Iowa Caucus

I went to my local caucus tonight. It was fun! It went on too long, because there were five times the normal number of caucus goers, but it was a great experience. We had 555 people show up. I sat with the Biden group, which only had 9 supporters, and we were all a bunch of Independents who register Democrat. I'm definitely going to support the marginal candidates first every time I go to caucuses. You get to meet your little group and hear what everybody has to say, and representatives come from every other candidate to try to get your support in the second round, after your candidate proves not to be viable. The Clinton group brought us cookies, although they were not actual Clinton Cookies.

Candidates had to have 15% of the votes in order to be viable, and all the marginal candidates added together only had about 10% of the votes, so in the second round we had to choose Obama, Clinton, or Edwards. Obama had twice as many supporters as anybody else did. I left a little early, so I didn't find out whether Edwards or Clinton came in second. There was such a large crowd that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get out of the parking lot if I didn't leave early. Next time I'll throw on a ski mask and brave the cold to walk to the caucus.