Guess the Caucus (Dem Edition)Follow

Most people who I've talked to in Des Moines seem to think Obama is going to steal the whole damn thing. Which doesn't mean much considering these people said the same thing about Dean.

Thursday night should be interesting. Going to be hell getting out of downtown.

edit: I voted Obama and then Hillary will take second with a close call by Edwards.

Edited, Jan 2nd 2008 11:36am by Kaelesh

I'm going to crib from Electoral-Vote.com again and note that many polled voters for second-tier candidates are claiming Edwards as their second choice. I don't know if it's true or not (or if it'll shake out that way at the actual event) but some of the first-tier polls are neck & neck so it might be interesting.

Clinton, all the way to the presidency even though she's not my favorite. But that ****** has legs.

I think Obama will be first out of the gates by winning the Iowa Causus.

While I personally hope that's true, and it's certainly close enough for anything, including an outright Edwards win to happen without too much of a shock, I think the Obama camp has a real problem with support among people who will actually show up to caucus. I'll admit I don't know enough about the Obama organization to really asses their ability to get people to the polls, but I'm familiar enough with the Ckinton org to state with a lot of confidence that Clinton's precinct captains will deliver, and so will Edwards' (Just likely a lot less voters). It's hard for me to buy that Obama has that same level of support in place, so for him to win, he really needs to be well ahead in demographics deeper than the 18-30 year olds who aren't going to show up. Ask Dean how well that sort of support works out.

Edited, Jan 2nd 2008 6:15pm by Smasharoo

Asking your supporters to go out in the Iowa winter cold and spend three hours standing in room corners seems to blow any predictions out of the water.

Right. Horse race polling in Iowa is useless in anything but the broadest terms. We can be fairly confident Dodd isn't going to walk away with it, but any of the three "actual" candidates could. Here's praying it's one with a ***** who isn't a darkie. I'd really like to not have a supreme court that rules there is no implied right to privacy in the next 20 years.

And with about 80% in, CNN calls it for Obama (35%) with Edwards currently squeaking out a second place win over Clinton. I imagine that's got the potential to shift though since it's a single percentage.

If Obama wins in NH, it'll really get interesting. I for one welcome the potential for new overtly racist "issue ads" originating from a mysterious group in Arkansas.

I listened with interest to Edwards and just got up from Clinton's speech, telling Flea to call me when Obama is on.

Watching Obama's speech...wow.

Strongest speech out of the three, and he sounds presidential...I bet he just tipped the NH primary in his favor with that.

EDIT: Was it just me or did he sound a little bit like MLK Jr. in his tone of voice and inflections though?

Edited, Jan 3rd 2008 11:16pm by Nightsintdreams

Caucus took 2 hours last night at the Elementary School gym round the block from my house. We had 384 people there which is quite a difference from '04 when it was a mere 132.

To no ones surprise there, Obama (in the first round) had 161 people with Hill at 96, Edwards at 92, with Richardson and Dodd making up the rest. The later 2, not being viable, reshuffled into our groups with Clinton taking 98, Edwards 110 and Obama at 171. The rest chose to abstain.

Obama at 4 Delegates out of 9
Edwards with 3
Hillary at 2

The Edwards/Clinton threw me, I had it figured the other way around. Super Tuesday should be interesting.

Of course. It's an old, broken system but no one can think of anything better, so we run with it.

The turn out is encouraging. I hope it foreshadows lotsa dems getting out to vote when the election rolls around.

In my cynical mind, not a damn thing but it's suppose to be a precursor to the Democratic National Convention, Gathering Delegates like acorns, hoping the DNC picks the least useless nominee.

In truth, it's a complicated system that was meant for a much, much smaller population. Delegates represent voters (caucus goers) and Iowa kind of sets the tone for the rest of the Caucuses (see: Super Tuesday) and the Nomineee with the most Delegates, are chosen as the parties Presidential Nominee. It's like a mini-election so to speak.

That's the best I can explain it.