Des Moines Diary Jan. 3 Evening…the Caucus.

I’ve read a good deal about the caucus. I think I understand the process, but I’m not totally prepared for what I see at Roosevelt High School where about 400 neighbors gather in a cafeteria room for a Democratic caucus.We’ve picked a Democratic meeting for 2 reasons.

One: It’s the format that is going to be least understood by the people back home. Republicans simply meet and vote (by paper ballot). If they wish they can stick around and argue platform issues. Most, we’re told, don’t. The whole event would be familiar to anyone who’s taken part in a high school student body election.

The Democrats on the other hand.....

It begins with the election of a chairman to run things. There’s a nose count. That gives them a total and establishes an important number…15 percent of the total or the threshold for a candidate to be viable. In this case it’s 52. Then they break up into groups according to candidates they support. Obama’s crowd is more than twice the size of Edwards, who has a couple dozen more than Hillary. Richardson is a few short and the Dodd, Biden and Kuchinich people look defiant, but lonely.

Then the fun begins, each group competes with every other to attract their neighbors over to their side. It’s neighbor on neighbor with the candidate’s individual captains trying to ride herd over their charges. The Biden and Dodd groups evaporate. Kucinich fans stand resolute for a time but most gravitate to Obama. It’s what the candidate himself has urged them to do.

The Richardson captain tries to hold his group together and recruit just a few more he needs to be viable, but it’s a losing battle. One by one they wander into other camps. We saw an Obama supporting wife, persuading her Richardson supporting husband to jump ship. No mystery how that was going to turn out.

At the end of the evening the order of the finish in this precinct was Obama, Edwards and Clinton, just as it was statewide. It looked chaotic at times, but, I have to say it, very democratic and, well, fun. I come away, liking what I saw more than I thought I would.

Critics of the caucus have their points. It disenfranchises those who work nights or who are out of state on that particular night and, as big as the crowds were, they represent only a fraction of the eligible voters in the state.  There is something, however, in a group of Americans, neighbors, prepared enough to have an informed opinion at this point, choosing a candidate and standing up for them and then one to one debating others on their choices. It’s not perfect, but I admit I liked what I saw. Again, I try to imagine all this translating to Nevada ….