by Moe Zilla

Created on: January 23, 2008   Last Updated: March 19, 2008

The Iowa caucuses are the kick-off event for the U.S. Presidential primaries. Though they chose only one percent of the total national delegates, Iowa's caucuses will also confer "front-runner" status on whoever finishes first. This guarantees additional media coverage and an increase in their support in the New Hampshire primary which follows. This can ultimately create a genuine momentum for the upcoming primaries across the nation, giving the candidate an advantage in securing their party's nomination. For this reason, political strategists consider Iowa to be extremely important.

The complicated procedure for the caucuses make it difficult for any one candidate to dominate the process. The voting occurs in each of the 99 counties in Iowa, and the Democrats follow a slightly different procedure then the Republicans. While the Republicans simply tabulate the results, Democrats first eliminate any candidate who receives less than 15% of the votes cast in any county. But that candidate's supporters can then vote for one of the remaining candidates. Pollsters have difficulty predicting the voters' "second choice candidates," making the race's outcome difficult to predict.

This procedure requires several hours for voting, debating, and re-voting. This may encourage only the most dedicated voters to turn out, but it's also been criticized for requiring a public statement of a voter's preference. Others have argued that Iowa's caucuses are unrepresentative of the national demographics, while proponents counter that it gives the candidates a small "testing ground" for the viability of their campaigns.

Both political parties protect Iowa's status as the first-in-the-nation primary, and in 2007 they strongly rebuked states which threatened to move the date of their primaries to precede Iowa. (In some cases, the states were even told that their delegates would not be counted at the party's national nominating convention.)

In the 2008 election, Barack Obama surprised observers by finishing first in the Iowa Democratic caucus. ("They said it couldn't happen," Obama announced in his victory speech.) But the conventional wisdom was upset again when he failed to place first in the New Hampshire primary, or the Nevada primary which followed. It seems the magic of a first place win in Iowa does have its limits.

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