IOWA'S CAUCUS - ONCE AGAIN
by Warren J. Mitofsky
A meaningless caucus is once again set to kick-off our presidential selection sweepstakes on January 19th in Iowa. It isn't that Iowa doesn't represent the nation; the few who participate in the Iowa Caucus don't even represent Iowa. In 2000, Iowa Democrats turned their back on the caucus. On average, only 28 participants attended each of the Democrats' precinct caucuses. Ten times that number of Democrats turned out for the presidential election in the same precincts ten months later. New Hampshire, which is much smaller than Iowa, will likely turn out as many voters for its primary eight days later.
Iowa's precinct caucuses are the first of four stages in their selection of national convention delegates. It is the only stage that receives wide press coverage. It occurs in each of about 2,000 precincts throughout the state. Subsequently there are county and congressional district caucuses and a state caucus. None of these other caucuses attract media attention.
Presidential candidates of both parties have camped out in Iowa trying to spark the enthusiasm of Iowa's caucus attendees and, more importantly, the media. It isn't so much what happens at the caucus as the press reporting on a candidate's viability that matters. Nothing that happens at the precinct caucus will likely have much effect at the national conventions.
At some point we might hope to learn who won the caucus. But before we start on the arcane numbers the Iowa Democratic Party will report it might help to know what they will not be telling us.
They will not be telling us how many delegates will go to their national convention in support of each presidential candidate. That comes some time in June.
They will not be telling us how many delegates will be going to Iowa's county conventions. The way they run these caucuses the number of county delegates cannot be added to get a state total.
And most important, they will not be telling us which presidential candidate had the greatest number of supporters voting at the caucus. If Howard Dean has more supporters than Dick Gephardt he may not necessarily be the winner, given the way the party does its count. In 2000, the Electoral College system for electing our presidents kept Al Gore from being president even though he got half-a-million more votes than George W. Bush. Well it can happen again in Iowa. The candidate with the greatest number of supporters may not be the winner.
What the Democratic Party will report is something they call "state delegate equivalents." You might wonder what they are. On the off chance that they might reduce the confusion the party has been conducting briefing sessions for reporters in order to explain it. It goes something like this:
Each precinct caucus will select delegates to attend a county convention. Each county makes its own decision about the total number of delegates it wants at its conventions. Two counties of the same size may have very different numbers of county delegates. So what the state party does is make fractional votes out of each delegate elected at the precinct caucus so that the sum of all the fractions add up to 3000. They do this in a way that makes the fractional delegates adjust the numbers so each county has its fair share of the state total. What the party will report on the night of the caucus is the number of fractional precinct delegates won by each presidential candidate.
When I suggested years ago that the Democratic Party count supporters of each presidential candidate to avoid this confusion I was accused by the caucus director of "interfering with the sanctity of the Iowa Caucus." The Iowa Republicans must have not had their caucus sanctified. They count the participants who come to support each candidate.
Most of the Democratic candidates have been campaigning in Iowa for over a year. Howard Dean, Richard Gephardt, John Kerry and John Edwards have spent lots of time in the state. Only Joe Lieberman, who made no headway in the Iowa polls, and Gen. Wesley Clark, the late entrant to the Democratic field are skipping it.
They could probably all skip it and not damage their chances to be President. George W. Bush was the only Republican to finish first in Iowa and become President. The last Democrat to win Iowa and become President was Jimmy Carter - if you don't count the vote for "uncommitted" delegates. Carter's all-out effort there caught the other candidates by surprise.
Each party makes its own rules for counting the results of the Iowa caucus. Unlike primaries that are counted by public officials under state law, caucuses are strictly party-run affairs. In the past the counts sometimes have been inaccurate. The Des Moines Register pointed out a mistake in the count the Democratic Party released to the media in 1976. The Republican Party reported a suspect count that showed George H.W. Bush edging out Ronald Reagan in 1980. In both cases the dubious party counts were what ended up receiving all the publicity by the national media.
The Iowa caucuses have become an institution in the presidential process for no apparent reason other than it launched Jimmy Carter's campaign. Perhaps the parties can find some other more meaningful way to kick-off the next campaign.
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