Iowa Caucus 2008 Wrap-Up

OK, I've had a little time to rest up & recover from the caucus Thursday night. Now it is time to give my take on events.

1st of all, I have to admit that I was wrong in my prediction about Ron Paul. & I'm still not sure why. I thought he would be 1 of the top 2, he came in 5th with 10%.

As most people know by now, this year's turnout was excellent. & I don't need the newspaper reports to tell me it was so. In 2000 the Republicans had 2 locations for the caucuses in DBQ County, 1 for the Western part & 1 for DBQ & environs. The crowd at the DBQ site was almost overwhelming. This year they divided up the DBQ area into 2 locations. It was a good thing. My site drew about as many as the whole city site did 4 yrs ago. & the other site was just as busy.

In order to participate you had to be a registered Republican (same for the Dems at theirs). So we had tables set up with the voter lists. The person had to sign in to get their ballot to vote in their precinct gathering later in the night. If you weren't registered or weren't a Republican you had to go to a seperate room to register before they could get their ballot. I was 1 of those who was assigned to do the resigtering.

The number of people we needed to register at the Roosevelt site was amazing. People began showing up well before the 6 pm official start. & a large number of them were independents/democrats who wanted to switch as well as many new voters. We finally had to have several people hand out the forms & 4 people take the completed ones, check them & then give out the ballots. It literally became an assembly line. Our site started the talks in the auditorium on time. But, while the talks were going on we continued resistering until we were done about 7:25 pm. The Senior site didn't start the talks til about 8 pm after everyone was registered.

As an aside, in order to register everyone had to have some proof of their correct address. We had no problems, everyone had the requisite ID &/or bill with correct address.

After the talks we broke up into precincts. I was the chair of my precinct. The classroom we were in was packed to overflowing. We had 131 people. It was wall to wall. After some preliminaries we collected the ballots & did the count. That took some time. But people cooperated with the collecting of the ballots & were patient throughout the counting. Romney won my precinct, McCain was 2nd, Huckabee came in 3nd, followed by Thompson, Paul Giuliani & then 1 vote for Alan Keyes. Hunter & Cox got 0 votes each. After the results were announced over 2/3 of the people left. That didn't surprize me as that is how things have worked in the past.

But there was still more to do. There was still selecting central committee persons for the precinct, delegates to the county convention & planks for the platform. We were done by about 8:30 pm at Roosevelt.

Overall, I think it went fairly well. But I suspect the next time there s a contested presidential race for the Republicans we will have to consider 3 or 4 sites to be safe.

Both parties disproved the predictions that the cold & Orange Bowl would cut down on attendance. But, I knew it wouldn't. Iowans take their responsibility seriously. In fact both parties appear to have set new attendance records accross the state.

Naturally, a lot of the usual criticisms have popped up. 1 of the most patently false is the claim that all that shows up are party regulars. The 3 of registration forms filled out at the sites for both parties alone is enough to disprove this. & as someone who is a party regular, there were a lot of strange faces.

The truth is, these caucuses attract a lot of people who are NOT the die hard party regulars. But they are people who want their voice to be heard. & it was. & this is the big strength of the Iowa Caucuses & 1 of the strongest arguements in favor of our continuing in 1st place.

OK it's not perfect, I'll admit that, but as Michelle Malkin points out, it does serve a good purpose (emphasis mine): "Still, the process does have its benefits. Retail politics is a demanding business. It punishes candidates who would rather sit back in their East Coast comfort zones, tape slick ads and campaign on autopilot. It requires discipline, focus and drive. It requires a thick skin, stamina and an ability to withstand enormous voter and media scrutiny. But there's more:

Mitt Romney's managerial prowess and large campaign chest should have guaranteed a huge, easy win. But Mike Huckabee's surprise rise over the past several weeks showed that money alone isn't everything. The grassroots matter.

Celebrity appeal helps. But except for a botched campaign event in which staffers dissed a local supporter who had organized a campaign event at his farm because he didn't meet the death tax threshold, nationally prominent Rudy Giuliani was a nonentity in Iowa. And Fred Thompson's failure to catch fire showed that star power and Internet buzz aren't enough to cut it, either. "

"We may have grown sick and tired of the endless debates and campaign circus, but the process helpfully spotlighted fundamental character flaws. Hillary's botched illegal alien driver's license answer put her open-borders incoherence on full display. Her dumpster-diving into rival Obama's grade-school essays showed her utter pettiness. Iowans -- and the rest of us -- got to see how she and her operatives acted under pressure: by planting questioners, slinging underhanded cocaine references at Obama, and then freezing out the press (including a poor 9-year-old girl who wanted to interview Chelsea Clinton). "

Her final paragraph sums it all up perfectly saying exactly why Iowa should stay 1st in the nation & keep its caucus system going as it is: " I may not agree with the outcomes of the Iowa caucuses (and keep in mind that winning Iowa doesn't guarantee a White House victory). But I much prefer this system to a process that would anoint a deep-pocketed frontrunner allergic to flyover country who wishes he could just phone it in." (The Flawed but Useful Iowa Caucuses)

Thanks Michelle for that endorsement. She does an excellent job of showing all the reasons why Iowa should stay 1st. Something the elites in both parties hate. But that was the whole idea of the system as it developed in the 60s & 70s, to take control from the elites & return it to the people.

2 more Dems, Dodd & Biden have been culled. & the end for Hunter is likely in sight. I highly suspect that Giuliani's strategy to blow off Iowa & New Hampshire will backfire. McCain's 3rd place tie with Thompson will give his campaign some much needed new life. But Thompson's failure to do better in Iowa could be the beginning of the end for him. I suspect that Ron Paul will continue to the end. & that will serve a good purpose. He is bringing to the fore many issues that need to be discussed that would otherwise be ignored. He is serving the same purpose Alan Keyes did in 1996 & 2000.

The campaign IS far from over & New Hampshire is only the next stop. I also supect that either this time or the next time Super Tuesday will prove to be a mistake & that the states will see the wisdom of having everything much more spread out. & the attacks on Iowa being 1st will continue for years to come. Some of those complaining will be sincere in their concerns. But most of those opposed to Iowa being 1st are & will continue to be those elitists who abhore the idea that the average person in a flyover state deserves to have a say in who is selected.