It’s one of those rare days when I largely agree with David Yepsen’s latest column: Parties must probe caucus complaints, make fixes. He points out that any problems with the way the caucuses were run will be fodder for those who will try to deprive Iowa of first-in-the-nation status for the next campaign.

Already the Republican Party will be looking to ditch Iowa, because the GOP establishment can’t stand Mike Huckabee. If Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee and wins, or if Barack Obama becomes the Democratic nominee and loses, the Democratic Party establishment will also have the knives out for Iowa.

Yepsen suggests moving the caucuses to Saturday at 5 pm, a time when fewer shift workers are on duty and young families may find it easier to get a baby-sitter. I would support that change.

Yepsen lists some of the alleged problems with the caucuses, but he left out some very disturbing problems I’ve heard about. One of the most troubling reports, written by observers in a precinct on Des Moines’ south side, maintained that counting was rushed to prevent second-tier candidates from becoming viable.

I was also sorry to hear some accounts of bullying the supporters of non-viable candidates. Daily Kos user neia was disturbed by what happened at the caucus in Strawberry Point (northeast Iowa). While I am sure this is the exception, not the rule, the Iowa Democratic Party should train precinct chairs to prevent anyone from exerting undue pressure on caucus-goers during the realignment period.

UPDATE: This Daily Kos diary includes more allegations about irregularities:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Several people have asked me what happened at my precinct caucus. I told part of the story last week, but in case anyone is interested, the longer version is after the jump.

Use this as an open thread to tell the story of your precinct caucus, whether or not there were problems with the way it operated.

Barack Obama is sitting pretty ten days before the Nevada caucuses, having snagged the endorsements of the Nevada chapter of the Service Employees International Union as well as the Culinary workers and their parent union, UNITE HERE. UNITE HERE is the first national union to endorse Obama.

In September, the national SEIU was very close to endorsing Edwards, but backed off and left the decision to state chapters. Since then, 11 state chapters of the SEIU have backed Edwards, and four or five have backed Obama.

We are seeing the consequences of Iowa failing to deliver for John Edwards. The Nevada unions were ready to jump in for him if he had won here. He also would have been helped in Nevada by the California SEIU, which has already endorsed him. But now that the Nevada SEIU is behind Obama, state chapters backing other candidates can’t send their members to campaign in Nevada.

Edwards was never likely to do well in New Hampshire, but he would have had a real shot at Nevada with union backing. Now he is forced to focus on South Carolina, where he is substantially behind Obama and Clinton in the polls.

If Obama does win the nomination and the presidency, I seriously doubt he will do much for labor unions. That would interfere with his posturing as the bipartisan president pushing a unity agenda.

But it isn’t the first time labor unions have picked the candidate they viewed as most likely to win, rather than the candidate most likely to become their champion. That’s the way the world works.

UPDATE: Over at MyDD, Jonathan Singer wonders if these endorsements post a danger to Obama by raising his expectations in Nevada, where he has trailed Clinton in the polls:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008…

SECOND UPDATE: Daily Kos user greenmountainboy was just in Nevada and has this to say:

The union workers and precinct captains are PISSED that their leaders pulled this crap of not supporting Edwards. They continue to run house parties for him and love the man. The power structure (Clinton and Obama) know that if Edwards gets any roots in ANY ONE of these states they are in for a real fight. If that happens watch how quickly Clinton and O’Baby join forces for “change”.

Well, the results coming in have been surprising so far, at least on the Democratic side of things.  Clinton up with a quarter of the vote in.  Was there anyone predicting that?

You can track live results here from CNN.com.  Jerome Armstrong’s got an interesting discussion going here saying that with Clinton making the contest this close in NH that we’ve still got a tough race going on to February 5th…and even beyond.

So, what’re your thoughts?  How fluid are things?  What’s next?

I got this e-mail from a fellow Sierra Club member:

Now that the caucuses are behind us, there is another way to get involved in energy and environmental issues.  We have a special treat for you this month – international global warming spokesman and Iowa native Dr. James Hansen of NASA will be returning to Iowa the week of January 14th to testify against the construction of a new coal burning power plant in Marshalltown.  We need your help today to convince Governor Culver and the Iowa Utilities Board to listen to the scientific experts, and the people of Iowa, and reject the construction of this major new source of pollution.  Our leaders should choose a clean, efficient energy future that will help Iowa’s economy grow.  They should put off any decision on dirty, expensive coal until we determine if efficiency and renewable power are sufficient to power the state.  Please take thirty seconds to contact the Iowa Utilities Board by clicking on the link below:

http://capwiz.com/iowacci/issu…

Then let us know you wrote the Iowa Utilities Board by just replying to this email (mark.kresowik AT sierraclub.org).  An even more powerful action would be writing a letter in hard copy and faxing it to the Governor’s Office at 515-281-6611 (fax) or sending it to:

Governor Chet Culver and Lt. Governor Patty Judge

State Capitol

Des Moines, IA 50319

515-281-5211 (phone)

Best yet, come testify in person to the Iowa Utilities Board starting at 10:00 AM on Monday, January 14th at the Whitehall Auditorium on the grounds of the Iowa Veterans Home (1301 Summit St, Marshalltown) .  

According to a recent survey nearly four out of five Iowans think that “Iowa should focus on increased (energy) conservation steps and more fuel efficiency to reduce demand for electricity before it constructs new coal-fired power plants” (http://plainsjustice.org/survey-iowa-voters-say-no-new-coal/). Coal burning power plants are the single largest source of global warming pollution in the United States and Iowa is over-dependent on this dirty form of energy.  The first step we need to take to combat global warming is to stop the construction of proposed coal plants in Marshalltown and Waterloo and invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy.  The Governor should continue his pledge to make Iowa the renewable energy capitol of the world and stop these plants.  Please contact the Iowa Utilities Board and the Governor today:

http://capwiz.com/iowacci/issu…

You can also hear Dr. Hansen and other expert witnesses for the Office of the Consumer Advocate and Plains Justice – who have concluded unanimously that the Marshalltown plant is unnecessary and will in fact put Iowa ratepayers at far greater risk than more prudent alternatives – in person on January 16th at 7:00 PM at the State Historical Building (600 East Locust) in Des Moines or January 17th at 7:00 PM at Old Brick (26 E. Market) in Iowa City.

So it’s the day before the important New Hampshire primary. What is the political press obsessing about? Whether Hillary Clinton teared up and what the other candidates had to say about it.

It goes back to what CBS correspondent Chip Reid revealed not long ago:

Let’s face it – a lot of what political reporters report on is mistakes.

Please, journalists, stop insulting our intelligence. I don’t care if you think getting emotional is a mistake. It’s ridiculous for you to ask other candidates to comment on Hillary’s emotion. The only purpose of a question like that is to trick them into committing a gaffe.

None of this trivia has anything to do with who would be the best president. Try reporting on some issues for once.

Last month I put up this post on Republican culture, inspired by an article about a Republican focus group watching a presidential debate.

Reading this piece by Joe Klein today, I noticed that the Republican focus group watching the latest debate preferred Mitt Romney to John McCain. Among other things,

They just adored his position on illegal immigration (their dials plummeted when McCain said we had to be “humane.”)

No, we sure wouldn’t want to be humane in our approach to a complicated issue affecting the lives of millions. That’s Republican culture in a nutshell.

There has been a flurry of blog posts and news stories talking about the entrance polling and the results of the caucuses.  The basics we know include things like record turnout and a surge in the number of youth showing up to the Democratic caucuses, as well as ‘no party’ folks changing their registration to Democrat.

I don’t have the capacity nor the will power to significantly examine all of the results county by county, candidate by candidate.  But I can direct you towards some very interesting information.

First of all, if you’d like some detailed results and would like to see some maps, feel free to check out CaucusResults.com which has the detailed information about the results courtesy of the Iowa Democratic Party.  If you provided some information to the party prior to caucus night by visiting IowaCaucusResults.com then you should’ve received an email notification with a password so you could log in.  If you didn’t and would like to be able to see the information, feel free to email me and I can get you logged in.

Secondly, one of the big things that we’ve seen talked about is the amount of youth turnout for the caucuses.  Whether you call youth 17-24 year olds or 17-29 year olds it seems pretty clear that folks my age showed up and participated.  Iowa Student Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) put out a release talking about the numbers (which can be found here) and it clearly shows how the youth support was another cushion of support for Barack Obama.  The Register examined the same thing here, while also noting the evangelical Christian support that helped Huckabee.  The Register also provides a county map that shows which candidate won which county, including counties that are “ties” (at least according to percentage totals).  The breakdown follows like this:

• Barack Obama: 41 counties
• John Edwards: 29 counties
• Hillary Clinton: 25 counties
• Ties: 4 counties

Looking specifically at the four counties where there were ties, they were ties because the number of delegates for first place were evenly divided.  Three were tied for Clinton and Edwards; one was split for Clinton and Obama.

Finally, and I think this is one of most fascinating posts and discussion about the caucus results, go over to the Daily Yonder and read their post about how Democratic and Republican candidates did in rural Iowa.  Edwards’ strategy focused heavily on rural Iowa, and while it paid off for him a bit, it wasn’t the deciding fact simply because of the turnout Barack Obama was able to bring about in both urban and rural Iowa.  Fascinating piece of information alert:

“Both Edwards and Clinton won more votes in rural Iowa than in urban Iowa.”

I’ll leave that little bit of information to you guys to figure out what it means in the grand scheme of things in this presidential race.  Any other interesting demographics or information you think we should talk about?

Winners

• John Edwards: Stayed strong and on message.  Sided with Obama as a candidate for change, and put Clinton on the spot as the status quo candidate.  He came off as articulate, clear, and as the viable alternative to a non-confrontational unity politician like Barack Obama.
• Bill Richardson: Didn’t do anything good, didn’t do anything bad.  His one big flop was calling Russia the Soviet Union.  But he’s tired, just like the rest of the candidates.  He’s not going to be the nominee, but he isn’t going to be left out of the race.  He’s clearly making the case as an experienced vice presidential candidate.
• The people of New Hampshire: Compared to the Republican debate, the second half of the Democratic debate was quite engaging on the issues, on the race, and on substance.  Clearly, there is a push for new policies and ideas in the Democratic party.  We want real leaders who will talk clearly and our Democratic candidates are willing to do that.  While looking exhausted when not answering, they were engaged when the camera was on them.  New Hampshire has a tough choice ahead of them.
• Barack Obama: He didn’t shine like he could’ve as the front-runner, but Gibson made sure he got the first and last word.  He seemed more tired and lackluster than he is on the stump, but that seems to have been the case for most of the debates he has been in.

Losers

• Hillary Clinton: Her angry moment sure didn’t help her (though it is quite clear she has the energy and is quite committed to the race) and Edwards’ double-team with Obama against definitely portrayed her as the third wheel of a two-person race.  She’s falling fast in New Hampshire and needs to dump Mark Penn.
• The Republicans: After watching most of their debate, I can’t see how American or folks in New Hampshire would want their old grumpy grandpa or their sleazy corporate boss as president.  Huckabee’s the only one who looked presidential but his policy offerings have largely been substance-less.  Bill Clinton had the advantage of being an intellectual and Rhodes Scholar to overcome the fact that he was really only the governor of Arkansas.  Huckabee doesn’t have that advantage.
• Charlie Gibson (And his NH counterpart): Maybe it was just me, but his cynicism towards the Democrats in general seemed to make him look just as grumpy and frumpy as most of the Republicans in the hour and a half before the Democrats.  I’m glad they challenged the Democrats but it seemed a bit harsh and a bit more than needed.

Feel free to call me out on these and offer your own thoughts and reactions.  We all know I can be wrong from time to time.  And if you’re curious, Time’s Mark Halperin offers his grades of the candidates here.

Update: The liveblog and commentary is in the comments section.  Go there, participate.

I’ll be offering some of my commentary on tonight’s debate here at BH either here on the front-page or in the comments.  Feel free to drop in comments whenever  you please and share your thoughts.

Right now the Democrats and Republicans are on stage for a huge photo op.  Interesting image…

Cross-posted at Political Forecast.

Maybe I’ve missed something in my absences from blogging over the past few months, but has the Register ever really done a serious news or feature piece on Iowa’s bloggers and citizen journalists?  I mean, I know we threaten their credibility and their readership by getting scoops, insight, and news out faster sometimes–not to mention that our commentary is sometimes more consistent and better written than their columnists’–but it almost seems like there is an intent to ignore the contributions that bloggers in Iowa have had both before the caucuses and in previous elections or issues.  Today, in their features section, they profile one citizen journalist who has been vlogging for PurpleStates.tv (she had to audition to get the gig) and one guy who has been doing it for MTV.  Don’t get me wrong, their efforts are valuable…but what about the folks who do this on their own time and don’t necessarily live off of it?

The folks at Iowa Independent have been doing regular news and political reporting since May, and other bloggers on both sides of the aisle have been part of the debate and policy discussion in Iowa politics for a few years now.  Other papers across the state, as well as national papers and news magazines, have highlighted our growth and commented on our contributions.

Simply put, why can’t Iowa’s paper of record recognize or examine the Iowa online community for what it is and report back to the people of Iowa on it?  I don’t want the media attention, the scrutiny, the interviews, the publicity; I just think that some of us deserve the recognition for the contributions we make.  Two of my former colleagues at Iowa Independent have already talked a bit about this subject (see Chase Martyn’s initial post here and read Ben Weyl’s abbreviated response here) and I think it is one worth further discussion as we continue to build Iowa’s blogosphere.

This week’s round-up comes courtesy of Betsy at BlueNC. -Chris

Happy New Year and Congratulations to Iowa Democrats on the excellent turnout for yesterday’s caucuses.

Below is an abbreviated roundup for our 50-State community blogs. Enjoy reading up on what’s important in states across the country. Onward to New Hampshire!

Go to the extended entry to read more…

UPDATE (3:40 PM): I just got a fundraising email from Joe Trippi on behalf of the Edwards campaign.  Seems like they’re going to keep piling on the money today. -Chris

I’m not one big on making releases front-page material here on BH, but I’ll try to condense this release from the Edwards Campaign to something we can talk about, with the full release available here:

“We have been absolutely overwhelmed by the response to Sen. Edwards’ strong finish in Iowa,” said Edwards’ senior strategist Joe Trippi. “We’re on track for our best online fundraising day ever, since www.JohnEdwards.com went up a year ago – and half of the contributions we’re seeing are from new donors to the campaign. That speaks volumes to the strength of John Edwards’ message of standing up and fighting for the middle class.”

The campaign first saw an uptick in online fundraising late last night, as the results from Iowa’s first-in-the-nation contest began rolling in. The surge continued overnight, and by 8:45am ET this morning the campaign’s online contributions had already topped the previous day’s day-long total. Between the hours of 10:00am and 11:00am ET today, the campaign experienced its best online fundraising hour ever.”

I’m not sure what this means in the grand scheme of online fundraising for the top-tier Democrats, or even the Edwards campaign itself since there aren’t really specific numbers and totals.  However, I think it will be really interesting to see what Obama and Clinton are seeing in terms of their own online fundraising and I hope they put out some information about those numbers soon.

A couple other quick facts from the Edwards campaign:

• Half of those who have contributed are first-time donors to the campaign
• More than ninety percent (92.6%) of today’s online contributions are for amounts less than $100

Those are some pretty impressive figures.  Let me know if you hear of any more numbers or interesting stories.

Thanks to all of our visitors yesterday.  To the best of my knowledge it was one of Bleeding Heartland’s busiest days ever as we gathered over 2,000 visits and over 3,300 page views.

Now that the caucuses over, it doesn’t mean we’re finished here with insightful content.  We’ll be shifting back to covering Iowa politics, still with an eye on the presidential race.  Iowa is bound to be a swing-state again this fall (but with the turnout numbers from the caucuses in tow, I think Democrats will pull out the win).

We’ve got a lot of coverage that will likely cover the new legislative session as well as Sen. Tom Harkin’s re-election race, and all of the drama and intrigue surrounding Iowa’s House races.  One race we’ll likely be keeping a close eye on is the  emerging IA-03 primary race between incumbent Democrat Leonard Boswell and former state representative and gubernatorial candidate Ed Fallon.

This is Iowa’s community blog for liberals, Democrats, progressives, and whatever else you wanna call yourselves.  Join up, post your thoughts in comments and diaries, and help strengthen the netroots in Iowa.

Chris Dodd and Joe Biden have both decided to leave the presidential race and will be going back to the Senate.  I wish them the best of luck.  In the extended entry, you can read Dodd’s remarks to supporters and you can read the release from Biden’s campaign.

On behalf of Iowa Democrats and the Bleeding Heartland community, let me say thank you to both Senators for their remarkable fight and effort they put into the caucuses.  Without Biden, we wouldn’t be able to have the serious debate about the future of Iraq like we’ve been able to have.  Without Dodd, things like FISA and restoring the Constitution would have been tossed aside.  These men have extraordinary experience and are good leaders for the Democratic party.

We Iowans are interesting people.  Of all the Senators and former Senators in the race, we picked the one with the least experience in that institution.  Maybe it is because of his message of hope, of unity, of change.  But we also looked past a combined 50+ years of experience in the Senate.  Is that a bad thing?  I don’t know.  I hope not.

However, these two men can now head back to the Senate and keep working hard for our majorities in Congress.  And pressing this reckless President for change.  Dodd can keep fighting and filibustering.  And who knows, maybe we’ll see one of these men later on as a vice president.

Or maybe as the new Senate Democratic leader.

One more time, thank you!

I have a lot of questions about the deal struck between the Obama and Richardson campaigns, and I would be grateful to Bleeding Heartland readers who can shed light on any of them.

1. How much initial support did Richardson have last night? The Iowa Democratic Party does not report this information. I would like to hear from as many people as possible about how many people were in Richardson’s corner after the first division into preference groups. In my precinct he had 28 out of 293 people, or about 9.6 percent.

2. Was this a one-way deal, or did the Obama campaign promise to instruct its captains to help Richardson become viable where he was close to the threshold?

Obama volunteers out there, did you get any encouragement to help Richardson out at the caucus?

I’m assuming that either this wasn’t part of the deal, or Obama volunteers did not follow through, because Richardson only ended up with 2.1 percent of the state delegates. Clearly he fell below the threshold in many, many places.

3. Did the Richardson supporters predominantly go to Obama during the realignment? In my precinct a lot came to Edwards–perhaps even more than the number who went to Obama, though I can’t be sure of that. However, a friend who’s an Obama precinct captain near Hoover High School told me that in her precinct the Richardson captain brought pretty much the whole group over. Marc Ambinder observed something similar.

If Richardson had 8-10 percent support in a lot of precincts, and this deal really did transfer his supporters overwhelmingly to Obama, that alone accounts for Obama’s winning margin.

I would like to hear from as many Iowans as possible about how the Richardson supporters moved during realignment at your caucus. If you don’t want to post a comment, please e-mail me at desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com.

4. Was there some kind of falling out recently between Richardson and Clinton? For most of the year people assumed that if Richardson struck any kind of deal, it would be with Hillary. Bill Clinton elevated him from Congress to UN ambassador and later to secretary of energy, and Richardson and the Clintons have a similar outlook on trade and other economic issues.

If any Bleeding Heartland readers were involved in the Clinton or Richardson campaigns and can shed light on this question, please let us know or e-mail me confidentially.

UPDATE: I am hearing more stories from friends all the time. In one neighboring precinct, the Clinton people sent enough supporters to make Richardson viable so that Edwards would not get an extra delegate. In another precinct, the Dodd, Richardson and Biden groups combined were 19 short of viability. Obama’s group had more than enough people to send over 19 without losing any of their delegates, but they refused, so most of the Dodd, Richardson and Biden group went over to Edwards.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos and MyDD. Please take the poll and comment. Now’s a good time to discuss the merits of the system we experienced last night.

When I publish a diary criticizing the caucus system, I usually hear from at least one person defending the caucuses.

This diary lists the arguments I’ve heard in favor of the caucus system, along with my responses.

More is after the jump.

I was skeptical, but clearly the strategy of focusing on first-time caucus-goers paid off in a big way for Barack Obama.

Turnout in my precinct went from 175 in 2004 to 293 tonight. That was way more than I ever imagined possible.

We had first-timers in our Edwards group, and so did Hillary, and for all I know Richardson and Biden did too. But there’s no question that the Obama group had the most first-time caucus-goers.

After the first division into preference groups, we had Obama 86, Edwards 83, Clinton 63, Richardson 28, Biden 24 and Dodd 9. To be viable, candidates needed 44 supporters.

After the second division into preference groups, Edwards had 115, Obama had 103, and Clinton had 72, but unfortunately, the math worked out to 2 delegates for each candidate.

In retrospect, the Edwards and Obama groups would have been better off helping Richardson to be viable. Then the delegates would have been split 2 Edwards, 2 Obama, 1 Clinton and 1 Richardson. But there was no way to know that, and during the realignment of course the Edwards and Obama groups were focused on attracting enough supporters to win that third delegate.

It’s very similar to what happened in my precinct in 1988. The delegates split 2-2-2 despite a fairly large difference in size between the largest and the smallest. That’s the caucus system for you.

By the way, the Richardson precinct captain confirmed that the campaign was advising people to go to Obama. However, a lot of them came over to Edwards anyway. The Biden precinct captain told me he did not receive any similar instruction from that campaign.

Wow, I just got done with my precinct caucus–I was chair and had to tally results.  Des Moines 4 went for Sen. Barack Obama, but just barely.  He left with two delegates, two for John Edwards, and one for Hillary Clinton.

Let me know what’s going on in your caucus. We had amazing turnout–122 people–with almost 40 newly registered Democrats who were formerly registered as no party or Republicans.  And they came to caucus for all three of the big name candidates.

What’s on your mind?  And how about these turnout results?  Seriously, 221,000 Democrats as of right now. Over 100,000 Republicans.  That’s over 300,000 Iowans.

Eat it, Markos. Iowans turnout. And we take things seriously.

Various media and blogs are reporting that Richardson's campaign is instructing precinct captains to advise supporters to go to Obama if Richardson is not viable.

So far no official confirmation from the Richardson campaign.

I find it hard to belive that most Richardson supporters will go to Obama, but who knows? I'll ask the captain in my precinct later today.

Anyone else have information on this?

It’s put up or shut up time. How are the candidates going to do tomorrow night?

I don’t think all three will finish closely bunched together. Either someone will win by a clear margin, or someone will be in third by a clear margin.

I am having trouble making my final prediction, because I wouldn’t be too surprised by any one of the top three winning. Here goes:

Edwards 35 percent

Obama 28 percent

Clinton 27 percent

Biden 5 percent

Richardson 4 percent

Dodd 1 percent

Kucinich 0 percent

In my precinct: 2 delegates for Edwards, 2 for Clinton, 1 for Obama, 1 for Biden

I would so love to get that third delegate for Edwards, but I fear we will fall short.

On the Republican side, I have no clue about the numbers, but I think the order will be Huckabee, Romney, McCain, Giuliani, Paul, Thompson, Keyes, Cox, Hunter. I don’t think Steve King is going to deliver anything significant to Fred Thompson.

UPDATE: I forgot to include my prediction for Democratic turnout: 140,000. I have no clue about the Republican turnout, except that it will be less than 100,000.