If you live here in the U.S., you probably know that the
Iowa Caucuses take place tonight at 6:30 pm.
It's all over the news. Especially if you live here in Iowa like I do.
We've been bombarded with political ads every day for months now.
It has become so crazy, you literally cannot go one TV commercial break without seeing at least one ad.
And if you're like me, you probably have, or had, no idea what actually happens at a caucus.
I've voted in two previous presidential elections but never actually attended a caucus before.
I always assumed it was a gathering of people in support of a particular candidate and they all got together to vote.
Boy was I way off!
So I did some research and discovered exactly what happens at a caucus.
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Here's what happens:
First, you have to find out where to go.
There are 1784 caucus locations in Iowa and based on where you live, you go to the specific location for your district or precinct.
You can't just show up at the wrong precinct location.
(as far as I know you can't)
After you arrive, you are required to sign in.
Once you're signed in, you find all the other people in the room who support the same candidate you do and stand with them.
The person running the show then has you stand in one part of the room with other supporters of your chosen candidate.
For example: All Hillary Clinton supporters will be in one corner of the room while all the John Edwards supporters will be in another corner and so on.
Then caucus director will then count the number of people supporting each candidate.
Now, if there are supporters of a different candidate who is
not viable because that candidate does not have 15% support of the total attendance at that precinct, they must choose a second candidate and go stand with that candidate's group.
This process is called "
realignment".
(Example: Let's say I support Joe Biden, but there aren't enough people in the room to make up 15% who support him...then I'd have to choose a second candidate and go stand with them.)
After realignment is complete, the number of supporters for each candidate is counted again and delegates are assigned.
Another example:
I support Barack Obama.
The more supporters Obama has inside each caucus, the more delegates he will win.
If Obama has the most delegates at the end of the night, he wins the Iowa Caucus.
So you see, it's pretty basic stuff.
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I plan to attend tonight's caucus in full support of Barack Obama.
And the cool thing is, the gathering place for my precinct is one block away from where I live.
So I'm just gonna walk over there and get my virgin caucus cherry popped!
There's more...
I want you all to see what it's actually like to participate in a caucus so I'm bringing my video camera along with me to record the event. (I don't think they'll have any problem with me doing that...I can't see why they would)
It's supposed to last no longer than an hour so I'm going to have to edit the video a bit so I can post it up on Youtube.
When it's finished, I'll post it here for you all to watch.
This presidential election will be one of the most closely watched races in history and I want you to have a front row seat when it all officially begins tonight.
Here's more info:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/ia_caucus_center/What do you think?