Preference groups at Caucuses?

Preference groups at Caucuses?

Spirited discussion, mostly at Political Forecast and also at Drew Miller.

In my years - this will be my 4th non-presidential caucus - I've never seen gubernatorial preference groups. However, I've been told it happened in a couple of Iowa City's most activist precincts in 1990. That was also:

the last year we had a multi-lateral gubernatorial primary. At caucus time there were four major candidates: Don Avenson, Tom Miller, John Chrystal and JoAnn Zimmermann. Zimmermann dropped out late, after the filing deadline, in a deal with eventual winner Avenson where she was named his running mate before the primary. It was an odd situation: 1990 was the transitional year when lt. gov was first elected on a ticket rather than independently. So she was a Democratic incumbent lieutenant governor, running for re-election on a ticket against the incumbent Republican governor.

the last time a right-to-lifer - Miller - tried to win a top of the ticket Democratic primary. By the time he ran for his old job as attorney general in 1994 (after the one term Bonnie Campbell interregnum) he had seen the light and adopted the "personally oppose but politically support" stance of which Mike Blouin should take note.

about six months before I moved to Iowa so all of this is second hand.

The 1994 and 1998 primaries were bilateral so the impetus wasn't there for the 35% rule. They were also both rather low-key, despite the near-dead heat of 1998 (Vilsack literally won it in his home county with high turnout and a 10 to 1 margin).

If our room divides on January 16 I'm not sure which side I'll walk to. All I know for sure is where I WON'T go.

As for public interest, I haven't heard a single "where is my caucus" call at work.