating simple concepts and phrases en espanol. My favorite was a sketch of a thermometer with only a little tiny band of red crossing near zero. “Hace Frio,” it read, and wasn’t that the truth?
Iowa was bitter cold this caucus week. As I drove through snow-covered neighborhoods, I wondered whether we might come across the immobile forms of parka-wearing college students, flash frozen where they conferred on the sidewalks with clipboards in their hands, an ice sculpture form of human statuary – “A Study in Canvassing” – to commemorate the efforts required to move a democracy.
The real risk of frostbite notwithstanding, nearly 240,000 Democrats went to their caucus sites. In my own Spanish classroom, 67 gathered to conduct the business of precinct 4. Prior to this year, they had never topped 50.
As I stood there in the room, I tried to conjure in my mind the realization that in 1781 other rooms across the state, a quarter of a million Democrats were meeting. I tried to appreciate, to feel and comprehend, this common exercise in democratic action, but I could not. It seemed impossible that all of this could be coordinated. There was only this one little room of 67 people from rural East Iowa, choosing our party’s presidential candidate.
As soon as the usual business of electing a chair and secretary were dutifully performed and the doors solemnly closed at the appointed hour, the room was divided into preference groups – Obama 23, Clinton 19, Edwards 17, Biden 5, Dodd 2, and Richardson 1.
Only the big three were over the 15% viability threshold so a series of very polite conversations ensued with the Biden, Dodd, and Richardson supporters – several of them college and high school aged kids voting in their first election. Both the Clinton and Obama camps had organizers in the room, and the Clinton representative grew quite heated before a caucus-goer from the Obama camp quietly but strongly insisted that this would be a polite conversation.
The outside volunteer retreated, leaving the conversation to two locals – one for Obama and one for Clinton. Patient but well-rehearsed one-liners were exchanged – “She is ready to lead from day one.” “Only he offers us a chance for fundamental change.” The Edwards group, after two polite attempts to enter the conversation, took 1 back to their corner, and as time was called, the Obama and Clinton camps split the remaining seven.
Obama 27, Clinton 22, Edwards 18.
With little chance that anyone else would move, the business of calculating the division of 6 delegates began, and when the conversation around the front table broke up, the Chair announced that the delegates would be distributed equally, two for each candidate. If Obama had reached 29, the division would have been three, two, and one.
Despite beating Edwards by a ratio of 3 to 2, Obama ended this caucus with equal delegates. Despite claiming 9 votes between them, Biden, Dodd, and Richardson received nothing.
After voting the resolutions, we emerge into the hall, meeting the caucus-goers from precinct 3, convened down the hall in the library. There a smaller group of 47 reached a very different result. Obama 15, Clinton 15, Edwards 14 with 3 nonviable Biden voters who refused to budge and became essentially lost votes.
With five delegates to split, they awarded Obama 2, Clinton 2, Edwards 1. Caucus math can be brutal, and yet, there was no other workable solution. When all blandishments failed to shame the Biden caucus-goers into choosing a viable candidate, these Iowans accepted the results with patience and good grace.
One voter’s decision equalled one delegate in that room. In fact, if Edwards’ supporters had persuaded the three recalcitrant Bidens to join them, they might have converted a one vote loss into a 3, 1, 1 victory. That one move, if they could have made it, would have increased Edwards’ statewide margin over Clinton by more than 25%.
In my one high school in eastern Iowa, 114 Iowans gave Obama 4 delegates, Clinton 4, and Edwards 3. If it were a popular election, the result here would have been Obama 33%, Clinton 30%, Edwards 27%, Biden 7%, and Dodd almost 2%. But of course, Biden and Dodd got no delegates here, and in many other precincts like these.
There you have it – Biden and Dodd, serious Senators of 62 years experience, eliminated from the national contest, even though they did have substantial support, essentially erased by Iowa’s 15% threshold requirement.
Clinton now must answer for her embarrassing “third” place finish even though she only finished seven delegates behind Edwards and even though, in many rooms (including precinct 3 in the little eastern Iowa town where I observed the proceedings), one voter’s decision can mean one delegate.
In these little rooms across Iowa, one whole year of earnest, restless, and feverish campaigning culminated in polite conversation, divisions and re-divisions into corners, and imprecise math. The result, multiplied over 1781 independent rooms, surprised the rest of the nation and shrank the Democratic field by half.
In one sense, it is Rousseauian small democracy at its best. In another sense, it is indecipherable chicanery. It is immensely consequential.
Welcome to the paradoxes of American presidential selection.
Read entire article at Britannica Blog
Last week in Iowa, on election night, I was a neutral observer in a very polite little caucus. I stood at the back of a high school Spanish classroom with posters illustrating simple concepts and phrases en espanol. My favorite was a sketch of a thermometer with only a little tiny band of red crossing near zero. “Hace Frio,” it read, and wasn’t that the truth?
Iowa was bitter cold this caucus week. As I drove through snow-covered neighborhoods, I wondered whether we might come across the immobile forms of parka-wearing college students, flash frozen where they conferred on the sidewalks with clipboards in their hands, an ice sculpture form of human statuary – “A Study in Canvassing” – to commemorate the efforts required to move a democracy.
The real risk of frostbite notwithstanding, nearly 240,000 Democrats went to their caucus sites. In my own Spanish classroom, 67 gathered to conduct the business of precinct 4. Prior to this year, they had never topped 50.
As I stood there in the room, I tried to conjure in my mind the realization that in 1781 other rooms across the state, a quarter of a million Democrats were meeting. I tried to appreciate, to feel and comprehend, this common exercise in democratic action, but I could not. It seemed impossible that all of this could be coordinated. There was only this one little room of 67 people from rural East Iowa, choosing our party’s presidential candidate.
As soon as the usual business of electing a chair and secretary were dutifully performed and the doors solemnly closed at the appointed hour, the room was divided into preference groups – Obama 23, Clinton 19, Edwards 17, Biden 5, Dodd 2, and Richardson 1.
Only the big three were over the 15% viability threshold so a series of very polite conversations ensued with the Biden, Dodd, and Richardson supporters – several of them college and high school aged kids voting in their first election. Both the Clinton and Obama camps had organizers in the room, and the Clinton representative grew quite heated before a caucus-goer from the Obama camp quietly but strongly insisted that this would be a polite conversation.
The outside volunteer retreated, leaving the conversation to two locals – one for Obama and one for Clinton. Patient but well-rehearsed one-liners were exchanged – “She is ready to lead from day one.” “Only he offers us a chance for fundamental change.” The Edwards group, after two polite attempts to enter the conversation, took 1 back to their corner, and as time was called, the Obama and Clinton camps split the remaining seven.
Obama 27, Clinton 22, Edwards 18.
With little chance that anyone else would move, the business of calculating the division of 6 delegates began, and when the conversation around the front table broke up, the Chair announced that the delegates would be distributed equally, two for each candidate. If Obama had reached 29, the division would have been three, two, and one.
Despite beating Edwards by a ratio of 3 to 2, Obama ended this caucus with equal delegates. Despite claiming 9 votes between them, Biden, Dodd, and Richardson received nothing.
After voting the resolutions, we emerge into the hall, meeting the caucus-goers from precinct 3, convened down the hall in the library. There a smaller group of 47 reached a very different result. Obama 15, Clinton 15, Edwards 14 with 3 nonviable Biden voters who refused to budge and became essentially lost votes.
With five delegates to split, they awarded Obama 2, Clinton 2, Edwards 1. Caucus math can be brutal, and yet, there was no other workable solution. When all blandishments failed to shame the Biden caucus-goers into choosing a viable candidate, these Iowans accepted the results with patience and good grace.
One voter’s decision equalled one delegate in that room. In fact, if Edwards’ supporters had persuaded the three recalcitrant Bidens to join them, they might have converted a one vote loss into a 3, 1, 1 victory. That one move, if they could have made it, would have increased Edwards’ statewide margin over Clinton by more than 25%.
In my one high school in eastern Iowa, 114 Iowans gave Obama 4 delegates, Clinton 4, and Edwards 3. If it were a popular election, the result here would have been Obama 33%, Clinton 30%, Edwards 27%, Biden 7%, and Dodd almost 2%. But of course, Biden and Dodd got no delegates here, and in many other precincts like these.
There you have it – Biden and Dodd, serious Senators of 62 years experience, eliminated from the national contest, even though they did have substantial support, essentially erased by Iowa’s 15% threshold requirement.
Clinton now must answer for her embarrassing “third” place finish even though she only finished seven delegates behind Edwards and even though, in many rooms (including precinct 3 in the little eastern Iowa town where I observed the proceedings), one voter’s decision can mean one delegate.
In these little rooms across Iowa, one whole year of earnest, restless, and feverish campaigning culminated in polite conversation, divisions and re-divisions into corners, and imprecise math. The result, multiplied over 1781 independent rooms, surprised the rest of the nation and shrank the Democratic field by half.
In one sense, it is Rousseauian small democracy at its best. In another sense, it is indecipherable chicanery. It is immensely consequential.
Welcome to the paradoxes of American presidential selection.