I’ll be attending my first Iowa Caucus this evening. Considering I’ve been a registered voter and resident of this state for at least two decades you might find this admission outrageous. To embarrass myself even further, until this week, I’ve held an entirely flawed idea of the caucus process and what it entails. I thought it was a polling place you dropped into, like a voting booth, and you penciled in your choice on a ballot, the results of which were then tallied and carried forward by our county’s delegate.<\/p>\n
I can’t recall an election cycle when I would have been upset by the caucus results. Editorials written by opinion makers I trust and polling results, which I normally don’t, always factored in the decision to pass on participation. Since both, until now, indicated my preferences were well ahead of the much smaller packs and their alternatives were not so offensive to be a concern, I merely designated the process a 9 or 10 on my list of priorities, the one where an issue doesn’t elicit serious attention from me until it’s at least a 5, and hopefully the next time I check it, the little things have been decided for me. Besides, everyone knows candidate selection may start in Iowa but isn’t really<\/i> decided here, right?<\/p>\n
I’m sure they explained it to me in high school. I was probably fixated on the teacher’s orthopedic shoes and in the midst of teenage angst, smug in the knowledge that the govt. of the people, by the people, and for the people, is about as effective a vehicle for change as those shiny Mary Janes were to the painful bunions they were designed to relieve.<\/p>\n
Now that I know one can present plank proposals for the State platform at these events, I’m about to put the process to the test. I won’t lie and say the prospect isn’t intimidating. You haven’t been checked until done so by a venerable sweatered in L.L. Bean and spritzed in Eternity with an Iowa lineage that predates the Civil War. Wish me luck, or not, depending on your views, but certainly you can appreciate my new found sense of civic duty. <\/p>\n
It’s never too late for an old dog to learn new tricks?<\/p>\n
Democrat info<\/a><\/p>\n GOP info<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ll be attending my first Iowa Caucus this evening. Considering I’ve been a registered voter and resident of this state for at least two decades you might find this admission outrageous. To embarrass myself even further, until this week, I’ve … Continue reading