The Arc of History

Since mid-November, I have been working on a writing project-a book.

The title is "The Arc of History" and the subject is, what else but the 2008 Presidential Election. Mainly, I wanted a record of history for myself, written by myself. I wanted for some way for the legacy of this election to carry on. And since I changed so much as a person during these past two years, I wanted to record some of the more personal moments during the campaign.

Right now, I have about 47 000 words done, and by my projection, the book should be about 95 000-100 000 words in length after it's finished. Since I'm extremely busy with activities in school, it's taking me quite a while to put the project together. I hope to have the manuscript done by late July. Then, I will decide whether I want to self publish this, or contact a publishing company. In the meanwhile, I wanted to share a few excerpts from the book with you. Feel free to make any suggestions! I'll need it.

So today, I'm going to share a bit from the chapter titled "IOWA":

I let out a chuckle when Keith Olbermann proclaimed on the January 2nd, 2008 edition of Countdown: “Nearly two years after the first candidate announced, a year since the heavy hitters declared, somebody somewhere finally votes…” The modern American election cycle does, occasionally, want to make me want to laugh. It seems a bit strange that in a country so technologically and economically advanced, it would take over 2 years, more than half a presidential term to select an actual President. It gets even funnier. On the same Countdown show, Olbermann says: “Iowa, consisting of 1/100th of the nation‘s population, an estimated 6 percent of whom will caucus tomorrow, meaning the first milestone of the campaign to elect the 44th president will be determined by .06 of 1 percent of the country.” Somewhere in American politics, there’s a batch of irony and hilarity mixed in with the exhilarating caucuses and serious debates and relentless TV ads. You know how long it takes for the Canadians to dissolve Parliament, call an election, inform the country, hold the debates, run the ads, knock on the doors, vote, elect a new government, and swear in the new Cabinet? Less than 8 weeks!

Iowa is the focal point of every election, being the first state to cast ballots (or count heads in the Democrats’ case) in the primary season. For some candidates, Iowa is the difference between political termination and political stardom. The Iowa Caucuses cost a thick stack of money as well. The price tag on the 2008 caucuses was around $60 million. This encompassed the ad blitz which hit Iowa all throughout the holiday season. In virtually every city and town in the Hawkeye State, during practically every commercial break on TV or radio, Iowans were bombasted with campaign messages from literally every candidate, Democrat and Republican. And since Iowa is First in the Nation, this means that the slate of candidates has yet to be whittled. In 2008, this meant choosing between 17 candidates. This is no easy task, as candidates in the same party support, more or less, the same policies and present similar agendas. It ends up being much like a high school student council election, where most votes are won by popularity and character, not substance.

There was one thing that was abundant before Iowans went to caucus-the candidate debates. These debates, and there’s a massive stack of the tapes somewhere in Rockefeller Center, were solely between candidates within one party. Whether they were radio debates, or good ol’ podium debates, or even YouTube debates, there were 17 of them in total before January 3rd, 2008. The YouTube debates were arguably a little bit interesting, but the rest were generally bland in nature as candidates within the party pick at each other’s bones. The last Democratic one came on December 13th, 2007, three weeks before Iowans went out to caucus. That debate, held in Johnston, Iowa, part of Des Moines Metropolitan Area, was carried by CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, three channels which would enjoy the highest ratings during the 2008 presidential election. In a turning point election like 2008, rigorous debate was for certain to be had.

Debate performance was one viscous yardstick to how strong a candidate was. The more set-in-stone and hard measuring tool was your polls. The pollsters were enjoying every bit of the ’08 campaign as well, for this was their chance to shine in national spotlight. Things were so tight for the Democrats in Iowa that multiple polls from multiple polling companies were released daily. For the first half of 2007, the polls in Iowa showed a competitive race between Hillary Clinton, the first viable woman candidate for president and John Edwards, who came in second in Iowa in 2004. But as fall came and the leaves started changing colour, the scope of the tide in Iowa started to turn as well. Barack Obama’s numbers began to slowly but steadily rise, thanks to his effective internet campaign and Edwards’ support began to fade ever so slightly. By December, Obama started jumping ahead in a few polls, and the race was declared a three way dead heat between the three main candidates-Clinton, Obama, and Edwards.

Ironically, I had absolutely no idea what a how the caucuses work when Iowans went out to do exactly just that on January 3rd. Though these words were tossed around in the media like a football, I was actually confused as to what the difference was between a caucus and a primary. Pundits expected you to understand their jargonous conversations, so naturally, I consulted the internet. And thanks to Wikipedia, the caucusing process was explained to me in a stunningly clear fashion. It turns out that Democrats and Republicans have different ways of going about caucusing. The Democrats use what I perceive to be a very traditional and kind of fun method of, basically, counting heads. All the caucus-goers gather in a spacious common room, usually in a community institution such as a church, library or occasionally, a neighbor’s house. Each candidate is assigned one specific corner/area in the room. All caucus-goers are welcome, as long as they are registered under the party whose caucus they plan to participate in, even if their registration was just 5 minutes old, or had just switched at the door. As well, a rarity in the Iowa caucuses is that 17 year olds are allowed to participate, provided that they reach the universal suffrage age by the time of the general election.

Again, each candidate is assigned a specific spot in the room, in which all his or her supporters will gather to form a “preference group”. Usually, the scene is pleasantly raucous once the actual caucusing starts. Everybody has 30 minutes to align themselves into preference groups, usually coordinated by energetic and vocal precinct captains. For half an hour, democracy shines! There is a plethora of debate in the room between the candidates, and some fierce competition for undecided voters. Preference groups attempt to enlarge themselves as much as possible by dragging anyone who is willing to stand with them. After this half hour period is up, a preliminary head count is done to weed out the “unviable” candidates-those whose preference groups account for less than 15% of all participants. One easy example to comprehend the process is if there are 100 caucus-goers, the candidates with less than 15 supporters after the first 30 minutes are deemed “unviable”. After that, a second 30 minute alignment period gets underway. Those in the “unviable” camps have two choices, join a group that is viable, or band together with other unviable supporters to form a larger, viable group for one of the candidates. Though the process demands little of the average caucus-goer-go to your local school gym, stand in line for 20 minutes, and go home-the negotiation that goes on in the caucuses is intense and indeed, very healthily democratic.

Comments?

-D