Since I started blogging (over 3 years ago) I have been posting less and less on political matters, but I have a story to share with you on the Iowa caucuses. My wife and I, for reasons that I won't go into here, were big supporters of Dean in 2004. The night of the 2004 Iowa caucuses, Dean supporters were planning a big reception rally in Portsmouth New Hampshire to welcome the Governor to the Granite State. We all met in the basement of a pub in Harvard Square and watched the caucus coverage on CNN. It was tough. Dean did not do as well as we expected. That's when we saw this:
We were a bit puzzled by the whole affair. Looking back at the video now it wasn't so bad, but as we campaigned in New Hampshire it was apparent that Dean's scream scare some voters away. So what led to the scream? Well the story says a lot about what is wrong about the Iowa caucuses. The rest is below the fold.
Dean came into Iowa as the outsider. He was definitely not the choice of the Democrat leadership or of the infamous DLC (Democrat Leadership Council - the right wing of the Democratic party). He was anti-war, progressive and wanted to fight. The wise leaders of the Democrats who were free-market supporters, didn't want the democrats to sound "angry" and played into this whole anti-political-polarization crap that Obama has recently bought into. Dean wanted to fight, he stood for something real, and that's why he had so many fierce supporters.
Needless to say, the Democratic establishment turned on Dean, and the Iowa caucuses facilitated this attack.
How?
In order to attend the caucuses, non-Iowan Dean volunteers were forced to sign some waiver that prohibited them from participating in the caucuses. They could be there, but they had to shut-up. Volunteers from other campaigns didn't have to sign these forms. In addition Kucinich made a statement that he and Edwards would help each other out (it is strange that this time around, although he and Edwards have similar platforms, Kucinich is now trading voters with Obama. Apparently this is because Edward dissed the smaller candidates.) We were all puzzled by this development. Kucinich supporters were anti-war and had a stronger affinity for Dean rather than Edwards who at the time supported the war.
So what happened?
The caucuses, we were told, were a shouting match - the loudest group could cajole the unaffiliated participants to join their ranks. It was a popularity contest akin to what you would find in the kindergarten schoolyard. The caucus organizers, all part of the Democrat establishment, were biased against Dean and as a result he paid the price. Kerry, a candidate who did not offend the party establishment won, basically as an anyone but Dean figure. The rest was history. Dean supporters in Iowa were crushed. But Howard wanted them to keep fighting and hence the speech. Those volunteers, many of whom were young and inexperienced in the ways of politics, gave so much to him and he owed them. One person who was present when Dean made his famous scream told us that Dean poured his heart to them. The crowd went from an extreme low to an extreme high. Towards the end the audience was so loud that they couldn't even hear his scream. They told me that this small speech was the highlight of the campaign.
I'll leave with a quote from an OpEd by Gail Collins:
People, ignore whatever happens here. The identity of the next leader of the most powerful nation in the world is not supposed to depend on the opinion of one small state. Let alone the sliver of that state with the leisure and physical capacity to make a personal appearance tonight at a local caucus that begins at precisely 7 o'clock. Let alone the tiny slice of the small sliver willing to take part in a process that involves standing up in public to show a political preference, while being lobbied and nagged by neighbors.
Ah yes, good work fighting for democracy around the globe, American troops, Pakistani lawyers, international election observers. The tiny slice of the sliver of the small state approves.
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I am so glad you posted this!! I was also a Dean supporter and I was also crushed by the Iowa defeat (I was still in Texas at the time). When he gave that "scream" speech I thought it was absolutely the right thing to do and I was just as fired up to continue the fight for him as all those kids in that room were. It was a classic pep-talk speech that would have made any coach/motivator proud! That the media turned it into a perversion of its intension completely spoiled me on mainstream outlets and, I think, also turned a good, optimistic politician into an attack dog. This is the finest example I can think of demonstrating how broken our political system is and Gail Collins hits the nail on the head in her editorial. Unfortunately, the media won't ignore it and we'll have ordained nominees in three weeks.
I've never quite understood why the caucuses are made out to be so important. They get this power because the media loves them, but that's no reason to pay so much attention.
Whoa. Volunteers from campaigns can attend a caucus, even if they are not eligible? Where did you get that from? Caucus doors are closed to all outsiders before any of the bickering and arguing begins. I've never attended a caucus where outsiders were allowed in as anything but observers and they were not allowed to ever speak. Observers who so much as sneeze are escorted out.
As far as cajoling undecideds, doesn't work like that. When a caucus first starts, everyone identifies who they support and an initial head count is taken. If your candidate is not viable, that's when the yelling and screaming begins and it is possible for undecideds to actually have the largest group and persuade nonviable candidates to join their group. Dean's problem was that all of his on the ground supporters from out of state didn't have a clue as to how the caucus worked and the party regulars exploited that weakness.
I'm not defending the process. Every four years, I question the sanity of Iowans and our place as first in the nation. The sooner the rest of you take away our overrated importance, they happier I'll be. However, Iowa is like a crucible for poorly run campaigns who don't know how to organize at the local level. Dean was horrible four years ago and suffered. In my precinct, the Dean supporters had a deer in the headlight look to them. It was clear that the Dean campaign had not even briefed them on what to do to maintain viability. They just stood in their corner and waited for another head count. The one delegate they had after the first head count eventually went to Edwards, whose precinct leader came with a calculator and knew how many undecided and nonviable supporters he needed to cut into Kerry's lead.
We were told that volunteers from the other campaigns did participate (vocally but not voting wise). The rest of the account sounds like it jibs with what I was told. Dean had no support from any of the Iowa Dems and relied mostly on out of state volunteers. As a result he got creamed. In NH Dean went from a solid double digit lead to trailing Kerry within hours. If it wasn't for Iowa, I'm 90% sure that Dean would have been the nominee.