Reply #9: I thought this was interesting...

[stillcool]

Iowa

Iowa flirted with the possibility of holding primary elections in 1913, but returned to the caucus system after 25 percent of registered voters attended its first and only primary election held April 10, 1916. The state remained important throughout the remainder of the century, but took the spotlight after the reform of 1968. Since then, the Iowa caucuses have held one of the most important roles in the presidential elections.

The Reform

By Becki White

Before 1972, presidential nominees were selected primarily by party regulars and the elite. Then Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot, the Vietnam war escalated and protests and riots that questioned every governmental process spread across America.

In August 1968, 10,000 demonstrators gathered at the Democratic Party's national convention in Chicago. Led by the Youth International Party and the Students for a Democratic Society, they protested the war, racism and the political process that awarded then Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey the presidential nomination on the Democratic ticket.

Humphrey, who did not go to one primary election, relied on party regulars to take votes away from his main opponent Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota. McCarthy had won several primary elections throughout the nation. Protesters argued the nomination process at that time restricted public involvement.

After Chicago Mayor Richard Daley ordered city police to "shoot to kill" the demonstrators at the Democratic national convention, Democrats knew reform was necessary. By the 1972 election, several changes were made to the presidential election process.

The reform of the nomination process brought several new steps to the presidential nomination process. The process began relying on caucus and primary results and the nomination process stretched to six months of campaigning in caucus and primary states. The reform attempted to involve voters in the initial steps of a party's nomination.

Art Sanders, associate professor of political science at Drake University said the current system opened up the nomination process. "It's open...the public has the ability to choose the candidate," he said.

Currently the election process begins at the Iowa caucuses in February of the election year, and continues with several state caucuses and conventions and 39 primary elections. The final candidate nomination takes place at the national conventions in July and August.

A caucus is an informal meeting with candidates and potential voters. Candidates go to all areas of a state to speak with voters in churches, schools and even private homes. A caucus vote differs from the presidential election in November because candidates compete with members of the same party to win a partyÕs nomination.

Because of the reform in 1968, caucuses and primaries have been in the forefront of the presidential nomination process. By 1980, primaries selected 71 percent of the delegates at the Democratic national convention.

http://www.drake.edu/journalism/CyberCaucus2000/reform.html