Obama’s Independent Support Shows

Barack Obama won the Iowa Caucuses tonight by a significant margin boosted by strong support from registered Independents and first time caucusgoers. However, the most striking example of this was in Eldridge, Iowa. The Obama precinct captain there was 2006 Independent Congressional candidate James Hill. Hill ran with his party affiliation as Pirate and garnered 2201 votes. This exemplifies the lead shown by Obama among self described Independents. Unfortunately though, none of the polls asked prospective caucusgoers if they self-identified as pirates.

12 comments January 3rd, 2008

Bill Richardson: Peace, Love and an A rating from the NRA?

Bill Richardson started his campaign as a moderate Democrat who was running based on a rather impressive resume as Governor, Cabinet Member, Diplomat and Congressman. He talked about his experience balancing budgets and opposing gun control. However, Richardson’s campaign has recently changed its tack dramatically. While Richardson still emphasizes his background as a pro-gun moderate in rural areas, he’s now become the peacenik candidate in the rest of Iowa.

Richardson has come out as the only major Presidential candidate to support withdrawing all American troops from Iraq in six months and filmed an ad with bloggers endorsing his policy. He has phased out wearing an American flag lapel pin in favor of the Sensible Priorities pin.

The most extreme sign of Richardson’s tack to the left was his recent hiring of Dave Rogers as his political director. Rogers worked on Dennis Kucinich’s Presidential campaign and was reported by reliable sources to be staffing Kucinich at events as recently as this spring. Rogers has also worked for Western Iowa’s answer to Dennis Kucinich, Joyce Schulte, as well as for the Sensible Priorities campaign.

In contrast, the political directors for 1st tier Presidential campaigns are longtime Iowa political operatives (Chris Hayler for Clinton, Emily Parcell for Obama) or national operatives (Tim Maloney for Edwards). However, they focus on getting the support of legislators, major activists and organized labor. It seems that Rogers will be focusing on the anti-war left (as it is doubtful that someone who operated a salon and day spa is the right person to reach out to the UAW).

Rogers’ hiring further reinforces that Bill Richardson is making a very determined effort to reach out not just anti-war Democrats but, specifically, to the core of peace activists who supported Kucinich in 2004. Although peaceniks are a relatively small bloc, they are very likely caucusgoers. If Richardson is still around 10% then, peace activists could play a decisive role in propping Richardson in up in many precincts and making him viable.

But this is a dangerous balancing game for a candidate who started running as a moderate. Richardson has already lost one key supporter due to his swing to the left and Hotline, among others, finds his policy shift not plausible. Richardson is playing a very delicate balancing game trying to woo both the most conservative caucusgoers and the most liberal over the next ten weeks. If it works, Richardson might become a first tier candidate. But if it doesn’t, Richardson will not only lose but could so in a way that undermines his credibility as a politician in the future.

7 comments October 16th, 2007

A (Partial) Defense of the Iowa Caucuses

I know, I live in Iowa, so a defense of the caucuses that comes from me is just going to seem like I’m greedy.  I should say that before I moved to Iowa for college four years ago, I shared the opinion that the importance of the caucuses is unjustifiable, and that a national primary would be more democratic.  Then I experienced the caucuses (in 2004), and I changed my mind.

Over on MyDD, desmoinesdem published the second part of her diary series, “How the Iowa caucuses work.”  She echoes concerns that we brought up here about inequalities in the caucus system based on delegate assignment, demonstrating that it takes more caucus-goers to elect a delegate in precincts with higher concentrations of activist Democrats who have free evenings than in precincts with lower concentrations of said activists.  (E.g., it took about 70 caucus-goers to elect one delegate in the Poweshiek County, where I caucused in 2004, while in less-Democratic and less-populous Fremont County, it only took 22 caucus-goers to elect one delegate.)

The conclusion of all of this?  The caucus system (according to our own Geraldine) “favors the old over the young, the rural over the urban, Western Iowa over Eastern Iowa.”

Why is this wrong?  Well, while the caucus system seems to create inequalities on the surface, it can compensate for deeper inequalities.  Many have complained, here and elsewhere, that the Iowa Caucuses are unfair to families with young children, workers who have evening shifts, handicapped persons, and, generally, people with busy schedules, because it requires them to take several hours out of a weekday night to argue with their neighbors about politics.  Not everyone can do that, and it’s understandable.

That is why precincts are assigned delegates before caucus night: if a disproportionate number of Democrats in X precinct have to work the night shift or have young children (or even if there’s a blizzard), the system currently in place ensures that their precinct will still be important.  And precincts are the smallest geographic unit our election officials recognize for general elections, so it is assumed that others in your precinct likely represent similar interests to yours.  Think of it as a much more geographically specific version of the electoral college.  (Maybe you have your problems with that system, too, but at least this caucus math has a constitutional precedent.)

Aside from that, though, here’s a question nobody has asked: what is the harm in giving Iowa’s downtrodden rural hamlets and agricultural areas a little attention from the rest of the country every four years?  It isn’t like John Edwards is going to spend the last week before the caucuses camped out in Keokuk and Grundy Counties just because each caucus-goer is worth more there.  At the end of the day, Keokuk and Grundy still represent a tiny fraction of the total delegates needed to win, and putting on events and doing GOTV work is easier and far more efficient in urban areas like Des Moines and Cedar Rapids.

While disparities in caucus-goer to delegate ratios from county to county may seem a little alarming, the truth is that urban areas are still immensely important, and that a candidate can win the caucuses without putting practically any resources into the less populous half of Iowa’s 99 counties.  A campaign will hire more than 10 full-time field organizers for Polk County before they will hire a single full-time organizer for Grundy County.  And most importantly, I don’t know a single Iowa Democrat who will argue that Polk County (Des Moines area) Democrats don’t have enough influence on state politics, the state party, or the caucuses.

I hope this will be the start of a series of posts written here as a defense of the Iowa Caucuses.  Toward that end, I’m looking for more arguments to respond to.  So, dear readers, please participate: What arguments against the Iowa Caucuses do you find most compelling? 

7 comments March 6th, 2007

The Inequalities Of The Iowa Caucus

In this post on MyDD by DesMoinesDem that we mentioned before, the way that an Iowa Precinct Caucus works is explained. The post takes care to differentiate the type of party building activity is from a more traditional one-man-one-vote primary. Using data from the Des Moines Register, we did a breakdown of what counties benefited and what counties were hurt by the caucus system in 2004.

In 2004, 122,193 people attended the Democratic Precinct Caucuses to elect 3000 delegates to the State Convention. This averages out to just under 41 caucusgoers per delegate elected. However, this average wildly differed in every county. In Johnson County, home of the University of Iowa and the most Democratic county in the state, it took nearly 80 caucusgoers to elect one delegate. However, in tiny Fremont County located in the heart of Republican Western Iowa, it only took 22 caucusgoers. When one looks at the number of caucusgoers that it takes to elect a delegate in each county, there is a clear pattern. Caucusgoers in small, rural, Republican counties wield disproportionate power compared to those in more urban Democratic counties. In fact, the people who are most disadvantaged by this are students. Of the four counties where it required the most caucusgoers to elect a delegate, three of them had significant student populations: Johnson, Poweshiek and Story. It is a system that favors the old over the young, the rural over the urban, Western Iowa over Eastern Iowa. It is a method that of selecting a candidate that has a clear bias and to be successful, presidential candidates have to spend a disproportionate amount of energy on less populous rural areas. The full breakdown is below the fold:

1 JOHNSON 79.21276596
2 POWESHIEK 69.8
3 JEFFERSON 68.46153846
4 STORY 65.97674419
5 DECATUR 54.625
6 WARREN 52.19148936
7 POLK 50.74651163
8 WINNESHIEK 49.6
9 DALLAS 49.09302326
10 MADISON 45.4
11 CEDAR 42.55555556
12 JASPER 42.45454545
13 MARSHALL 42.4
14 DAVIS 41.25
15 MAHASKA 40.5
16 WOODBURY 40.18518519
17 MUSCATINE 40.11428571
18 BOONE 40
19 MARION 40
20 BUCHANAN 39.47826087
21 IOWA 39.46666667
22 GREENE 39.41666667
23 WAPELLO 39.3902439
24 CLAY 39.33333333
25 ADAIR 39
26 BREMER 38.65217391
27 PALO ALTO 38.54545455
28 LINN 38.22807018
29 WAYNE 38
30 MONROE 37.875
31 HARDIN 37.63157895
32 WEBSTER 37.34146341
33 HAMILTON 37.29411765
34 LOUISA 37.1
35 WASHINGTON 36.89473684
36 DES MOINES 36.84313725
37 BUENA VISTA 36.8125
38 APPANOOSE 36.76923077
39 SIOUX 36.18181818
40 UNION 35.69230769
41 DUBUQUE 35.60952381
42 ADAMS 35.4
43 KOSSUTH 34.9
44 SCOTT 34.57142857
45 HARRISON 34.5
46 MONONA 34.5
47 KEOKUK 34.4
48 POTTAWATTAMIE 34.27941176
49 JACKSON 34.19047619
50 MILLS 33.3
51 TAMA 33.26315789
52 CLAYTON 33.15
53 RINGGOLD 32.83333333
54 BLACK HAWK 32.72058824
55 GUTHRIE 32.66666667
56 PLYMOUTH 32.47058824
57 VAN BUREN 32.33333333
58 FAYETTE 32.18181818
59 SHELBY 32.11111111
60 IDA 32
61 HENRY 31.84210526
62 CASS 31.75
63 BENTON 31.74074074
64 CHICKASAW 31.5
65 PAGE 30.6
66 CARROLL 30.23809524
67 AUDUBON 30.125
68 HOWARD 30
69 FRANKLIN 29.81818182
70 GRUNDY 29.8
71 WRIGHT 29.69230769
72 CRAWFORD 29.58333333
73 FLOYD 29.16666667
74 CERRO GORDO 28.83636364
75 LUCAS 28.44444444
76 O’BRIEN 28.1
77 JONES 28.04545455
78 CLARKE 28
79 ALLAMAKEE 27.69230769
80 BUTLER 27.23076923
81 DELAWARE 27.16666667
82 WINNEBAGO 26.91666667
83 SAC 26.8
84 LEE 26.51111111
85 DICKINSON 26.5
86 HUMBOLDT 26.5
87 POCAHONTAS 26.5
88 LYON 26.33333333
89 CALHOUN 26.09090909
90 OSCEOLA 25.75
91 MONTGOMERY 25.375
92 TAYLOR 24.83333333
93 WORTH 24.8
94 MITCHELL 23.16666667
95 HANCOCK 23.09090909
96 EMMET 23
97 CHEROKEE 22.69230769
98 CLINTON 22.47457627
99 FREMONT 22.28571429

6 comments February 27th, 2007

Afternoon Blog Roundup

There are are two really good posts on other blogs this afternoon that are worth mentioning. First is desmoinesdem’s explanation of the Iowa Caucuses on MyDD. It does a great job of giving people who have never been to or experienced an Iowa Caucus a sense of how an actual precinct caucus works. The second is an interview with Chris Dodd that’s also on MyDD. It is the second in MyDD’s series of interviews with Presidential candidates. Both are interesting posts and are well worth a read.

Add comment February 27th, 2007

Who Has The Power In The Iowa Caucuses?

The Iowa Caucuses aren’t democratic. In fact, they are so undemocratic, they make the Electoral College seem like a triumph for those who believe in “one man, one vote.” Caucusgoers aren’t voting for Obama, or Hillary or John Edwards. They vote for delegates to a county convention who then go on to vote for delegates to the State Convention who then go on to vote for delegates to the National Convention. Delegates are apportioned to each county and each precinct within the county by the combined number votes cast for the President and the Governor in the two previous General Elections. So, for example if more people in County X voted for the combination of John Kerry and Chet Culver in 2004 and 2006 than voted for the combination of Al Gore and Tom Vilsack in 2000 and 2002, County X will get more representation than it did in the 2004 caucuses. If less people voted for the top of the ticket, County X will get less representation. There are 3000 delegates at the State Convention and each county gets an appropriate share and the results for the caucuses are computed by factoring approximately what percent of the delegates a candidate will get at the State Convention. (Here are the 2004 results for an example)

So what has changed since 2004? Well of the big five counties in Iowa (Polk, Linn, Scott, Black Hawk and Johnson), all but Polk have gained delegates. In fact,  Johnson has shown the largest net gain of any county, going from 141 to 164 delegates. Linn also made a big leap from 228 to 242 delegates. Scott jumped from 161 to 170 and Black Hawk creeped up from 136 to 140. In contrast, Polk had a small dip of two delegates but still makes up nearly 15% of the total number of delegates with 428. The biggest leap in terms of perecentage was made by Jefferson County which is going from 13 to 18 delegates while the biggest fall in percentage was Ida County, which goes from 7 to a paltry 5 delegates. For us in Poweshiek County, we gained an extra delegate to go to 21. Statewide totals (which are rough because they haven’t been rounded) for 2008 are below the fold and the totals for 2004 can be found here.

4 comments January 18th, 2007

Kurt Cobain for Grundy County Attorney

Grundy County is the only county in that state that lists all of its write-in votes for every office. This includes a vote for Kurt Cobain for County Attorney (a post for which he was ineligible as he is not a member of the Iowa Bar) Drew has some fun with this but there’s a more serious lesson to be drawn from what isn’t listed.

What isn’t listed is the number of voters who were turned away from the polls because they weren’t registered to vote or weren’t registered to vote at that precinct or county. Even turning away one person damages our democracy. It’s absurd that anyone who wants to vote gets turned away. But it’s a by-product of our very flawed system of voter registration. Everytime that someone moves, they have to fill out a brand new form and if they haven’t filled out their form in time, they get disenfranchised. The result is a system that not only produces adminstrative issues at the polls like those we experienced in October but, more importantly, keeps people from voting. The one easy solution is same day registration, which allows someone to register and vote on the same day. Our neighbors in Minnesota and Wisconsin have this, as well as our early primary rival, New Hampshire. In fact, speaking of early primaries, you can register to vote when you show up at your precinct caucus in 2008, but you can’t do so for the General Election.

Hopefully, the State Legislature will take this issue up when it meets this month. One of the first orders of business for the new session is to remove impediments to absentee voting that the Republicans set up after the 2002 election.  With a Democratic majority in both Houses, it’s a rare opportunity to move forward and guarantee that every Iowan is able to vote in the future.

Add comment January 2nd, 2007

John Edwards’s first endorsement?

As Chris at Political Forecast points out, Ed Fallon was an active volunteer at  John Edwards’ event in Des Moines this weekend. In addition, Denise O’Brien showed up as well. It seems judging from this, Edwards may have an early advantage with the hardcore lefties in the caucuses this year. Considering Edwards was endorsed by Dennis Kucinich for all intents and purposes in 2004, it looks like Edwards will get a lot of support from the Fallon/O’Brien wing of the party this time around. (Not to mention that Kucinich might fall short of the one percent of county convention delegates he received in 2004 this time.)

 Although it’s questionable how much pull Fallon actually has,  (his “Don’t Write Me In” campaign was astonishingly successful in the General Election), he still received the support of nearly 40,000 voters in the 2006 Gubernatorial primary. And quite a few of those voters were highly enthusastic about him. It’s doubtful whether Fallon’s endorsement has any real weight outside of Fairfield and certain precincts of Iowa City but it doesn’t mean his endorsement’s useless. When Barack Obama attacks John Edwards on his vote in support of the Iraq War, John Edwards will have Fallon to back up his lefty street cred among caucus goers. It’s not the type of endorsement that actually will bring a lot of votes (like that of a major union like AFSCME) but one that’s important because it reassures voters. To paraphrase Thomas Callahan III, it offers a guarantee of lefty credentials that will help keep many prospective Edwards supporters feeling all warm and toasty inside.

7 comments December 29th, 2006

Iowa Caucuses to be Depicted by a Museum Exhibit

It’s no secret that few people understand exactly how the Iowa Caucuses work, and many don’t think they should exist. So the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs is going to make a museum exhibit for the State Historical Museum in Des Moines. From the Register:

The purpose of the display is threefold, said Anita Walker, director of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs:

- To secure Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus status by helping the nation understand why Iowa is a good first stop on the road to the White House.

- To provide a more well-rounded picture of Iowa to the world. The caucuses attract news media from 50 foreign countries and virtually every major media outlet in America.

- To encourage participation in the caucus process.

“I use the word ‘exhibit’ with quotes around it,” Walker said. “The real underlying, powerful message of this is citizen democracy, people’s participation in government. We want to get people excited about attending their own caucus.”

The ‘exhibit’ is going to open around Labor Day of 2007, and it’s going to have a real coffee shop (with a jukebox that plays politician sound-bites), a real living room (because there are still a few precincts where the caucuses are held in homes), and some kind of technology room where visitors can blog about stuff! I can’t wait to see all the great blogging that could result from this…

1 comment December 25th, 2006

An Interview with Jesse Harris of the Culver Campaign

In the second part of our three-part series, Jesse Harris, Field Director for Chet Culver’s campaign, took the time to answer our questions. Here’s what he had to say:

IowaProgress: How did you get involved in politics?

Jesse Harris: In the fall of 1999, I entered Simpson College just as Bill Bradley and Al Gore began to actively campaign in Iowa for the precinct caucuses. That campaign brought me into the political process and my interest in campaigns and public service hasn’t diminished. While in college I volunteered for the Bradley for President Campaign and then completed a summer internship in Congressman Leonard Boswell’s office in Washington, D.C. Although I had planned to attend graduate school, the prospect of working on a presidential campaign in 2003 and 2004 was too great to pass up. I was offered a position with the Edwards for President Campaign in Des Moines. For seven months I worked as a field organizer in Warren, Lucas, Clarke, Wayne and Decatur Counties. Following the caucus I continued to work for the campaign in Madison, Wisconsin and Minneapolis, Minnesota. That experience led me to continue working for Democratic candidates in Iowa.

IP: What do you do in off years when there aren’t elections? (Or what did you do before you joined this campaign?)

JH: In Iowa the campaign season really never ends. Just as one campaign passes there are new ones forming. Over the past three years I have worked for three different campaigns; the Edwards Campaign, the Iowa Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign and now the Culver for Governor Campaign. Since I graduated from Simpson, I have only spent five months outside of campaign work. In that time I served as a legislative assistant to State Senator Tom Rielly (D-Oskaloosa).

IP: In this gubernatorial election, the candidates are using the internet a lot more than they did last time around. What role do you think the internet (both your campaign sites and online news outlets and blogs) will play in this election? In what ways has the internet changed Iowa political campaigning?

JH: Without question, the internet has had deep and even profound effects on political campaigns. In some circles, the internet has even become the primary method that voters acquire information about elections and the issues at play in campaigns. While races used to be confined largely to local markets, today people throughout the country are able to acquire information on races from city hall to the White House. It has become a useful tool to update voters on the campaign, distribute information about policy positions and to raise money from a broader network of individuals.

Blogs have, in many respects, democratized journalism. Today, campaigns distribute information through a much wider universe of writers representing a number of different mediums. Blogs also reach more targeted communities of potential voters, particularly young people.

IP: What role do you think students (should) play in Iowa politics?

JH: Iowa and its residents have a significant voice in the American political process, more significant than virtually anywhere else in the country. This is true of students in Iowa as well. Nowhere else in the United States, excluding New Hampshire, will presidential candidates regularly visit college campuses and meet with students directly. With three universities, a large network of private liberal arts colleges and the state’s many community colleges, students in Iowa are positioned well to shape the public debate and push issues of concern to the forefront.

Of course, this applies to the governor’s race as well. Chet Culver will fight for Iowa’s young people. As governor, Chet will work to create good jobs with good benefits in every corner of the state so that college graduates will have every opportunity to live, work and raise their families in Iowa. As a former teacher Chet has worked tirelessly to increase participation among young people in Iowa and as a result participation among 18-24 year olds has increased dramatically.

IP: Iowa has a mix of urban voters and rural voters. Is it difficult to account for both groups in crafting your message?

JH: I believe that there is more that unites Iowans than divides them. In fact, Iowa’s mixture of urban and rural residents is one of the primary strengths of our state. In the end, all Iowans, whether they are rural or urban voters, Republican or Democrats, want high quality schools, affordable and accessible health care, and a strong, vibrant economy. Chet has proposed the most comprehensive campaign plan of any candidate running for governor. Chet’s “Leading Iowa Forward” will show voters specifically what he intends to do as governor. Specifically, he has released a comprehensive health care plan and an alternative energy plan both of which will benefit all Iowans in every corner of the state.

IP: (Campaign-specific question) How involved were you in choosing Patty Judge as running-mate? How do you respond to criticism that the choice was made for political reasons?

JH: In the end, the most important criteria for selecting a running mate is 1) Is this person qualified to become governor of the state of Iowa and 2) In maintaining a strong, vibrant Democratic Party, will this person stand up for Democrats and our Democratic values. In Patty Judge, Chet selected someone who not only meets this standard but far exceeds it. Secretary Judge has an extensive and distinguished record of public service. As a registered nurse she understands the challenges facing our health care system particularly women’s health care. As a two-term state senator, Patty developed policy on a wide range of issues and in doing so was elected to the Senate Democratic leadership. As Secretary of Agriculture for the past eight years, Patty has served at the highest levels of the executive branch and oversees one of the largest state agencies. She would be ready from the first minute to assume the duties of the governor’s office. Throughout her life, Patty has consistently supported and worked for Democratic candidates throughout Iowa. There is never any question about her commitment to the Democratic Party here in Iowa. Knowing that Patty Judge is ready to become governor and that she will fight for our Democratic principles, the choice was easy.

IP: Why is your campaign the best suited to beat Nussle?

JH: Chet Culver is the candidate best positioned to beat Jim Nussle this fall. Between Chet and Patty, this ticket has won four statewide elections and a total of 70 of the state’s 99 counties. Chet won his reelection by over 100,000 votes. Chet Culver and Patty Judge have proven that they can compete with Republicans in every corner of Iowa.

Moreover, Chet Culver is the only Democratic candidate currently beating Jim Nussle in the polls. According to a recent Rasmussen poll, Chet beats Nussle 40% to 38%. In a KCCI poll, Chet outdistances Nussle 44% to 43%. Nussle beats all of the other Democratic candidates and by significant margins.

Finally, he is the only Democrat running for governor who has demonstrated the capacity to keep pace with Jim Nussle on fundraising. In 2005, Chet raised more money than all the other Democrats seeking the nomination combined. The 2006 governor’s race will be the most expensive in Iowa history and we need a candidate that can match the Republicans.

3 comments April 29th, 2006