-
sponsorship
Tomorrow’s headlines will most likely include some version of “Clinton placed third.” And that’s true. But here’s a thought on the Grinnell caucus to put that statement into perspective.
John Edwards just barely edged out Hillary statewide, 30 percent to 29 percent. That means he got only seven more delegates than she did, 744 to 737.
In the Grinnell Ward 1 caucus I attended, Hillary had 44 supporters. She needed 73 to reach the 15 percent viability threshold. Had she been viable, she would have received at least six of the precinct’s 37 delegates. In other words, had 30 more Grinnell residents turned out for Hillary and 30 less for Edwards, she would have tied John Edwards for second in the state.
To speculate even further: Keep in mind that Hillary was the only major Democratic candidate not to come speak at Grinnell College. The students I talked to figured that was a deliberate decision, most likely reacting to the fact that the famous Clinton “plant” was Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, Grinnell ’10. Still, many saw it as a slight. It’s not a stretch to imagine that a personal visit would have won her 30 more caucusgoers.
One more campaign stop → 30 more caucus-goers → six more delegates → tie for second in the Iowa caucuses. And this was just one caucus. Similar stories could have played out in any of the state’s 1,784 precincts.
When you look closely, it really starts to look like the butterfly flapping its wings.
Read the rest of our Grinnell caucus liveblog here.
Correction: Vigilant Fraysters point out that the math here is wrong. And it looks like
they're right. The vote totals from last night -- 744 for Edwards, 737
for Clinton -- are State Delegate Equivalents (SDE), not precinct delegates.
In fact, one precinct delegate is equivalent to about .11 SDE, as you
can see on the caucus results page here.
That means
that 30 more Clinton supporters in Grinnell would not have given her
six more state delegates. It would have given her at most one. And that
would not have come close to helping her tie with Edwards. My apologies
for the fuzzy math.
-
sponsorship
GRINNELL, Iowa—It’s Obama. He got 21 delegates, Edwards got 10, and Biden got six with help from Dodd and Richardson supporters.
“The caucus is not over yet,” caucus chair Don Smith reminds the crowd, even as everyone starts putting on their jackets. There are delegates to allocate! Names to ratify! Policy positions to write! Still, he just phoned in the results.
Hillary’s people are disappointed, and surprised. Her precinct captain, Teresa McCall, predicted the senator would get 10 delegates. But a campaign intern, Arianna Barusch, points out the campus wasn’t too hot on Hillary in the first place. Keep in mind that the famous Hillary “plant” was a Grinnell student. After that, Hillary decided not to come speak on campus, which sealed her fate.
So, it’s Obama here and, from what Wolf Blitzer is telling me, everywhere else, too.
-
sponsorship
GRINNELL, Iowa—A gaggle of kids is hovering over a table covered in snack food. The spread was set up by Hillary supporters but has since been abandoned.
“This is the beauty of politics,” says Griffin, 10, shoving an open bag of Doritos in my face. “Free chips.” I notice he’s wearing an Obama sticker and ask him if he should really be stealing Hillary’s chips. “She’s not viable anyway,” says a lady standing nearby.
A boy named Sam, 13, also has an Obama sticker on his jacket. He says he likes Obama’s plans to fix greenhouse gas emissions. I ask how if his views differ from his friend Griffin’s. “I have knowledge, he doesn’t,” he says.
At that point, a third child comes up and points to his shirt, covered in buttons and stickers for different candidates. “I support everyone!” he squeals.
-
sponsorship
GRINNELL, Iowa—So, Hillary isn’t viable. Neither is Biden, Richardson, or Dodd. You know what that means: deal-making time.
Biden’s people break off to discuss merging with other groups. If they decide to form a big “uncommitted” delegation of 73 or more people, they can then allocate their 10 or so delegates to each candidate proportionally. One Hillary supporter (and husband of her precinct captain) named Brad McCall asks Biden’s point person how many delegates they would give Hillary if Team Hillary joined them. The answer: none. Hillary’s people say eff that and bounce.
As they’re leaving, a lurking Edwards precinct captain pounces. He offers them one delegate in return for their support. Hillary’s people seem interested, but ultimately decide not to join them. Same thing happens when Obama’s people offer them five delegates in return for their support. Hillary’s people reject that, too. McCall explained the reason: Even though it would get Hillary more votes at the state convention this summer, it would give Obama momentum tonight. Better to have no delegates in June than to help Obama rocket through the early states.
-
sponsorship
GRINNELL, Iowa—It’s 6:59. The doors are now closed. Don Smith, an older guy serving as the caucus chair, comes to the podium in the gym and asks supporters for each candidate to separate into bunches.
He tells us there are 484 people caucusing. Fifteen percent of that is 72.6, which means that a candidate needs 73 people be viable. The Obama group clearly meets that requirement. Same with Edwards. Hillary is looking iffy.
Smith sends the Biden supporters across the hall to the school theater, where they’re supposed to sit in the seats and be counted. They file out silently. It looks like a perp walk. Five minutes later, they’re back. Smith apologizes: “I misestimated what I thought the count would be.” Turns out Biden has only 51 supporters—not viable.
OK, here come the numbers. Bill Richardson has 26. Edwards has 102—not bad. Hillary Clinton has … 44! Not viable!
Barack Obama rakes in 240. The crowd cheers. Smith calms them down: “This is a caucus, not the Jefferson Jackson dinner.”
Then the stragglers: Dodd has eight. Kucinich has 13. “We had one for Gravel, and I’ve lost track of where she is.” Laughter. This doesn’t sit right with Smith: “I think we need to respect people who are for any candidate and not treat it as a joke.”
-
sponsorship
GRINNELL, Iowa—I swing by the groups caucusing for Biden and Richardson. A lonely female Biden supporter is looking for a sticker. “Do you guys have any stickers?” “I have a button,” says an old lady.
One Biden fan, Vera Cousins, says she doesn’t know who her second choice is. “It was going to be Chris Dodd, but he’s even lower.” Edwards or Obama will have to do, she says.
The Richardson folks say they expect to be viable in the second round, once supporters have gone to their second choices. A Obama supporter and Grinnell student, Greg Swanson, drifts over to chat with his Richardson-loving friends. I ask if they can stay friends after this. “We’re all Democrats here,” he says. “I saw an Edwards supporter sitting with his wife at the Hillary table.” I ask Swanson if the NRA hat he’s wearing is meant to be ironic. “Yes, it is,” he says.
-
sponsorship
GRINNELL, Iowa—About 150 students have come in from out of town. Out of a student population of 1,500, 85 percent of whom are from outside Iowa, that’s not a whole lot. But since only a few hundred people are caucusing, the out-of-towners do make a difference. The school has opened up its gym, where they’ve laid out sleeping bags and blankets for the night.
One of them is Mikel Shybut, who’s here to support Obama. He drove over from Nebraska since “this might be the last chance I have” to caucus as first in the nation. I ask him if he thinks it’s unfair that one state is so influential. “Yeah. But since it’s my state, I’m not complaining.”
-
sponsorship
GRINNELL, Iowa—People are just starting to trickle into the Harris Center here at Grinnell College, where I’ll be observing the caucus here for the next couple of hours. It’s a college town, obviously, so students and faculty are expected to be a big part of the turnout.
The Grinnell population is overwhelmingly Democratic, and Obama seems to be the most popular Democrat. The Republicans on campus can be “counted on two hands,” says one student.
This precinct, Grinnell’s Ward 1, has the most delegates of any precinct in Iowa: 37. The reason is that delegates are allotted based on previous turnout. In 2004, when the caucuses fell during the school year, Grinnell students caucused in droves. As a result, they now have 30 percent more delegates than the next most delegate-rich precinct. So in a sense, these caucus-goers have a lot more power than most.
Don Smith, the precinct captain, gives me a bright green Post-It sticker that marks me as an observer. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to participate,” he tells me. “This process really depends on the honesty of people.”
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?