Word: caucus
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...familiar trappings of democracy: no polling booths, no official ballots issued by the state and, for the Democrats, not even a shred of secrecy about each participant's vote. Confusion, even chaos, is likely. In years past, there have never been fully accurate tallies of exactly who the Iowa caucus attendees supported. But like compulsive gamblers playing with a 47-card deck, the press and conventional wisdom makers will somehow manage to anoint winners, belittle losers and quickly rejigger the odds for the Feb. 16 New Hampshire primary and beyond. In a year with no cutting issues or commanding front...
Three weeks before the caucuses, Iowans are still reluctant to pledge their troth or even go steady. A TIME poll of voters who say they are likely to attend a caucus found that only 34% of the Republicans and 36% of the Democrats were firm in their allegiance to a specific candidate. Even the Republican race, dominated by George Bush and Bob Dole, remains difficult to handicap. "There is a very large group of Republicans still undecided, maybe 40%," says George Wittgraf, the Bush campaign's Iowa coordinator. "That doesn't show up in surveys that are 'screened' for caucus...
...left the parents and grandparents behind. Iowa is now the nation's third oldest state. The nonpartisan American Association of Retired Persons, boasting 300,000 members in the state, is spending $250,000 on TV ads and phone banks to prompt older Iowans to make their presence felt on caucus night. Senior-citizen centers are frequent campaign stops, as most candidates vie to affirm their commitment to the sanctity of ever rising Social Security benefits. Only Babbitt, who advocates full taxation of benefits for the affluent, and Dole, who is willing to freeze cost of living adjustments, dissent from this...
...Alexander Haig, who have hoisted the white flag, and Hart and Jackson, who are depending on name recognition and serendipity, the other nine campaigns are following roughly the same strategy: identify your supporters, woo the uncommitted, and make certain to get out your hard-core vote on Feb. 8. Caucus night for the Republicans is generally a well-ordered affair. But Democrats, characteristically, must labor under the heavy burdens of participatory democracy run amok. Caucuses frequently last beyond midnight, as participants debate policy resolutions and try to comply with the party's arcane threshold requirements, which demand that a candidate...
Those changes are marginal, but in Iowa, Simon seems now to have a chance to move ahead. Among Democrats who say they will attend caucuses, he is second. However, when the sample is narrowed further to 213 Democrats who have attended a caucus in the past, Simon rises to the top. He is the favorite of 26% in this group, with Hart second (18%), Dukakis third (17%) and Richard Gephardt fourth (14%). So the Democrats, even more than the Republicans, will be puzzling the question of which partisans in this independent-minded state might actually turn out on caucus night...