How the Iowa Caucus Works (AFAICT)

I had misunderstood how the Iowa Caucus(es) worked, and it is quite possible that I haven't got all the details right, but here's what I understand.

On the designated day, across Iowa in numerous neighborhood gathering places (analogous to voting precincts, but possibly smaller), Iowa Democrats gather, to do the following, called caucusing:

Various places in the room are set out for each candidate.  (This year, for instance, there will be an area for Bernie Sanders, and area for Joe Biden, and so on, down the line.)  Each Iowa Democrat voter goes to stand at the space set aside for the candidate that he or she prefers.  There is also a space for those who are still undecided.

Thirty minutes are permitted for those in each little group to persuade those in the other groups to join them (for instance, the Pete Buttigieg group could be trying to persuade the undecided voters to join them.)

Now, if I understand this correctly, any voters who are in any group that contains less than 15% of those in the room are required to abandon that candidate, and join the group of another candidate.  In other words, the least favored candidates are removed from consideration.  (This is similar to, but not the same as, the method used to select a new Pope from within the college of cardinals, in Rome.  In that situation, all the cardinals are considered in the first round, so that the process is self-nominating.)

Obviously 15% is an arbitrary cutoff level, but has probably been selected for the sake of efficiency.

Once the 'low-scoring' candidates have been eliminated in the first round, it could still be that one or more of the remaining groups does not have the requisite 15% to survive, in which case, it must be dissolved, and its members redistributed.  This process is continued until every candidate has at least 15% of the vote, and an elected person records the result, to be sent on to the district, which is next higher up in the hierarchy of polling regions.  Each group elects delegates to actually represent them, as I understand it, in the caucuses that follow--District Caucuses, presumably--until the State Convention meets, at which time the delegates choose a candidate somehow; I had lost patience with the whole business by the time I was reading about the State Convention. 

However, please note, that the raw "votes" of the first round are reported to the media, and the aggregated votes are publicized, despite the fact that the State Convention might produce a different candidate rather than the one who wins the most total votes in that first round.

(Despite my having said that I had gotten impatient with the process, I should not be misunderstood as being unimpressed with the process.  In a race where there are numerous candidates, such as we have this year, this process is probably the most fair, and the various opportunities for convinced voters to persuade other voters to their way of thinking is an imaginative means of explaining why a particular candidate might be a better choice, or at least a good fallback.)

The Republican Caucuses

Evidently the Republican Party of Iowa has its own, different rules.  They appear to me to be less reliable, and less successful at delivering, historically at least, a candidate who goes on to win the nomination.  Their process, which has changed over the years (as has the Democratic procedure, to be fair,) is available for your edification in Wikipedia.  And while you're at it, shoot the Wikipedia fellows a contribution, if that fits in with your plans.

The Debate

The question has come up: now that all the non-white candidates have been almost completely eliminated, as well as many of the female candidates, should Democrats select a woman candidate, since the minorities have failed to poll up to the bar set by the DNC?

Here's my thinking.

There are two objectives.

Bringing diversity into Presidential elections.

Electing a suitable president.

Of these, it seems to me that the nominee should be one who will move forward the desperately important Democrat agenda, following the devastation of the ultra-conservative four years that have gone by.  Making a statement about diversity takes second place.  This is not to say that it isn't possible to do both.  Select a president who can stand up to the nonsense of the ultra-Right, and inspire voters to go to the polls, and elect Democrat congressmen and congresswomen and senators; and if it is a woman, so much the better.

Electability rears its ugly head.  This is why the Iowa Caucuses are so important.  They subsume the problem of electability, and deliver a candidate with electability baked-in, as it were.

Still, there's no getting around the problem that Iowa has been a state with very little diversity, and one wonders whether they are competent to be the proxies for the nation in its needs for diversity of all kinds, including biodiversity, and ecological diversity.  Do they even understand the problems of the Farming Industry, and the Manufacturing Industry, though one would expect that they are placed well enough to understand those?

But as Democrats across the country walk about in bewilderment, trying and usually failing to allow their prejudices to select a candidate, given that none of the candidates are TV celebrities, to make things easier for us, it is good to get a head start with those brave idealists in Iowa!

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