Watching coverage of the Iowa caucuses and it just seems like such an inefficient system! Only people who have a lot of time could go, it seems- I know there is no way I could go with two kids! I'm curious if I'm missing something or if anyone has actually gone to one.
Our primary is just going to your precinct and voting. Seems more reasonable to me.
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21616 posts
I also think it's weird you can only vote for your party's candidates. In Minnesota we vote for both the republican and democratic candidates, I believe.
wonderful cherry / 21504 posts
@Mrs. Pen: you can vote twice? In MA if you are registered independent you can vote in either but you have to declare yourself as one or the other for the primary and can vote for one. If you are declared with a party you can only vote for that one.
GOLD / watermelon / 14076 posts
@Mrs. Pen: You have open primaries so you can vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary regardless of your affiliation but you can't vote in both.
GOLD / watermelon / 14076 posts
I find the Iowa caucuses fascinating but also really inefficient.
wonderful cherry / 21504 posts
@lawbee11: I never knew what a caucus is until I looked on Wikipedia yesterday and was like, wait whaaaat? Isn't it 2016?
cantaloupe / 6692 posts
They're doing a caucus in my state this year too. I highly doubt I can make time to go.
DH and I had to watch a video on YouTube explaining the differences. 
We weren't involved much in politics until this year though.
grapefruit / 4045 posts
I'm watching and I love it. I would love to hear about a HBer who went. I hope someone chimes in soon.
wonderful pea / 17279 posts
Watching the results is just fascinating. This all looks so chaotic.
Woo-hoo to my hometown Senator Rubio! Still not voting for him, but FL rocks!
GOLD / wonderful pea / 17697 posts
@Mrs. Pen: We have a closed primary in my state...I can only vote in the Democratic primary because I'm a registered Democrat. DH is registered as an Independent, and if he wants to vote in the Democratic (or Republican) primary he has to change his party affiliation.
I think the caucus looks like fun, but a primary is way more convenient, lol!
wonderful cherry / 21504 posts
@artsyfartsy: exactly- it's such a small number of people who I would think can make time to go. Unless you feel really strongly it seems like most people wouldn't go? That's why the undecided ones totally baffle me.
wonderful pea / 17279 posts
Thanks alot Iowa Dems 
now there's just two in the race. O'Malley is about to suspend his campaign.
eggplant / 11408 posts
@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: not surprising, though, is it? He seems like a reasonable guy but has barely been a blip on the radar.
grapefruit / 4355 posts
@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: yeah - I'm surprised he hasn't already done so. He's not even really been in the picture/discussion for a while now.
cantaloupe / 6059 posts
@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: I hadn't even heard of him before tonight so I guess I'm not surprised?
wonderful pea / 17279 posts
@Mrs.KMM: @LovelyPlum: not surprising at all.
One of the CNN commentators said the other day regarding the Republican side that some candidates are running for other things beside President like speaking gigs or talk shows etc. I always felt O'Malley was running for a Cabinet position or VP.
GOLD / wonderful pea / 17697 posts
@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: I've felt pretty much since the first debate that O'Malley was running for VP
hostess / wonderful persimmon / 25556 posts
After all the hype and the big talk, I'm glad we are finally in Iowa. I'm fascinated with this year's election like no election before and can't wait to see what happens. I'm sort of excited to watch Trump spontaneously combust if he doesn't get the Republican vote.
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21616 posts
@mediagirl: they just announced Cruz is the republican vote for Iowa! I'll take ANYONE over Trump!
wonderful pea / 17279 posts
Did I hear correctly that Iowa caucus goers had a record turnout like 150,000 people? Trump isn't going to like that.
pomelo / 5607 posts
@Mrs. Pen: I can't decide how I feel about it (as a hardcore liberal). My mom (uber-conservative) has said she'd vote for Hillary (or Sanders, I assume) if Trump gets the nomination. She likes Cruz. So if Trump gets it, I think it would swing the odds in favor of a democrat because of people like my mom. But what if it didn't and he won?! So I'm torn. Guess I'll look at it as there being a potential silver lining either way?
@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: I had never heard of him either, and I'm paying a lot more attention to politics this year.
grapefruit / 4455 posts
I don't much care for Cruz, don't want Trump, but would vote for Rubio. This year I will not be voting for Clinton or Sanders but I'm not attached to either party.
I'm surprised at all those saying they haven't heard of O'Malley!
persimmon / 1233 posts
@Mrs. Pen: Cruz's college roommate said in an interview about Cruz: “I would rather have anybody else be the president of the United States. Anyone. I would rather pick somebody from the phone book." Not sure Trump is what he had in mind, though!
wonderful pea / 17279 posts
@Torchwood: my Republican leaning husband does not like Cruz because he's Tea Party. So for some Reps that want to see work done in DC Cruz is not better choice than Trump.
I'm just encouraged the caucus goers are selecting people that have real opinions and ideas about the issues. To this day I'm still trying to figure out how Trump is going to make America great.
wonderful cherry / 21504 posts
@Ash: and if it was just a walk in, check your box, kind of vote you probably could have found the time, right?
grapefruit / 4045 posts
@2littlepumpkins: I'm also surprised that people haven't heard of O'Malley. I can't imagine what news shows people watch that wouldn't have mentioned him.
@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: I'm just randomly curious what it is specifically he doesn't like about tea partiers.
grapefruit / 4045 posts
@mediagirl: Trump did a pretty quick little speech and then got the heck out of there!
pomegranate / 3973 posts
@Ash: same here! I wanted to go, and I know some people do bring their kids, but didn't want to be stuck there either.
A quick vote would make way more sense.
I am glad to see that Trump didn't get the win, but I don't like Cruz either. Cant believe its so close for the Dems!
On to New Hampshire!
pomelo / 5607 posts
@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: That's something at least. I'm surrounded by fundamentalists/evangelicals, and Cruz is courting them pretty hard from what I hear.
honeydew / 7909 posts
@Foodnerd81: actually, yes!!!!! Because then my husband and I could switch staying with the kids and going in to vote.
hostess / wonderful apple seed / 16729 posts
http://lifehacker.com/what-are-caucuses-and-how-do-they-work-1756362852
After reading this, I thought it would be cool to attend a caucus. The dems are more social about it.
Then I saw this video. It sounded interesting in the beginning but then all the shouting to get people to come to your side is pretty much chaotic.
cantaloupe / 6692 posts
@bluestriped bee: Ugh. Looks like a mess to me.
Turns out my state is doing a republican caucus next month but dems vote in a closed primary in May. I'm glad. Haha
pomegranate / 3845 posts
@artsyfartsy: what? I hadn't heard about this! I'm registered republican! Looks like Christmas came early, I was just telling DH how jealous I was of A) the caucus, and B) that Iowa gets a say so early!
cantaloupe / 6692 posts
@Applesandbananas: Apparently that's what I've heard. KY's Republican party opted to do a caucus in March this year.
eggplant / 11716 posts
For Obama's first election, I got into the whole caucus thing in Texas, where I was living at the time. Texas has the "Texas two-step" caucus, which is also totally crazy. People have to TAKE DAYS OFF WORK to be literal representatives of their candidate to go to Austin and be counted in the caucus. It's really, really crazy.
wonderful pea / 17279 posts
@agold: their hard line stance on funding. The Tea Party can cripple the government by not passing budgets or funding the national debt. We've already spent the money and to not pay back our creditors would jeopardize our standing as a financial super power.
pear / 1852 posts
I'm just a snooping Canadian, and I totally had to Google the difference between a caucus and a primary. I thought they were the same thing, just regionally different names, lol.
wonderful pomelo / 30692 posts
I think one of the reasons Iowa does the caucus is because they want to go FIRST, but NH has some sort of claim to being the first primary, so Iowa can't have a primary before NH, thus they do a caucus instead.
pomegranate / 3973 posts
I'm hearing this morning that a lot of Bernie's voters were first-time caucus goers, including my siblings. Apparently the Bernie supporters weren't as well organized/ experienced as Hillary's, so had that happened, maybe Bernie would've won it, especially since it was so close.
Very curious to see where it goes from here both between the two of them, and between Trump/Cruz/Rubio.
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