Why The Republican Caucus isn’t a caucus: Caucus 101 Part Two

Why The Republican Caucus isn’t a caucus: Caucus 101 Part Two

Part two of my caucus series. This stuff may be redundant for old hands, but my experience going into my fifth caucus cycle as an Iowan is that most of us don’t understand it either.

Most people expect a simple, show-up-and-vote primary. That’s not the caucuses. They’re run not by the election office but by the parties. And the parties are different. It'll take some `splainin', but bear with me and you'll see that Republican caucus results are really just a beauty contest.

The nomination process, like America’s health care system, is the result of historical happenstance and accidents that has produced an unsatisfactory result that no one would build from scratch. Like health care, it has produced fiefdoms and special interests that are hard to battle, as any reform would gore someone’s ox. And my ox here in Iowa is the fattest of all.

The birth and growth of Iowa was entirely a Democratic Party thing, an accident of McGovern-era reform. National rules and state statutes mandated certain amounts of time between each convention level. In order to meet the time frames and produce the paperwork on the ditto machines and mimeographs of the era, the caucuses were pushed back into February and accidentally landed before the New Hampshire primary. McGovern, having written the rules, figured this out and won Iowa in 1972, but the nationals didn’t notice. The first time the nationals noticed Iowa was Carter `76. After that, the Iowa Republicans decided they wanted in on the action, too, and by 1980 the IOWA CAUCUSES as we know them were in full swing.

There’s delegates and then there’s delegates

Way back when (does the name Adlai Stevenson ring a bell?), national conventions actually nominated candidates. I’m old enough to remember when the “delegate count” was the mainstream media’s main measure of candidate strength. (I’m old enough to remember when “mainstream media” was a new term.) Now that we have a rolling frontloaded pseudo-national primary or whatever it is, momentum is the self-fulfilling measure of support. The Iowa “delegates” matter because they’re the first concrete numbers. But we’re also actual people.

One of the confusing things about caucus night is that “delegates” has multiple meanings. The delegates elected on caucus night aren’t going to Denver or New York or wherever. They’re going to the county seat. Iowa has a four tiered “caucus to convention” system.

Caucus Night, the big show, is at the precinct level.

Then there’s a county convention a few weeks later...

...followed by a congressional district convention in April. No national delegates get elected until the congressional district level.

The state conventions follow in mid-June and the last delegates get elected there.

But none of that matters much. What matters about Iowa is the numbers on Caucus Night.


The Parties Are Different

In order to understand why the Republican caucuses aren’t caucuses, you need to understand the Democratic caucuses. To grossly oversimplify:

You show up, sign in and declare your candidate preference. Real People hate this. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with having folks publicly state who they support. This is a meeting, not an election. But Real People – that is, folks who aren’t politicos- walk in thinking the caucuses are an election and expecting some sort of ballot secrecy.

At the magic minute – the schedule says 7:00 but in practice it’s whenever we get our act together – you split into groups. Hillary over here, Obama over there, Edwards over there.

You count off. The numbers at this point is what the press really wants, and IDP refuses to release it. Way back when, exit pollers - entrance pollsters, actually - tried to gather this data, but they gave up before my time. I think `88 was the last time they tried.

The duck drops down with the secret word. It starts with a V... No not "Vilsack." It's “viability”. Groups with 15% + are viable, groups below that aren’t.

Realignment time. The nonviable folks have to switch or merge or deal until you end up with everyone in a viable group.

You count off again and do the math to figure out how many county convention delegates each group gets.

You call Des Moines with numbers. Reporters want the numbers from the first count off: Clinton 106, Obama 95, Edwards 84, Vilsack 30, Kucinich 15, Uncommitted 10, Biden 4, Dodd 3, Mike Gravel 2, John Kerry 1, Kevin Phillips-Bong zero. They don't get it. Instead they get the delegate count: Clinton 3, Obama 3, Edwards 2, Vilsack 1. (I just made that up without bothering with predictions or the actual math.)

Now here’s where I have the procedural problem. What would be the harm in reporting the actual numbers from the first alignment? The unspoken answer is that New Hampshire thinks that would make us too much like a primary, but what does that really matter with the reshuffled `08 calendar?

At this point all the Real People, having already stayed an hour longer than they wanted to, leave.

Each group – those diehards who stay, anyway – elects the actual human flesh delegates.

Everyone gets back together and the diehards of the diehards do the party administrivia.

And then a step to the riiiight

Meanwhile, while all this is happening in the cafeteria, the Republicans are down the hall in the library doing their thing. Needless to say I’ve never been to a Republican caucus but this is my understanding of the process:

You show up and sign in without any statement of who you support, unless you so choose to wear a big LAMAR! plaid shirt. Sorry, I flashed back to 1996 there.

At the magic minute you cast a secret vote for McCain or Romney or Brownback or whoever. Any Real People who have been to a Democratic caucus in the past are happy that there’s none of this preference grouping and viability counting stuff.

The Republicans, at some point in the night (perhaps a GOP reader could fill in these details) count these and report exactly what the press wants: Giuliani 106, McCain 95, Romney 84, Brownback 30, Gingrich 15, Uncommitted 10, Tommy Thompson 3, Tom Tancredo 2, Atilla The Hun 1. And Kevin Phillips-Bong, zero.

The Real People leave, at about the same time the Real People at the Democratic caucus are asking "now WHICH side of the room do the Edwards people go to?"

The entire caucus – those diehards who stay, anyway – elects the actual human flesh delegates and do the party administrivia. None of this proportionality stuff that the Democrats do.

The diehard Republicans go home, at about the time the Democrats are counting off for the second time.

This is the important part:

Notice that the election of the delegates has no connection whatsoever to the votes just cast by the Real People.

Perhaps I exaggerate slightly, but my point stands. Is the Republican caucus count as reported interesting? Certainly. Does it measure real support for the candidates? Perhaps. Is it important? Insofar as we make it so. But does it have any direct connection with naming the people who will actually choose the Republican nominee? No, because the people voting on the delegates are a different universe of people, the self-selected diehards. If everyone leaves but, say, the Brownback people (see made-up numbers above) then the Brownback people elect all the delegates.

To get a sense of who made concrete progress toward the nomination, the media would have to exit-poll the people elected as delegates. But why bother when you have a much more interesting number handed to you by the state party? No, the Iowa Republican caucus is nothing more than a glorified straw poll, a “beauty contest” primary. At least it’s not a buy-a-vote, one site in the state straw poll like the August event in Ames.

Which is fine if you like it. But that bit of detail tends not to be emphasized very loudly.