The Iowa caucuses are being held tonight. It’s a time of reckoning for many presidential candidates. I’ll be glued to the TV like some teeny bopper glued to American Idol. I wish it were different but it’s true.
I remember when I first learned what a caucus was. I was in high school and the comic strip Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed was very popular. Bill the Cat and Opus were running on the Meadow Party ticket heading into the Iowa caucuses. They were preparing for a raucous caucus. Yes, a comic strip introduced me to the concept of the caucus. My super-duper Catholic school education had never covered the topic up to that point. Maybe they figured our state had primaries instead of caucuses and therefore it wasn’t worthwhile to spend time on it? Who knows.
Unfortunately only 5% of Iowa Democrats and 6% of Republicans are expected to participate in the caucuses tonight. This is just a percentage of registered voters that have declared a party affiliation. It’s not a percentage of population eligible to vote. It would be much lower as a percentage of population. I think it’s unfortunate because a single person can make a huge difference at a caucus. It’s very different than a primary where each person has a vote and no chance to influence the vote of someone who might be on the fence about their choice.
This lack of voter turnout also helps perpetuate the presidential “lesser of two evils” choice that we’re all faced with every four years. In the last presidential election in 2004 72% of Iowa voters showed up at the polls. It’s unfortunate that such a huge portion of those people didn’t take the chance to participate in the caucuses. I’m looking forward to our caucuses here in Maine early next month.