Caucus!

Like so many others, all I can talk about today is last night's Iowa caucus. Iowa! Iowa! You don't realize how much you miss it until it's all over tv; I swear I recognized 98% of the towns they were talking about on CNN. They all had exits off I-80, for one thing. I kind of wish I were still registered to vote in Iowa, though it would have meant an eight-hour drive to sleep on the floor of the gymnasium in a sleeping bag. Iowa is the first rock in the avalanche! It's the buzzer that starts the game for real! All that initial trash-talking was just prelude to the barrage of ads that will come after the first results are in and campaigns start re-tooling to please the people.

It's hard to explain the appeal of caucus to someone who has never caucused (for instance, a Canadian friend of mine who asked, "Can't I just do my voting from home?"). It's true it's a bit of a schlep through miserable dark January weather to spend a couple of hours in a school gymnasium with a bunch of other people in winter gear that becomes rapidly much too warm, but on the other hand, it's a lot more entertaining and engaging than a voting booth. The whole point of caucus is to argue and cajole! How great is that? It's a highly-compartmentalized microcosm of national-level politics. In rural Iowa, this means it's half your town cramming into someone's living room. You recognize the people in your ward, you are well aware of all the weaknesses (or enduring truths, if they agree with you) of their political positions, and you're prepared to take advantage of their candidate's obvious non-viability (or glory, if they agree with you) and shore up support for your future leader. It's national politics at its most local and charming.

I suppose caucus, like so many things about the US political system (electoral college, anyone?) just seems strange and rowdy from the outside. Not that it isn't a little strange and rowdy on the inside. But caucus is so much more interesting than a straight-up primary: there's a lot more dialogue, a lot more things to do while you're waiting around for results. Sure, Iowa is an incredibly white-bread, decisively moderate, mostly agricultural state that gets a disproportionate amount of attention and influence, but the 75% of the time that's not election year, they're a flyover state, so give them a little love.

The Democratic caucus was clearly more interesting than the Republican caucus, partly because of the quicker returns when you're counting delegates instead of votes (and seriously, Des Moines Republican caucus, when you pass the hat to pay for supplies right before you start voting, it sure starts to look like a poll tax), and because Mitt Romney never really had much of a chance in Iowa. Iowans pride themselves on stubbornness and good Christian values. It doesn't matter whether Huckabee is a bit of a slimy jerk (despite his fairly progressive stance on immigration): he's a solid Christian. That'll get him an edge any day over Mitt the Mormon, no matter how much money and charm Romney doles out or how organized his campaign is. You want to win in an agricultural state? Look grass-roots and down-home, which Huckabee does (admittedly, his charm is somewhat disarming). Poor Giuliani, with his citified ways, never had a chance; I would have gone to Florida too, where the weather at least doesn't resemble the ninth circle of hell. So there's the Republican nomination sewn up for Iowa, but what about Hillary and Obama? What about Edwards, with his dapper good looks?

Turns out the young people turned themselves out in spades, and they all went for Obama. He got the youth vote, he got the women. The Iowa women were a big force in this caucus, caught between Obama's enthusiasm and Hillary's stand-together attitude. But Hill, unfortunately, can't seem not to look establishment, while Obama's fresh and new. My personal view of Edwards' strong finish is that all the men were voting for him. Leery of Hillary's reputation as a strongarm and Obama's youthful appearance, who are the men of Iowa going to vote for but Edwards? He's young (but not too young!), sensitive (but not too sensitive!), not part of the Clinton legacy (too soon?), and won't he look fine someday in his presidential portrait? So the men flocked to Edwards, and some of their wives and girlfriends went with them. Fascinating. Sometimes the star power of Clinton and Obama doesn't work in their favor, and salt-of-the-earth Iowa proves it.

My only real worry, as we wait for New Hampshire, is that the media will turn Hillary into the next Dean, working themselves into a frenzy over her supposed has-been status until it becomes a reality. The front page of the New York Times has a photo of her looking angry. It's true that she wasn't expecting to finish third, but the margin between her and Edwards is so small that it's almost insignificant. She's not the "big loser" she was called repeatedly last night. Her speech may not have been as impassioned as Edwards' or indeed, Obama's (now there's a man who can orate), but Hillary's never been as outwardly passionate or emotive as the other two. A large part of her image is her self-control, which doesn't tend to endear her to the American voter needing to feel personally spoken to and cared for. She didn't talk about New Hampshire and Nevada and Carolina the way the others did, which could give the impression that she's giving up, but if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you.

Chris Beam, liveblogging for Slate.com, speculated that if Hillary had visited Grinnell - ah, the consequences of the question-planting incident - and managed to convince just thirty people to caucus for her, she could have pulled ahead of Edwards and all this kerfuffle would be dampened. A fellow Grinnellian points out that this is not inconceivable given the number of collegian caucusers supporting unviable candidates like Kucininch, Richardson, and Dodd (Biden was viable in Grinnell 1), who swung mostly to Obama. If Hillary had had just thirty more people, it wouldn't have mattered if all of the undecideds went to Obama: she would have been viable in Grinnell and picked up enough state-wide delegates to edge Edwards out. Coulda woulda shoulda, I suppose, but it's amazing the difference that one more Maid-Rite loose meat sandwich can make. Edit: Beam has retracted this based on fuzzy math (Hillary needed to pick up State Delegate Equivalents, not precinct delegates), but the point remains valid that a little more work might have secured her a significant enough of the delegates left milling about when their candidates weren't viable to nose ahead.

There's no doubt Hillary could have done more in Iowa to improve her profile, but her race isn't over yet. Not everyone is looking for a candidate to bring them personal reassurance; after W's misguided attempt to combine small-town-style just-folks concern with his macho persona, it'd be refreshing to have a president who doesn't seem to want to come to our house for a potluck and to maybe shoot some things. Hillary was always going to play better outside of the Midwest, where her reserve comes off cold. (Elizabeth faced the same problem in The Queen; maybe Hill should get Helen Mirren to give her speeches?) Wait until the coasts get hold of the vote (not that the East Coast and the Left Coast are, according to Huckabee, part of America).

The influence of the Iowa caucus is certain (unfortunate is a whole other question). Their anointed candidates don't always make it all the way, but Iowa's had a good record of choosing winners for the last few elections. Now that the South Carolina voters have seen Obama pull in a strong response in a state whose population is almost 95% white, it's almost certain that some of the black voters will swing from Hillary to Obama. Edwards' unexpectedly strong finish will probably pick up a few undecideds, or maybe some disgruntled Republicans. The game is afoot! Suddenly the idea of an African-American as a viable candidate seems like a real possibility, and not just a nice idea.

Iowa: for better or worse, they get to vote before you do.

Also, can we please not call Huckabee "Mike" for the next ten interminable months?