I attended Republican caucuses until switching parties about twenty years ago. After the switch, I often complained about the convoluted approach Democrats take, finding that the Republican approach to letting every attendee’s ballot “count” to be preferable. I was told by party leaders the Democrats had to do this because of an agreement with New Hampshire. There was no good explanation of why only Democrats had to follow this inaccessible process, as you have so wisely discussed. I agree, this could and should have been changed years ago. It unnecessarily contributed to the perception of a party in disarray.
The most frustrating part was that Republicans always had a straw poll, which NH didn't mind! I was told that's because the GOP didn't allocate their county convention delegates based on the straw poll result, whereas Democrats would have wanted to use the caucus-goer preferences to allocate delegates. It never made a lot of sense and why should NH's Secretary of State have the final say on what we can do?
Thanks for a convincing critique of a process that one can not imagine designing if the point is to engage more voters in Democratic Party politics. But I don’t think that has been the point.
Years ago (long enough ago that I don’t recall which Presidential year), my late first wife was cajoled into accepting election from her precinct to be an alternate delegate to the Polk County Democratic Party convention. She showed up and was told she would be notified shortly if she would be participating (and voting) in the convention, depending upon how many of the delegates from her precinct showed up. She never was told anything further, except for this: She was very allergic to cigarette smoke. This was before smoking was barred to public places. When she asked if any accommodation was made to allow non smokers to separate themselves from smoke, the answer was that no separation was possible, attendees at the convention were free to smoke if they chose, and if she didn’t like it, she could leave. She stayed the morning, feeling that she had made a commitment to show up, and then at the lunch break, after tolerating the smoke for three hours and never receiving word about whether she would be able to participate and vote, left and went home. Her allergy kicked in, of course, and she spent a miserable week recovering from the effects of exposure to the smoke.
When the caucus system was designed, most precinct caucuses were very small and easy to manage. But as Deeth has pointed out, by 2004 the larger precincts were getting harder to handle. We had around 175 people at our Windsor Heights precinct in 2004, but nearly 300 in 2008, which was certainly a fire hazard. Even around 240 in 2016 made it hard to keep the groups separate while counting.
The LARGE Democratic caucuses have been unwieldy for a LONG TIME. IOWA DEMOCRATIC party mistakes have been SWEPT OVER THE DAM. I have participated in these caucuses.
Thanks, Laura for this and previous columns about the Iowa caucus.
I am curious what direction the Iowa Democratic Party will choose to take, given these initial reactions that the state should go rogue, regardless of consequences, effectiveness or DNC penalties.
I am a member of a county party, so also am interested in what county parties will choose to do. I found the recently initiated “off-year caucuses” to be less than effective efforts at boosting party participation, with a lot of work and limited results.
I have nostalgic, fond memories of participating in past caucuses - meeting in our neighbor’s living room and enjoying homemade cookies afterward.
But recent caucuses had become organizational challenges, with excess complexity and commitment to training beforehand. I cannot say I will miss that at all!
Two different caucus years I watched a Democratic caucus at Roosevelt High School in DesMoines from Florida! These were in the Roosevelt Cafeteria with which I am very familiar. I watched both times from beginning to the end. I believe these caucuses were televised by C-Span. My own precinct was not televised.
The caucuses were to begin at 7:00 PM at which time the large cafeteria was quite full of people who cared. At 7:00 PM the
Caucus Chair asked that the doors to the room be closed! That caused much consternation as the people who waited patiently in lines were suddenly CUT OUT. This left LONG lines of people in the school hallways and outside the school entrance doors. The chair tried to call the meeting to order. There were not nearly enough seats in that large room, so participants stood and leaned against the walls or sat on the concrete floor. The cafeteria was packed full!
Participants came straight from work on a COLD winter night after picking up their kids to bring them along to view the caucus process. Some kids were old enough to learn and understand, but younger and youngest kids were restless as their parents had to shush them frequently.
TIME grew longer and longer as the chair tried his best to communicate the agenda and procedures for the evening. The most difficult time in both caucuses I watched was when the chair asked people to assemble in groups in areas he designated for each presidential candidate running for election. That was a total mess with nearly 500 people in the room making their way to be with their candidate’s group. Finally when people arrived each candidate’s group the chair called for a “show of hands” and asked a group member to count numbers for each candidate. This was a reasonably quiet time as each group vote was counted over several times, but with more than one person counting each group the counts didn’t always match.
A representative was asked to speak for the candidates whom they represented.
These were quite impromptu and varied in quality of presentation.
People grew hot and restless during these counting times. Some began to leave and after doing this the counts didn’t always reach the same numbers in each group previously counted. After more than two hours, the chair tried to conduct some caucus business. It seemed to me that was squeezed in at the end. More people left the room and a smaller number of caucus goers stayed until the end. I never really felt the caucus business was truly completed
Large numbers of people stuffed in a room wearing winter coats made the logistics
in these two caucuses very difficult. I believe there was only one microphone to
share amongst all those who wanted to speak.
Due to the timing of the caucuses, I was not able to participate from Florida. But,
truly, I wouldn’t really have WANTED to be stuffed in a room with nearly 500 people like that. (Certainly not with Covid!) An auditorium would have been much better, however that room was likely filled with another caucus on those evenings. The location place and seating availability do make a difference on how any meeting can be conducted. I have a genuine concern about attending such a large group caucus at night in February.
Continued missed opportunities. Laura's comments are well-taken and taken in conjunction with Jack Hatch's comments in today's DMR, reflect the need for action. Laura comments on the past-the handwriting was on the wall in the messed up 2016 caucus and failure for Iowa politicos to explain strengths of the caucus (and adjust to changes as suggested by Laura). Hatchs' observations are well-taken; I do not think the sole answer is with the Hughes Project, but they should be at the table. The problem is that there is no table, no leaders convening such a 'table'. and no sharing of lessons learned to the national party. The latter point is that Iowans know rotation of leading states should have been done cycles ago. The latter point is that if done wrong, the new leading states will resort to expensive TV ads, at cost of organizing. And as Hatch pointed out, the organizing weaknesses have all over. One thing the caucus did was give D's an opportunity to be involved, attract new people, teach civics, and give voice to rural and not so rural Iowa. Those are lessons that should be learned. Iowa should take the high ground and share lessons. Inside Iowa, Iowa D's should start with common ground issues that give meaning to the D's.
I attended Republican caucuses until switching parties about twenty years ago. After the switch, I often complained about the convoluted approach Democrats take, finding that the Republican approach to letting every attendee’s ballot “count” to be preferable. I was told by party leaders the Democrats had to do this because of an agreement with New Hampshire. There was no good explanation of why only Democrats had to follow this inaccessible process, as you have so wisely discussed. I agree, this could and should have been changed years ago. It unnecessarily contributed to the perception of a party in disarray.
The most frustrating part was that Republicans always had a straw poll, which NH didn't mind! I was told that's because the GOP didn't allocate their county convention delegates based on the straw poll result, whereas Democrats would have wanted to use the caucus-goer preferences to allocate delegates. It never made a lot of sense and why should NH's Secretary of State have the final say on what we can do?
Excellent observations and historical personalities, Laurie. Thank you for your insights.
Thanks for a convincing critique of a process that one can not imagine designing if the point is to engage more voters in Democratic Party politics. But I don’t think that has been the point.
Years ago (long enough ago that I don’t recall which Presidential year), my late first wife was cajoled into accepting election from her precinct to be an alternate delegate to the Polk County Democratic Party convention. She showed up and was told she would be notified shortly if she would be participating (and voting) in the convention, depending upon how many of the delegates from her precinct showed up. She never was told anything further, except for this: She was very allergic to cigarette smoke. This was before smoking was barred to public places. When she asked if any accommodation was made to allow non smokers to separate themselves from smoke, the answer was that no separation was possible, attendees at the convention were free to smoke if they chose, and if she didn’t like it, she could leave. She stayed the morning, feeling that she had made a commitment to show up, and then at the lunch break, after tolerating the smoke for three hours and never receiving word about whether she would be able to participate and vote, left and went home. Her allergy kicked in, of course, and she spent a miserable week recovering from the effects of exposure to the smoke.
When the caucus system was designed, most precinct caucuses were very small and easy to manage. But as Deeth has pointed out, by 2004 the larger precincts were getting harder to handle. We had around 175 people at our Windsor Heights precinct in 2004, but nearly 300 in 2008, which was certainly a fire hazard. Even around 240 in 2016 made it hard to keep the groups separate while counting.
Thank you Laura Belin for your wisdom and ability to write succinctly about our Iowa Democratic CAUCUS MESS!
Thank you for reading!
The LARGE Democratic caucuses have been unwieldy for a LONG TIME. IOWA DEMOCRATIC party mistakes have been SWEPT OVER THE DAM. I have participated in these caucuses.
Thanks, Laura for this and previous columns about the Iowa caucus.
I am curious what direction the Iowa Democratic Party will choose to take, given these initial reactions that the state should go rogue, regardless of consequences, effectiveness or DNC penalties.
I am a member of a county party, so also am interested in what county parties will choose to do. I found the recently initiated “off-year caucuses” to be less than effective efforts at boosting party participation, with a lot of work and limited results.
I have nostalgic, fond memories of participating in past caucuses - meeting in our neighbor’s living room and enjoying homemade cookies afterward.
But recent caucuses had become organizational challenges, with excess complexity and commitment to training beforehand. I cannot say I will miss that at all!
The fact that we are still going to have the Republican caucus seems like a worst of both worlds situation.
I will miss the caucus, but it's hard to argue that it was a good or fair system.
Two different caucus years I watched a Democratic caucus at Roosevelt High School in DesMoines from Florida! These were in the Roosevelt Cafeteria with which I am very familiar. I watched both times from beginning to the end. I believe these caucuses were televised by C-Span. My own precinct was not televised.
The caucuses were to begin at 7:00 PM at which time the large cafeteria was quite full of people who cared. At 7:00 PM the
Caucus Chair asked that the doors to the room be closed! That caused much consternation as the people who waited patiently in lines were suddenly CUT OUT. This left LONG lines of people in the school hallways and outside the school entrance doors. The chair tried to call the meeting to order. There were not nearly enough seats in that large room, so participants stood and leaned against the walls or sat on the concrete floor. The cafeteria was packed full!
Participants came straight from work on a COLD winter night after picking up their kids to bring them along to view the caucus process. Some kids were old enough to learn and understand, but younger and youngest kids were restless as their parents had to shush them frequently.
TIME grew longer and longer as the chair tried his best to communicate the agenda and procedures for the evening. The most difficult time in both caucuses I watched was when the chair asked people to assemble in groups in areas he designated for each presidential candidate running for election. That was a total mess with nearly 500 people in the room making their way to be with their candidate’s group. Finally when people arrived each candidate’s group the chair called for a “show of hands” and asked a group member to count numbers for each candidate. This was a reasonably quiet time as each group vote was counted over several times, but with more than one person counting each group the counts didn’t always match.
A representative was asked to speak for the candidates whom they represented.
These were quite impromptu and varied in quality of presentation.
People grew hot and restless during these counting times. Some began to leave and after doing this the counts didn’t always reach the same numbers in each group previously counted. After more than two hours, the chair tried to conduct some caucus business. It seemed to me that was squeezed in at the end. More people left the room and a smaller number of caucus goers stayed until the end. I never really felt the caucus business was truly completed
Large numbers of people stuffed in a room wearing winter coats made the logistics
in these two caucuses very difficult. I believe there was only one microphone to
share amongst all those who wanted to speak.
Due to the timing of the caucuses, I was not able to participate from Florida. But,
truly, I wouldn’t really have WANTED to be stuffed in a room with nearly 500 people like that. (Certainly not with Covid!) An auditorium would have been much better, however that room was likely filled with another caucus on those evenings. The location place and seating availability do make a difference on how any meeting can be conducted. I have a genuine concern about attending such a large group caucus at night in February.
Continued missed opportunities. Laura's comments are well-taken and taken in conjunction with Jack Hatch's comments in today's DMR, reflect the need for action. Laura comments on the past-the handwriting was on the wall in the messed up 2016 caucus and failure for Iowa politicos to explain strengths of the caucus (and adjust to changes as suggested by Laura). Hatchs' observations are well-taken; I do not think the sole answer is with the Hughes Project, but they should be at the table. The problem is that there is no table, no leaders convening such a 'table'. and no sharing of lessons learned to the national party. The latter point is that Iowans know rotation of leading states should have been done cycles ago. The latter point is that if done wrong, the new leading states will resort to expensive TV ads, at cost of organizing. And as Hatch pointed out, the organizing weaknesses have all over. One thing the caucus did was give D's an opportunity to be involved, attract new people, teach civics, and give voice to rural and not so rural Iowa. Those are lessons that should be learned. Iowa should take the high ground and share lessons. Inside Iowa, Iowa D's should start with common ground issues that give meaning to the D's.
The train has been coming down the track for awhile and the Iowa Dem party’s response was to continue to stand in the middle of the rails.