The Think Tank

It feels to many of us as if the presidential race has been going on since 2004, and in many ways I suppose that it has. But it officially kicks off tomorrow (January 3rd) in Iowa. I’m sort of a political nerd so I have been following the goings-on pretty closely since the ’06 Mid-Terms, but for those of you who haven’t, there has been some interesting developments leading up to tomorrow’s Midwest caucus.

First off, there’s a great deal of confusion regarding exactly what the differences are between a Primary and a Caucus. I myself was confused, so I’ll start there. I do think it is important to point out that each state political party sets the rules for their own system for nominating delegates, so the procedures and requirements not only vary from state to state, but from party to party within the same state as well.

For instance, in Iowa the Republican Caucus is non-binding, meaning that the caucus-goers will select the candidate they want their delegates to vote for at the Republican Convention in the summer, but those delegates are in no way required to cast their votes for that candidate. The Republicans also operate their Caucus on a winner-take-all basis, so the one who finishes first gets all the delegate’s votes and the runner-ups get none.

Contrast that to the Democrats, who operate their Caucus in a different fashion: the Caucus decisions are binding on the Dem’s side, and the “winner” gets the largest portion of the delegates’ votes, while the rest are divided between the other “viable” candidates. “Viable” candidates are those who finish with more then 15 percent of the caucus-goers’ votes.

Lets start out with the basic differences between Caucuses and Primaries.

♦ In a Primary system, voters fill out secret ballots and deposit them at designated voting booths just as we do in a general election. The polling centers are open all day and the time required to cast your vote is very short. Here in Oregon, we have a primary system, and since we are the only state in the Union with Vote-By-Mail, we don’t even have to go a polling station. Generally speaking, voters are only allowed to vote for candidates running in their declared political party, meaning registered Democrats can only vote for Democratic candidates, and registered Republican’s can only vote for Republican candidates. Registered Independents and those without declared allegiances are not able to vote in Oregon’s presidential primary, and I think that holds true for the other states as well, though I do not know that for certain.

♦ Caucus systems vary somewhat from state to state, but share many of the same basics. Voters are required to meet at specified locations throughout the state at specific times of day and participate in a town-hall style debate. Everyone votes – or in some cases stand in groups – and is divided into camps representing their favorite candidates. The people who are unsure who they are going to support are gathered together and those unallied folks become the target of everyone’s attention, as the other camps engage the undecided voters in vigorous debates to convince them to caucus for their chosen candidate. This process can take many hours and restricts the franchise to those who are capable of showing up at the stated time of day and specific location- if you have to work, or you can’t get a babysitter, the road is washed out, your car has a flat or you are agoraphobic, you get screwed. It does have the benefit however of adding a very personal touch to the campaigning process: instead of getting your information from television commercials which have been carefully crafted by anonymous PR firms, “Caucusers” are influenced by arguments made by their neighbors and friends. After the undecideds have been swayed, another vote is taken – or a headcount, if everyone is standing in groups – and a winner is declared.

I mentioned candidate “viability” before. The idea of “viability” can lead to interesting developments: let’s say that when the initial tally is taken to divide the camps Clinton has 23 percent, Obama 22 and Edwards 22 as well and therefore are all “valid”. That leaves the remaining 37% divided between Biden, Dodd, Richardson, Kucinich and all the Undecideds. But what would happen if the Dodd and Biden camps decided to lend their support to Kucinich? Suddenly he could be “valid” without any help from the undecided voters at all! In the at scenario, if he can manage to snag some of the unaligned voters, he could not only be a “valid” candidate, he could be the winner. It’s pretty weird stuff.

13 states use the Caucus system for assigning their delegates to the Party Nominating Conventions, as well as the District of Columbia and two US Protectorates, Guam & Puerto Rico.

Iowa is of particular import because it votes first, even though it is generally accepted that Iowa on the whole is not necessarily representative of the nation on the whole, and to make matters even worse only 6 percent of Iowans bother to caucus at all. Many people claim that this makes the results of Iowa caucus meaningless on a national candidate level, but in reality Iowa plays a pretty important role, even if it is only a psychological one: Candidates that win or place well in Iowa get a big bump in press coverage, especially if the winner is someone who has been considered an underdog to that point. With the surge in media coverage comes new donors and an image as a “winner” which can in turn translate into momentum which can carry over into some of the bigger states that vote in the next couple of weeks.

Iowans have a strong track record of selecting the underdog candidate, which has often times had the effect of starting the avalanche that leads to an eventual Nomination. One of their most famous unexpected picks was former Georgia Governor and peanut farmer Jimmy Carter, who of course went on to be President. Another is John Kerry, who was almost unheard of before the Iowa Caucus, but went on to become the Democratic Nominee in 2004 and very nearly became President.
More often then not, however, the Iowa winner tends to fall short in the general election, including George H.W. Bush (in his reelection bid) and John McCain. However, runner-ups tend to have a much better chance of arriving at the White House; Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan & George W. Bush all failed to win Iowa but did finish in the top three before continuing on to their Party’s Nomination and the Presidency.

This year the whole nomination process has been moved up. Wanting to have their states play a bigger role in the selection of candidates and thereby diminishing the importance of smaller, early-voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire, the Secretary of States for Michigan, Florida and several others moved their primaries ahead of the earliest voting date set by both the Republican and the Democrat Party’s. Since Iowa and New Hampshire both have a State Constitutional requirements to vote first, this forced them to move up also, and so started a tug-of-war between the States and the Party’s. There was even speculation that Iowa might caucus before Christmas of 2007! Instead, they settled on January 3rd in Iowa and January 8th in New Hampshire.

Since both of those states are required to vote first by state law, the Democrats did not penalized Iowa or New Hampshire for moving ahead of the February 5th early voting restriction. Both party’s penalized other states that moved ahead and forced the Iowa and New Hampshire date changes, chiefly Michigan and Florida, though there are others.

As I mentioned earlier, the two Party’s are responsible for creating their own primary and caucus rules, and therefore came up with different punishments for moving ahead of February 5th, known as “Super Tuesday” because so many states cast their votes on that day.

The Dem’s decided to punish Michigan and Florida for moving ahead by removing all of the delegates provided by those states at the Nominating Convention, completly removing the influence they had hoped to enhance in the first place. The Republicans, on the other hand, decided to count delegates from all of the states but penalized those states voting before February 5th by eliminating half of their delegates from the Convention. The states that will be penalized by the Republican’s are: Wyoming, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina and Florida. Iowa was not penalized because the result of the Republican side of the caucus is not binding.

Oregon does not vote until May 20, meaning that in all likelihood the Nominees will effectively be chosen before we ever even cast our ballots.

The latest Republican poll numbers from Des Moines Daily Register show Huckabee with 32% of likely caucus voters, Romney with 26%, McCain with 13%, Ron Paul with 9%, Fred Thompson with 9% and Rudy Giuliani with 5%.

The Democratic side is a tighter race at the top, with Obama at 32%, Clinton at 25%, Edwards at 24%, Richardson at 6%, Biden at 4%, Dodd at 2% and Kucinich at 1%.

The Primary calendar is listed below for your reference. States followed by a C are Caucus states.