Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie endorsed Barack Obama today. Cownie has become a leader on the environment in promoting a green economy to combat global warming.

The real promise of Senator Obama’s presidency isn’t just the plans he’ll bring with him into the White House, it’s the visionary leadership he’ll demonstrate once he gets there. Barack Obama will put an end to the bitter partisanship that’s stopped us from making progress on the urgent challenge of global warming. He’ll tell the American people what they need to hear, not just what they want to hear. As President, he’ll restore America’s standing in the world and lead a global effort to meet this challenge once and for all.

Cownie was re-elected this year with 80% of the vote.

Cross posted at Century of the Common Iowan. 

Almost every day there’s a new Iowa poll released, and I haven’t been able to keep up with them all. If you are a poll junkie, I recommend checking MyDD and Open Left frequently, because the front-pagers and diarists there never miss a chance to analyze a new Iowa poll.

Several polls released during the last week, including the latest from the Des Moines Register, show the top three candidates bunched closely together (typically within the margin of error), with Obama leading, Clinton in second and Edwards in third place.

Obama supporters are triumphant to see him taking the lead in the Real Clear Politics five-poll averages for Iowa. However, there is good news for all of the top-tier candidates in these polls.

Obviously, Obama has to be happy with his overall lead in Iowa, which is small but has been found in several polls. His favorability rating seems high, and he seems to be tied with Hillary, or even leading a bit, among women.

A cautionary note for Obama is that he has blowout leads among voters under 35 (in the Des Moines Register poll, a 48-19-17 lead in this age group). Not only are younger voters historically less likely to caucus, they are also virtually absent from many precincts. We have very few residents under age 40 in my precinct, for instance.

Depending on the survey, it also seems that Obama is trailing Clinton and Edwards among rural and small-town voters, who punch above their weight when the state delegates are tallied. Obama would clearly be better off if Iowa had a primary.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has to be concerned that her overall support has slipped slightly, and she may no longer be leading Obama among women voters.

Most worrying for Clinton, several surveys have shown that she trails Edwards and Obama among second choices, and the Des Moines Register poll indicates that her unfavorable rating among Iowa Democrats is about 30 percent.

On the other hand, Clinton still seems to have a slight lead among older voters, and her support may be more evenly spread across the state than Obama’s. If she can bring out large numbers of new women voters, Iowa is still winnable for her. Remember that Obama has not yet faced much scrutiny in the media, but that will change now that he is leading in Iowa.

As an Edwards supporter, I am satisfied with the recent Iowa polls. He is within touch of the lead, and often leads among Iowans who have caucused before. The Des Moines Register poll assumes that one-third of caucus-goers on January 3 will have never caucused before, but I do not believe there will be that many newcomers.

Several polls indicate that Edwards leads among second choices as well, which could help him pick up as much as 5 to 10 percent on January 3.

I anticipate that on caucus night, the precinct captains for Clinton and Obama will be focused on keeping the main rival’s delegate count down, and will not be trying to undermine Edwards in the same way.

Richardson and Biden don’t seem to be surging or dropping considerably in Iowa. I still sense that both candidates have room to gain support as undecided voters make up their minds. Frankly, as an Edwards supporter I would like to see Richardson and Biden stay below the threshold in as many precincts as possible.

What do you think?

The Yepsenity of the day is causing a stir on the political blogs. Yepsen published this post about the so-called “Illinois caucus”:

Barack Obama’s campaign is telling Iowa college students they can caucus for him even if they aren’t from Iowa.

His campaign offers that advice in a brochure being distributed on college campuses in the state.  A spokesman said it’s legal and that 50,000 of the fliers are being distributed.

The brochure says: “If you are not from Iowa, you can come back for the Iowa caucus and caucus in your college neighborhood.”

Given that lots of students in Iowa’s colleges and universities are from Obama’s neighboring home state of Illinois, the effort could net him thousands of additional votes on caucus night.

[…]

Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign, said “we have no intention of doing something here that is in any way illegal or that will raise questions about the credibility of the caucuses.”  He said election laws allow students to register and vote where they go to college and that means they can caucus in those precincts as well.

That’s fine but these are the Iowa caucuses.  Asking people who are “not from Iowa” to participate in them changes the nature of the event.

I think Yepsen is wrong and owes the Obama campaign an apology. Students from other states who attend colleges in Iowa can choose to vote either in their home states or in Iowa. That is well-established.

The Obama brochure is aimed at students attending schools in Iowa. It urges them to come “back” and caucus in their neighborhoods. Clearly they are not trying to bring in thousands of students who are neither from Iowa nor attending school in Iowa.

If the caucuses were on January 21 instead of January 3, this wouldn’t even be an issue. Many students from other states caucused in Iowa City, Ames, and other college towns in 2004. There is nothing unfair about that.

I would hope that all the campaigns are trying to identify college students supporting them and trying to encourage those students to come back to campus to caucus, if their home towns are outside Iowa.

Mike Allen picked up the story for Politico, quoting staffers for other campaigns who tried to imply that Obama is cheating:

A Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign official said: “We are not courting out-of-staters. The Iowa caucus ought to be for Iowans.”

And a Clinton spokesman leveled a thinly-veiled accusation at Obama later in the day.

“We are not systematically trying to manipulate the Iowa caucuses with out-of-state people,” Mo Elleithee said.

“We don’t have literature recruiting out-of-state college students. We didn’t bus in folks from out of state to the [Democratic party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner]. We didn’t bring in out-of-state activists to the Heartland Forum.”

In fact, Clinton is counting on the support of some out-of-state students attending Iowa universities. Sarah Sunderman of Iowa State University, who was announced in a news release as a leader of the “Hill Yea” Students Leaders for Hillary, told the Des Moines Register in October that “she will drive back early from her home in Minnesota to take part in the Jan. 3 caucuses.”

Chris Dodd for President Iowa State Director Julie Andreeff Jensen said in a statement on Saturday:

“I was deeply disappointed to read today about the Obama campaign’s attempt to recruit thousands of out-of-state residents to come to Iowa for the caucuses. … ‘New Politics’ shouldn’t be about scheming to evade either the spirit or the letter of the rules that guide the process. That may be the way politics is played in Chicago, but not in Iowa.”

I see no evidence Obama’s campaign is trying to get volunteers from other states to come here for a short time and then caucus on January 3.

Julie Andreeff Jensen worked on John Kerry’s campaign in Iowa before the last caucuses. She must be aware that there were college students from other states who caucused for Kerry.

Shame on the Clinton staffer who accused Obama of trying to “manipulate” the caucuses. It is totally legitimate to encourage your own supporters to come back to their college campuses for caucus night.

If Obama wins the caucuses, Hillary’s going to have to come up with a better excuse.

I'm going to have to catch the rerun later on C-SPAN. If you saw the candidates speak, let us know what you thought.

Noneed4thneed is posting his thoughts at Century of the Common Iowan:

http://commoniowan.blogspot.com/

UPDATE: If you’ve seen the Brown and Black forum, share your thoughts here as well.

Ben Smith of Politico broke this story, but Josh Marshall's team at Talking Points Memo is doing the most follow-up. (By the way, Josh should get the Pulitzer next year for his coverage of the Bush administration's abuse of power in firing U.S. attorneys for political reasons.)

Anyway, click the link. It turns out the NYPD didn't just drive Rudy to visit his girlfriend, and didn't just drive Rudy's girlfriend when he wasn't around, they also sometimes drove her friends and family in a city-owned car. 

Also, New York City cops sometimes walked her dog.

No way can Rudy's campaign last another month. 

UPDATE: Take a minute and fourteen seconds out of your life to watch this video.

I was raised by a Rockefeller Republican. Some Bleeding Heartland readers are old enough to remember what they were like. There are some still around in the Republican Party rank and file, but not many among public figures. You hardly ever see them in the news, except in a story like this one, where they complain that no presidential candidates are seeking their support.

I went to college in the late 1980s in Massachusetts, where most of the Republicans were like my dad: liberal on social issues, for protecting the environment, somewhat conservative on economic issues, but not supportive of supply-side (aka “voodoo economics”) either.

There was a very close gubernatorial election while I was living in Massachusetts, and a lot of liberal Democrats voted for the Republican, William Weld–just like my mother, a lifelong Democrat, used to vote for Bob Ray in the 1970s.

I lived overseas for most of the 1990s, and when I returned to Iowa in 2002, the biggest change (aside from the ubiquitous SUVs and minivans) was in Republican culture. I was aware of the religious right’s growing power during the 1980s, so I knew the party had become much more conservative. Chuck Grassley, considered a right-winger when he was elected to the Senate in 1980, was considered a moderate Republican two decades later.

But I missed the talk radio explosion during the 1990s. Watching Bill Clinton’s presidency from afar, I could tell that there was a lot of over-the-top Clinton hatred among Republicans. But I had no idea of how the Rush Limbaughs and Michael Savages of the world had changed the core values of so many conservatives.

If you haven’t seen it already, check out the piece Joe Klein wrote after he attended Frank Luntz’s focus group of Republican voters during the latest GOP presidential debate. Here’s one key passage:

In the next segment–the debate between Romney and Mike Huckabee over Huckabee’s college scholarships for the deserving children of illegal immigrants–I noticed something really distressing: When Huckabee said, “After all, these are children of God,” the dials plummeted. And that happened time and again through the evening: Any time any candidate proposed doing anything nice for anyone poor, the dials plummeted (30s). These Republicans were hard.

I am not at all surprised by the focus group’s mean-spirited reaction toward any mention of a program that helps the poor. Today’s Republicans are told repeatedly by their opinion leaders to be suspicious of anything that would spend their tax dollars on poor people.

If you heard about a plan to require lead testing for all Iowa children, you might ask some questions: is lead poisoning a big problem here? What health and behavioral problems does it cause? What proportion of kids are already getting tested for lead? What are the main sources of lead poisoning in children?

In contrast, look at this young Republican’s knee-jerk reaction to the news that a Democratic legislator wants mandatory lead testing in Iowa:

Another example is a bill that requires mandatory testing of children for lead. Odd bill I thought. Why would this be such an issue? Until Representative Ford tells a sob story of a child in his district that ate paint and got sick. Blah, blah, blah…kids could get sick…and apparently it’s the state’s job to baby-sit every child in Iowa. Though I can’t help but wonder what dumb child would eat paint! And what irresponsible parent would not know their child is eating paint?

Impressive combination of ignorance and heartlessness there, you have to admit. We must be vigilant against any attempts to protect children’s health! Never mind that a lead test is much less expensive than paying to deal with developmental disabilities caused by lead poisoning.

Getting back to Klein’s piece about the Republican focus group that watched the debate:

But there was worse to come: When John McCain started talking about torture–specifically, about waterboarding–the dials plummeted again. Lower even than for the illegal Children of God. Down to the low 20s, which, given the natural averaging of a focus group, is about as low as you can go. Afterwards, Luntz asked the group why they seemed to be in favor of torture. “I don’t have any problem pouring water on the face of a man who killed 3000 Americans on 9/11,” said John Shevlin, a retired federal law enforcement officer. The group applauded, appallingly.

Part of me agrees with Todd Beeton’s reaction to Klein’s commentary:

Truthfully, this could only come as a surprise to someone who dismisses principled criticism of the right by the left as “partisan bickering;” someone who, for every criticism levied on the right, feels the need to balance it out with a similar criticism of the left as though both parties, both sides were created equal. No, Mr. Klein, they really are out of their minds. Welcome to the world.

In fairness to Klein, I know intellectually that a lot of Republicans hate any programs that benefit poor people, and particularly the children of illegal immigrants. But I can see how it might be shocking to sit there in a room of typical conservatives and see them frown on a politician pointing out that immigrants are also “children of God.”

For me it remains beyond belief that so many conservatives, who ostensibly believe in individual liberty and small government, have no problem with the United States torturing suspects who haven’t been charged with a crime, much less convicted.

I don’t know what can be done to steer mainstream Republican culture back toward constitutional values and limited government power. Any ideas out there? Would a big Democratic election victory in 2008 bring back the Bob Rays, or would it just convince Republicans that they need to be more like Tom Tancredo?

P.S.- I was checking in with the Edwards supporters in my precinct a few days ago, and one of them told me she recently saw a car driving around the Des Moines area with an “Impeach Hillary” bumper sticker. The deranged Clinton hatred among some Republicans is remarkable.  

Sorry, I don't have a link for this story–I just heard about it from someone who teaches at Drake University in Des Moines. Apparently a faculty member in the political science department was able to convince Drake administrators to open the Olmsted Center on the night of January 3, when the dormitories will still be closed.

So if students want to come to Des Moines to caucus and then camp out in Olmsted with their sleeping bags, they will have a warm and safe place to stay.

Of course, Drake students from other parts of Iowa may prefer to caucus in their home towns, and Drake students from far away may have friends in the Des Moines area to stay with.

But kudos to the Drake administration for giving students who want to participate in the caucuses another option. 

Students out there, who besides Obama has significant support in the Drake student body? I'm curious about Republicans as well as Democrats. 

UPDATE: The Des Moines Register ran this story on Saturday about efforts to get college students to caucus:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

Well, I thought Rudy Giuliani’s campaign would go down in flames because of his connections to the federally indicted Bernie Kerik, or because he blew off attending the Iraq Study Group meetings in order to give $100,000 speeches.

But little did I know that the mayor billed city agencies for his security detail during daytime visits to his mistress and allowed said mistress to use the New York Police Department as her “personal taxi service”.

The guy is more brazen and corrupt than I ever imagined.

Anyone think his campaign can last until January 3?

UPDATE: Keep an eye on Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo blog. His crew are digging into various aspects of this story, and he is posting frequent updates:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

This weekend the Democratic candidates for president will be cris-crossing the state, particularly around the Des Moines area to attend several debates and forums hosted by a variety of groups.

First, early Saturday afternoon, five Democrats (Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, and Barack Obama) will face questions from real folks from around Iowa at the Heartland Presidential Forum which is hosted by Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, the Center for Community Change, and a variety of other organizations.  The format differs from typical debates as the candidates will be on stage with real people who tell their stories and ask their questions, hoping for a direct answer.  You can find out more about the event here.

Later that evening is the Iowa Brown and Black Presidential Forum, affiliated with Urban Dreams and broadcast live by HDNet television.  All eight of the presidential candidates will be participating in the debate live at North High School in Des Moines.  More information here.

Finally, next Tuesday is the NPR/Iowa Public Radio Democratic Presidential Candidates’ Debate which will be broadcast on NPR and be available as a webstream on NPR’s website.  The six major candidates will be participating.  You can submit your questions for the debate here.

Are you planning on going to these debates?  Or watching them?  If so, feel free to blog about about them here.  We want coverage and we want your thoughts.  Who seemed the most real?  Who had the right take on the issues?  Who did the audience respond to?  These are questions that committed activists like yourselves can answer better than the political pundits and the campaigns themselves.

One more quick question: Have any of you loyal readers heard about the problems involving the Brown and Black Forum that Chase Martyn writes about here at Iowa Independent?  I know that members of my family have been looking for a way to purchase or get tickets to the event (being families from the area with children at North High–the location housing the event–should be a pretty good reason) but the only information they could find is calling Urban Dreams.  When my family member called Urban Dreams earlier this week, they had no idea how the tickets were being distributed.

Any ideas?

I didn't watch the debate, but the consensus on the liberal blogs seems to be that Huckabee did very well.

I have been saying for months that we are in a world of hurt if Republicans nominate Huckabee, particularly if we end up having to run Hillary against him.

Anyone out there watch the debate? What did you thnk? 

UPDATE: Over at Daily Kos, grannyhelen posted these hilarious YouTubes of a woman in CNN’s focus group of undecided Republican voters saying that after watching the debate, she leans toward John Edwards:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

When the presidential candidates release plans to deal with important issues, such as education, global warming, or veterans’ affairs, the Des Moines Register more often than not buries the story in the middle pages of the Metro Iowa section.

That is especially true for the second-tier candidates.

Tuesday morning I picked up the Register and saw a photo of Chris Dodd and Joe Biden on the front page of the main section. Wow, that’s unusual. But what do you think the story was about?

Both Dodd, a senator from Connecticut, and Biden, a senator from Delaware, each are hoping to emerge and knock out a front-runner. But both facing an increasing amount of questions about whether they are different enough for voters to tell them apart.

Increasing amount of questions? From whom? I talk to Democratic caucus-goers literally every day, and while I have heard undecided voters praise Dodd and Biden many times, I have never heard anyone express concern that they may not be different enough for voters to tell them apart.

The Register goes on to tell us that Dodd and Biden get along well, charter planes together sometimes, and are “old school” senators. It mentions a recent Saturday Night Live sketch making fun of their similarities and quotes experts suggesting they are political insiders who lack “sex appeal.”

I expect meaningless process stories from most of the national press corps, but couldn’t the Des Moines Register at least pretend to cover the substance of the campaign on the front page?

Haven’t the Register reporters who cover the town-hall meetings and house parties all over this state noticed that caucus-goers want to hear where the candidates stand on the issues?

That is especially the case for the second-tier candidates, because most Iowans are less familiar with their records. Dodd and Biden have plenty to say about how they would govern and what their priorities would be–not that you’d get any idea about that from the article.

I noticed this quote near the bottom of the piece:

Kathy Elsner, a dentist in Des Moines who supports Dodd, said voters should look seriously at people running for president, and not just their campaign style.

Please, Des Moines Register editors, take Elsner’s advice and assign your reporters to compare and contrast the candidates’ proposals for dealing with the issues.

cross-posted from MyDD and Daily Kos

I’ve noticed a meme developing in the blogosphere, that John Edwards supposedly is only attacking and not providing any positive message for his campaign. I encourage you not to confuse what you read on the blogs (reports by journalists obsessed with process stories or diaries based on a campaign press release) with what Iowans have been seeing and hearing from Edwards lately.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, volunteers hand-delivered the 80-page policy book containing details on Edwards’ proposals to thousands of Democratic households in Iowa.

Since late October, active Iowa Democrats have received direct-mail pieces from Edwards about once a week. I diaried the first two of these, about his biography and his most important policy proposals and about his plan for Iraq. Since then, he has sent out a mailer on health care, a Thanksgiving card, a piece on proposals to benefit American families and a piece on providing a better life for our children. At the bottom of this diary I will reproduce the text of one of these mailers, “Fighting for American Families.”

But before I do that, I want to talk about a theme underlying Edwards’ communications with Iowans, which I believe will resonate with caucus-goers.

More is after the jump.

Oprah will travel to Iowa to campaign for Barack Obama, and his campaign has come up with a counter-intuitive way of doling out tickets that is either brilliant or foolish:

In a news release announcing the events, Obama's campaign said tickets to the Iowa events will be given first to precinct captains, then campaign volunteers, then to supporters and undecided caucus-goers.

 

It said volunteers can be guaranteed a ticket by completing a four-hour volunteer shift or attending local caucus training before the event.

I would never have thought to do this. When a big event for John Edwards is planned, I try to get as many undecided voters from my precinct to attend as possible. I figure, it's more helpful to put undecided voters at an exciting event than it is to pack the room with supporters.

Obama's campaign seems to have calculated that if they can get hundreds of supporters to step up their involvement by becoming precinct captains or volunteering for at least four hours, that will eventually bring in more caucus-goers than they would win over by putting several hundred undecided voters in front of Oprah.

On the other hand, isn't the whole point of Oprah's visit to excite and win over women who may not ordinarily be engaged in politics? Maybe having her address a roomful of fired-up Obama volunteers is not the best use of her star power.

What do you think–brilliant or foolish? 

UDPATE: Tom in the comments says volunteers will get preferred seating, but that others will be able to attend Oprah's events in Iowa too. 

I think Barack Obama made a mistake earlier this year by proposing a health care plan that was less than universal. First Edwards and later Clinton outflanked him on that issue with proposals that would cover every American.

So speaking to voters in Council Bluffs, Obama made the case against mandatory health care insurance:

Health care insurance should not become a government mandate, Barack Obama said here today, referencing plans posed by John Edwards and Hillary Clinton.

Obama said such mandates for health care coverage is a wrong step. He told a crowd of about 350 people at Thomas Jefferson High School that his plan would lower costs on average by about $2,500 per family, making health care affordable for all without placing demands.

He compared Clinton and Edwards’ proposed mandates to car insurance, noting that some states with required auto insurance still have a pocket of 15 or more percent that still go without coverage even though it’s illegal.

“Their essential argument is the only way to get everybody covered is if the government forces you to buy health insurance. If you don’t buy it, then you’ll be penalized in some way,” Obama said. “What I have said repeatedly is that the reason people don’t have health insurance isn’t because they don’t want it, it’s because they can’t afford it.”

Of course many of the uninsured cannot afford coverage now, but many are currently uninsurable, which would change with better regulation of insurance companies and more options for the public (such as letting people buy into a public plan).

Also, the Edwards and Clinton plans include many things that would lower premium costs, making it easier for more people to afford coverage.

The experts on health care policy say you need mandates to get everyone covered. But even leaving that aside, Obama ignores the fact that the president has to set the bar very high in terms of what he asks Congress to pass.

Maybe a comprehensive universal health care plan would not pass during the first year of the next administration. But you don't take the compromise that you might need to settle for and make that your starting offer to Congress.

I have written about this before. My biggest concern about Obama as potential president is that in his desire to appear post-partisan and conciliatory, he would give half the game away before negotiations with the other side begin.

If Obama won't even submit a universal plan to Congress, then what he would get out of Congress would be even less than what he is advocating.

Now, the conservative New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper has praised Obama's health care plan as “a smaller pill to swallow” (hat tip to MyDD user “silver spring,” a Clinton supporter). Of course, conservatives would prefer not to do anything to expand health care coverage. If I'm running for president in the Democratic primary, I don't think I want Republicans praising my health care plan because it does less than other Democrats' plans.

UPDATE: Ezra Klein, one of the blogosphere's leading wonks on health care policy, weighs in on “Obama's excuse”.

Come on, no one wants to take a stab at answering my two trivia questions? Watch the Chris Dodd video a few posts below, then try to guess which Iowa county voted for both JFK in 1960 and Bonnie Campbell in 1994.

Also try to guess how many counties Bonnie carried in that 1994 election (out of 99 total). 

I have to hand it to Hillary Clinton's campaign. This is a good video:

Exercising is hard. Dancing is hard. Singing is hard. Caucusing is easy.

It's important to let people know that they can show up at the precinct caucus. Just last night I ran into two people I know who are fairly politically informed. I asked them if they caucused in 2004. They didn't because they are registered independents, and they never got around to changing their registration. I told them they could change their registration right there at the caucus–they had no idea. If they had known, they might have come out in January 2004.

With the caucus set for January 3, I am not expecting a big turnout, but I give all the campaigns credit for trying to get new caucus-goers involved. That will strengthen the Iowa Democratic Party.

UPDATE: At Iowa Independent, John Deeth noticed something I missed in the video:

http://www.iowaindependent.com…

1:23 in: “Bring a friend, a family member or a neighbor.”  Sure, the more the merrier — as long as they live in your precinct.  Your across-the-street neighbor might caucus somewhere else, and your friend who lives across town almost certainly will.

He is right–Clinton’s campaign should not be encouraging people to possibly bring friends and family to the wrong precinct location.

A few years back I sent a small donation to Bev Harris's group Black Box Voting, which was investigating alleged electoral fraud. Since then I've been on their mailing list. I haven't donated again because I have read about controversy surrounding the group and the alleged evidence they have produced.

The latest fundraising letter from Black Box Voting arrived in my mailbox today. The letter opens with this passage:

Dear Patriot, 

Black Box Voting has been examining checks and balances for the Iowa presidential caucuses.

What we have found is grim: The Iowa caucus system lacks critical checks and balances. In reality, political party machinery controls procedures, documents, voting machines (yes, the machines are used in the caucuses in many locations), and chain of custody. This means that political party machinery has ultimate control over results.

-Unlike publicly run elections, Iowa caucuses are not subject to Iowa public records laws.

-Results for the caucuses come in precinct by precinct, but Black Box Voting has learned that these results are not committed properly into permanent public records at the time they are announced and a complete set of the recinct results can be very difficult to obtain. Even when individual precincts are carefully monitored by attendees, tracking down discrepancies for the whole chases a moving target–that is, if you can get a detailed accounting at all. Not acceptable!

-Use of voting machines in caucus and upcoming primaries: Manipulation of voting machines can achieve wholesale alteration of election results. The mechanisms are easier to understand when you watch the detective story as it unfolds in the HBO documentary Hacking Democracy. (See below). Computerized voting is locked into 2008. Paper trail? Necessary, but doesn't guarantee honest elections. Manual spot checks? Nice, but don't guarantee honest elections. The biggest risk is insiders, who have access to voting machines and ballots.

The letter goes on to say that Black Box Voting has designed a “Caucus Watch Project” for Iowa citizens. They don't give details in this letter–it seems that you would have to fill out a slip promising to volunteer in order to find out what they have planned.

I am not going to send them money or volunteer for this “caucus watch.” First of all, I am not aware of voting machines being used in any precinct caucus. Someone correct me if I am wrong about that, but at the caucuses I've attended, individuals count people in each group and report the numbers to the precinct chair, who calculates the delegate equivalents using a pen and paper or a manual calculator.

No one fills out a ballot or feeds any paper into a voting machine that I have seen. 

Second, I think this fear-mongering about “insiders” tampering with the caucus results is unfounded. The caucus is public, and the results at each precinct are announced to all who are present. I will be “watching” my precinct in my role as precinct captain for the Edwards campaign.

Precinct captains will report the results of their caucuses to the various campaigns, which will keep track of how many county delegates their candidate has won from the precincts.

I think it would be hard for party insiders to alter the results at the county level without one or more campaigns becoming aware that they were being cheated.

That said, I do agree with Black Box Voting that the Iowa Democratic Party and the Iowa Republican Party should make precinct-level results publicly available to allay any suspicions about the process. 

Side note: has anyone out there seen this HBO documentary Hacking Democracy? I am interested, but I don't want to send Black Box Voting a contribution of $45 or more (they are giving away the DVD to all donors at that level). 

After shattering one-day fundraising records on Guy Fawkes Day (raising more than $4 million), Ron Paul supporters are planning a $10 million “tea party” on December 16, the anniversary of the famous anti-tax revolt in Boston. They are collecting pledges at the Tea Party '07 website.

I see Ron Paul yard signs and bumper stickers every so often in the Des Moines area, but I have no idea how active the campaign is here. He seems to be putting most of his effort into New Hampshire.

Anyone else seeing signs of a Ron Paul revolution in Iowa? The gang at Iowa Independent put Paul fourth in their Republican power rankings–ahead of Fred Thompson and John McCain.

Thanks again to Katerina for sending me the cached page with the 2004 Iowa caucus results by county. I contacted someone at the Des Moines Register, and they fixed the page so that those results can be seen again:

http://www.desmoines…

In case anyone wants to check how the candidates did in this or that county.

Keep in mind that in 2004 there were 3,000 state delegates up for grabs; this cycle there will only be 2,500. So the counties are assigning different numbers of state delegates than what appears on this page.

cross-posted at Daily Kos and MyDD

Field organizers for the presidential campaigns in Iowa have many jobs, and one of the most important is lining up precinct captains. Mike Lux laid out why Precinct Captains are the Key at Open Left this summer, emphasizing what these volunteers can do for their candidates on caucus night.

In this diary I will focus on how precinct captains can help their candidates during the weeks and months before the Iowa caucuses.

I covered some of this ground in a recent diary on my house party for John Edwards. I think it's worth going over a few points again for readers who don't click on diaries with “John Edwards” in the title.

Political junkies and hacks, join me after the jump.