Weathering the Caucuses: For Voters And Candidates, the Outlook Is Variable

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The Final Stretch Before the Iowa Caucuses

As hosts of the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, Iowans are known for taking politics seriously in election years. Whether it's debating issues over morning coffee or turning out to see a candidate up close, the people of Iowa revel in their unique role as early vetters of presidential candidates.

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At other locations 500 people show up, and the persuasion period can verge on chaotic. One caucusgoer likens it to a trading floor on Wall Street. People are moving around in a crowded room and competing for attention, and it may get noisy, and it may get heated. If you're out there trying to persuade others to come to your group, says Flaherty, you may also have to "guard your own," since others may come along and try to "pick off somebody from a viable group."

The persuaders may tout their candidate's environmental record, if they think that will close the deal, or some other issue. Or they may offer to make a caucusgoer into a delegate at the county convention. Or they may say they need only one more person to gain a delegate for their candidate and point out that your group has so many supporters that it won't matter if you lose one.

Or they may say, " 'We've been next-door neighbors forever and you can trust me and you have to go somewhere -- so go with us,' " says Clinton County Democratic Chairwoman Jean Pardee.

Or they may fall back on cookies.

This last tactic is debatable. Sometimes, supporters bring what one caucusgoer refers to as "political chum" -- cookies and cocoa and stickers and brochures. But the folks in attendance are sophisticated. They've been following the race and they know the candidates and the policies. Could political chum really work on them?

"I don't think that really persuades people to move one way or another, but you know, it's always nice to have cookies," says Flaherty. "You're trying everything you can. It might work on one person."

Might work is worth a shot in this game of inches. And the allure of the cookies might not be about the cookies themselves, but about the show of organization evidenced by the cookies.

After all, the caucuses sometimes come down to subtleties: Who is making the argument. Or how enthusiastic the supporters of a candidate seem. Or how much pressure they apply. This is the messiness of a grass-roots system in which anything can change in the course of an hour and a half.

Neuzil, 37, remembers the first time he caucused in 1988, fresh out of high school. He showed up supporting Al Gore, but out of a hundred or so people, only one other person in the room was supporting Gore. So his candidate wasn't viable.

"I was very young and was courted," Neuzil says. "The group that was the nicest to me, I remember, was the Paul Simon campaign."

What really impressed him, he says, was that many of the supporters of the Illinois congressman were wearing Simon's signature bow tie. They seemed so unified, Neuzil says, so enthusiastic. And also . . .

"I thought that was the funniest one to go to, so that's the one I went to," he says.

And so it was.