Short Stuff: The Iowa Caucus

The Iowa Caucus is super important. But not really. Find out why. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, you welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
there's Josh. Let's get it started. Yeah, let's get it started.
And here got timely episode. We are rarely recording to
release the next day. So I was like, hey, man,
let's do something super newsy. What's something that's super newsy
that's not impeachment? And uh, it turns out that the

(00:25):
Iowa caucus is getting a little news. Yeah, just a tad.
It's crazy, like we thought that we would have the
results to talk about. Nope, I know because I pitched
this yesterday and the day of the caucus, woke up
this morning too S show and Iowa as the headline
cluster f crazy. Yeah, but um, we're talking about caucuses

(00:48):
in the Io caucus, uh, and why it's important and
where it came from. We should define caucus because a
lot of people think are just like, what does that
even mean? Well, I mean, for good reason. It's it's weird.
It's kind of an old timey thing, a relic, and
that's hill still in use in Iowa. Uh, caucus that
was a meeting. This is the strict definition websters to

(01:09):
find caucus as a meeting in which local members of
a political party register their preference among candidates running for office,
uh or select delegates to attend to convention. Right. But
the thing about a caucus is it's not like just
going to vote, that's a primary. A caucus is where
you are physically present in the room, like that meeting

(01:30):
you described, and the way that you show at least
as far as the Democrats caucus in Iowa, the way
that you show you are planning to support or vote,
most normal people would call it for a candidate is
you go stand in a portion of the room that's
been set aside for that candidate supporters and their names
like on the wall or something like that. It's so

(01:51):
needs to go away. Okay, that's just step one. That's
my opinion, of course. But it's just so dumb. Okay,
it is such a dumb way to do it. And
you can tell, like I was fiercely defensive about its
caucus tradition, I don't, I don't. I don't want to
go on record as saying like I don't know if
it's going to survive, and you know, until it is

(02:15):
under some serious threat of not more, it's more it's
more at risk than it ever has been after last night. Yeah,
ironically by trying to modernize caucus. Right, So we'll get
to all that. Okay, So so you go stand by
your delegates name, and if enough other people who are
present at that caucus go stand with you by the

(02:35):
delegates name. That delegate is a viable candidate. Usually that
means they have about or more of the room. Yeah,
if your candidate that you want to go stand under
a sign of in a high school gym is not
considered viable, you can go join another group. You can
try and recruit people, say hey, man, stand under this sign,

(02:58):
come ye, or you can go home if you want
a right, that was my candidate. Right, there's only like
eight other people here standing under the Yang team sign.
Yang had more than they. Yeah, of course you did.
I think you're thinking of Biden. But yeah, that is
how they run. The Democrats run the Iowa Caucus, Republicans

(03:19):
and the GOP or the Republican National Convention. They they
just vote like a regular old primary. Right, And like
you were saying, ironically, they tried to modernize the caucus,
the Iowa Caucus, and that's what caused this huge problem
with an app isn't there right. Well, originally they were
going to have virtual caucuses. They decided not to. The

(03:40):
the d n C rejected Iowa's planning to have a
virtual caucus where you could go online and be like,
I'm standing in the yang Gang room, so I'm caucusing
for yang Um. This was This was rejected by the
d n C S two. They had too high of
a potential to be hacked. But they still did use
an app to tally these delegates and apparently it was

(04:02):
not doing what it was supposed to do. At least
this is the official line. Um. Everybody is saying, No,
it's everybody from Russia to the d n C engaging
all sorts of terrible stuff. Regardless, this app apparently really
screwed up the caucus and in an attempt to modernize
the caucus, that actually set it back, possibly drove it

(04:24):
to extinction. Yeah, I mean, they're saying the app did
not crash, and then there's other people saying the app
totally crashed, So I don't know who to believe. The
long and short of it is, we usually wake up
on the following day of the Iowa Caucus with a
decent idea of who the top three candidates are are
going to be going into primary season. But we woke

(04:45):
up this morning with no idea and I just looked
on my phone. The breaking news is that in two
hours from now, they will have fift of the results
released by five pm Eastern. Yeah. Usually you don't even
have to wait. Yeah, you wake up and you're like, okay,
but no, no, I mean, like like you don't even
have to go to sleep. They usually report within a

(05:07):
couple of hours. If you're in the eastern Eastern time zone,
you know, if you're in the Western time zone, you
might know like you're in a cheeseburger getting all the results,
you know. Yeah, so it's been a big embarrassment. Um,
But maybe we should take a break and talk a
little bit why the Iowa Caucus is important. To begin with,

(05:28):
it's not, alright, Chuck. This is one thing that that

(05:53):
makes the Iowa Caucus so at risk right now because
of this um problem that came out of caucus. Okay,
it is artificially important. The Iowa Caucus is not actually,
when you dig down into it, substantially important in any

(06:15):
real way. It is important, but it's important because the
media has made it important over the years. That's right.
It is. Uh, well, first of all, it is it's
not the most diverse state in our union. That's one
criticism of the Iowa caucus. Yeah, I saw like apparently

(06:35):
the caucus goers were white. Yeah, largely rural bunch of
white people standing around in gym. Yeah. Uh, I know,
but people and I are going to be so mad
at us, but it's antiquated. I'm sorry, I saw, I
saw that. They're sorry, just real quick. Two things. Last night,
there were at least two ties, and so to figure

(06:58):
out how to divide dell it gets to break, a
tie of coin was flipped and a name was drawn
out of a hat. Wow, that's how they broke ties
with the Iowa caucus last night to decide delicates for
the state. Okay, I'm sorry, now that's that's unbelievable. But
then again, what's more diplomatic than a coin toss? Then

(07:21):
get any more than that? Are you ready for some football?
So two, Senator George McGovern was running for president. Uh,
he did a pretty good job at the Iowa Caucus
and that was good for his campaign. And it was
sort of the first year that the media really put

(07:42):
a lot into this On reporting on it, and I
think from like V two is sort of looked at
as the watershed moment of when the media would come
out the next day and start start saying things like
dark horse and front runner, and the media has it's maddening,
but the media has such inf elements on the way
people vote, and not just by saying like here's sus

(08:04):
person's policies. Is people saying like, oh, I don't want
to vote for the dark horse, sure, and like who's
the front runner? I might be interested in that person precisely.
It's absolutely true. It's all fake. They can influence voting
um or caucusing, not just by releasing polls, but by
withholding polls. Right. So um, this nineteen seventy two is

(08:25):
a big year. And the reason why it's because it
was the first year that Iowa became the first in
the nation. That's why I was sure. It's the first
time that voters have any chance anywhere in the country
to say, this is what I think about all these
primary candidates who have been jabbering at each other the
last few months. I'm gonna stand over here, We're gonna
see where the rubber, right, We're gonna see where the
rubber meets the road for the first time. I was

(08:47):
the first at that and it became first for two reasons.
In nineteen seventy two, the GOP decreed that you had
to have you had to give thirty days notice before
any kind of um, any kind of caucus or primary
was held, and apparently that meant that Iowa had to
move their caucus closer to the beginning of the year.

(09:08):
And then secondly, they couldn't get a hotel for the convention,
the Iowa State Convention at a time when they wanted it,
so they again had to push the caucus back, so
it inadvertently became the first in the nation. And they said, oh,
everybody's paying attention to Iowa. All of a sudden, We're
getting a disproportionate amount of interest from the national press

(09:28):
from these candidates that are coming to town spending money
um and we have influence politically because they're going to
listen to us. So we're gonna make a state law
that says Iowa has to be the first contest in
the nation no matter what, doesn't matter what any other
state does, Iowa has to figure out a way to
be first, Which doesn't mean there is a some sort
of federal rule that says you go first. That just

(09:50):
means it. In Iowa, they're like, well, if New Hampshire
wants to move it up a week, then we'll move
it up. Yeah, it's a state law there, and New
Hampshire has a state law as well that they're the
first primary. That's right. That's how i was gotten away
with it. There a caucus. New Hampshire is the first primary.
New Hampshire is like, we vote, we don't go stand
around in a gym. I saw a tweet apparently the
New Hampshire Democrats tweeted to the Iowa Democrats and said,

(10:14):
don't worry, We've got this. Really yeah, man, they So
that is why the Iowa caucus became such a big deal,
because their first. Because the media has an outsized influence
on elections. Whether or not it matters is a matter
of debate. Um. In the history of the caucuses, you've

(10:34):
never gone on to win the nomination if you finished
worse than third. But there have been cases where Bill
Clinton placed third. Uh, And you know, so it's not
like you gotta win Iowa. Look what happened to him. Yeah,
to term or impeached. Right, we went through it all.
He went through it all, the highs and the lows,

(10:56):
the good and the bad. Right. George McGovern the first
candidate in ninety two when Iowa was like the first
it was big, a big deal for the first time.
He came in first second, but and he got the nomination,
but he didn't win the presidency, So it's not necessarily
that could have an indicator. Jimmy Carter won the presidency?

(11:18):
Did what? What place did he come in? Chuck, Well,
apparently he did a really good job at Iowa, because
he spent a lot of time there stumping for a year.
But it says that he was actually beaten by uncommitted
So the people who said that they hadn't chosen a
candidate yet outnumbered anybody supporting Jimmy Carter, which makes sense.
But when you just hear it like he got beaten

(11:40):
out by uncommitted, it's even that's so Jimmy Carter. It
really is. It's so nineteen seventies six Jimmy Carter, because
that guy has turned into one of the greatest statesmen
in living in Saints Great American history. The best thing
ever is being a like at a Braves game when
they showed Jimmy and Rosalin are at the game and
they're like oldest dirt and they always give each other

(12:01):
a kiss and everyone in the stadium melts. I know,
it's amazing. And she's always like got She's always cheering
on a hot dog or whatever, and she has to
like stop and swallow before she'll give Jimmy a kiss back.
It's it's their thing. The other thing about Iowa is
if you don't do well there, then you might drop out,
or if you do surprisingly well there, um, then you

(12:23):
might you know, that could kick start or very much
will kick start your campaign again. So now we've reached
why Iowa is actually important. But again this is artificial
because the media putting labels on people. So the media
basically says, hey, this candidate is expected to do really well.
If that candidate doesn't do well in Iowa, the media says,

(12:43):
this is not a viable candidate. You should drop out.
That actually causes funding to dry up for the campaign.
I'm going to give money to someone who's not viable, right,
the media said they're not viable. And then conversely, like
you said, if somebody is not expected to do well
and then does really well in Iowa. There can of
pain can just take off. That's what happened to Obama
in two thousand eight. Oh Iowa made Obama in two

(13:05):
thousand eight, right really launched that campaign. So all of
this stuff, again is just self fulfilling prophecy, which is
what makes so nuts that all of the Democratic candidates
spent so much time and so much money and so
much effort in Iowa to get this. I saw a
tweet from Glenn Greenwald actually basically laying this out to

(13:26):
get this artificial bump, and then the artificial bump didn't come,
which rendered the Iowa caucus totally unnecessary. The whole thing
was unnecessary. I think they're plowing ahead to New Hampshire.
A lot of the candidates were we're claiming victory and
sort of backhanded ways not backhanded, but um just sort

(13:48):
of they couldn't come out and say we won. But
every single one of them were like, oh, I think
we just we did very well tonight. Right, They were like,
I wanna I want to congratulate my fellow nominees on
coming in second. Yeah, everyone kind of claimed victory because
no one could not. Everybody claimed victory. Well, some people
clearly could not. The people are in that gym uncommitted. Yeah. Um, well,

(14:11):
if you want to know more about the Iowa Caucus,
you better find out about it now because it might
not be around next time. Maybe not. We'll see what happens.
I guess. Well, let's just say short, stuff appen. Stuff
you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios How
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(14:32):
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