Caucus Night

January 3rd, 2008: The date Iowa began to change the nation.

It had been a long, painful year of campaigning. We have been getting calls from candidates a couple times a night for months now. Daddy had taken me out to parks and hotels to meet Sen. Obama, Ms Edwards, and Sen. Clinton. He saw Gov. Rommney at the hospital. We were invited to events with Sen. Dodd, Sen. Biden, and Gov Richardson, but passed on the opporunities. If Iowans hadn't made a decision by now, they weren't going to.

We arrived back home on the morning of the caucus, having flown all night from California. Gran was waiting for us at home, having taken care of sisters Skye and Denali while we were gone. While I slept and recovered from our trip, Gran and daddy set the house up for a party. We hosted a reception for our neighbors before the caucus- inviting them over for cheese, mulled wine, and hot chocolate. Gran made her special Mexican hot chocolate; a recipe she learned at culinary school near Mexico City. Ed and Mary from across the street came by. So did Deb, the teacher next door who walks the gorgeous shorthaired collie, Levi. And Naomi and Brandon, two of daddy's students. As we sat around the kitchen, sharing Gran's wondeful chocolate, we talked about the long year of campainging and the posibilities that the upcoming night may hold.

When it got closest enough to caucus time, mommy got me into the car along with Ed and Gran, who have trouble walking very far. Daddy joined the others in walking to the caucus site: Shimek school, my future elementary. It was a beautiful, cold, clear and moonless night. The stars dangled in the heavens, matching the Christmas lights adorning the homes along the path to the school. As they walked, other neighbors poured out their own homes, joining the long procession.

When we arrived at the school, the joint was jumping! The line already stretched out the door- the attendees were being herded and packed like sardines into Shimek's crackerbox gym. It was so hot and stifiling in there, I got a little nervous. But mommy held me tight and made it all better. At 7pm sharp, they closed the line and announced the official count: 574- a new record. The last record was set in 2004, and at the time was a stunning jump in attendance- almost 300. The new total was almost double! Something very special was happening.

We broke into our designated camps around the school; I went with mommy and Naomi and Brandon into a classroom for the undecided. Daddy stayed with Ed and Deb in the biggest room for Obama- clearly the most popular at first glance. With the first round of voting, Obama had the most with 229 votes of 574- almost 40%! Edwards had 95 and Hillary had 82. What was especially shocking was that in the Iowa caucus system, you need to have at least 15% support to count as a candidate. In our precinct, that was 85 votes. So Hillary was in danger of getting NO DELEGATES! Effectively, she would have the same result as Mike Gravel or Chris Dodd!

Considering that we live in a fairly liberal, professor and doctor-heavy part of Iowa City, we expected Obama to do well. But we didn't know if the outpouring of enthusiasm for Barack was a local phenomenon or is was going on elsewhere. And Hillary's main body of support lies in the hard-core elderly democratic voters. Would these voters overwhelm Obama's youth movement in the farming communities of Iowa?

Daddy was in contact with Granmimi in West Branch by text message with his iphone, so we could get a taste of what was happening elsewhere. There, the turnout was 426, also a new record. At 7:47pm, the following text appeared:

"Barak 206, Hil 65 just enuf, edwards 94"

Daddy stared at the West Branch numbers in stunned glee: a drastically different community demographic (mostly blue collar and farmers) had almost identical percentages to our merry band of college professors. WOW. Daddy passed the iphone around so the other Obama boosters could see the news. We all cheered- change was really happening!

Back in the undecided room, mommy and I only had 10 supporters, so we would be forced to pick another candidate. This is usually the time in the Iowa caucus where the real horse trading starts: offers of nominating courted undecided for delegate positions is common. In desperate times, offers of free yard work has been known to occur. Mom was trying to decided between Hillary and Edwards (she figured Obama had enough help). Surprisingly, no one from the Edwards campaign came to court us. So mommy went to join Hillary, dropping me off with daddy and Gran in the "big room:.

At this point in the evening, after the "realignment" there is a second and final round of voting. Anyone originally aligned with "non-viable" candidates (less than 15%) are expected to go somewhere else. At our site, Kusinich joined Obama. Biden and Dodd joined Richardson (don't ask me why- it just happened- that's the Iowa caucus for you!). Edwards and Hillary picked up a few undecided voters, including enough to put Hillary over the 15% barrier. And the rebel skater-types in their grunge stuck with their man, Mike Gravel, even though they only had 5 votes and wouldn't be getting any delegates.

The final tally held similar percentages as the initial vote and after rounding, Obama got 4 delegates, Hillary 2, Edwards 2 and Richardson (surprise!) got 2. A flurry of text messages from around the state confirmed the same results in other precincts. Uncle Kurt had begged daddy to "deliver" Iowa for Obama and it looked like we did it! Now, we turned to him to work on New Hamshire. Good luck, Uncle Kurt!