I've been watching the "fascinating" Iowa Caucus coverage. The Iowa Caucus is an event that comes before their nomination convention, and winning it carries no immediate delegates. Basically, everyone shows up to a public place, stands next to the fold out table of their favorite candidate, and raises their hand. It comes across as one step above a straw poll, just held at a much more crucial time. I guess its a little more formal than that, but.. I feel sorry for the people who had to work tonight and couldn't attend -- basically, they get no voice.

We sure do put a lot of stock into it though. It's seen as the ultimate spring board into the New Hampshire primary (the first actual primary).

To give you an idea of just how small the Iowa Caucus actually is -- the total state wide turnout is less than just the Republican turnout in Miami Dade County in '06. Or try this -- there have been more absentee ballots requested in the state of florida by Republicans already for '08, than the entire turn out of both parties in Iowa. (I use republican numbers just because that's what I have access to, serves as an illustration for both parties).

Here's where it gets even crazier -- over $50 million was spent in Iowa just on T.V. ads. Compare that to 2004, when $9 million was spent on TV ads in Iowa. Most of the campaigns have hundreds of people on the ground in Iowa. Hillary Clinton's camp said they had 5,000 people just to drive people to the polls (I'm sure they were volunteers, but.. just pointing out the amount of focus put into it).

So much attention, and so much money, for absolutely zero delegates, with New Hampshire right around the corner (the 8th?). Only one candidate rejected the notion of Iowa outright -- Rudy. He spent today campaigning in New Hampshire and Florida instead of Iowa. In years past, this would have been seen as completely crazy. This year the primaries are so close together, it's only a little crazy. If it works, will Iowa start losing importance? I mean, the entire thing seems incredibly silly. Why are we still doing this in 2008? Isn't it supposed to be the future?

Anyway, the biggest story of today is that a black man won an Iowa Caucus. He didn't just win. He spanked Clinton and Edwards. Iowa is a state thats something like 95% white. We're not a perfect nation, we have our share of problems, but it would seem to me that we're certainly making progress.

The next story is Huckabee. Huck was outspent 10:1 in Iowa by the Romney campaign. Romney has been on the ground for over a year in Iowa and has spent the most money there. Losing after that much effort seems like it speaks volumes. We'll see if voters in New Hampshire agree.

Speaking of Huckabee -- Anyone see Chris Wallace call Ed Rollins (Huck's chariman) out onto the carpet? Ed went on about how Huck didn't go negative and how that helped him win, then Chris asked him if the blog post on townhall.com was true and that they were planning on going negative in south carolina but making it look like they weren't (sneaky politician crap). Ed admitted that the blog post was true, and then man, I thought Ed's head was going to explode. Chris basically proved that Huck's campaign wasn't all that innocent in how they went about the whole pulling-the-negative-ad-but-we're-still-going-to-give-it-to-the-press-anyway thing. As far as politics go, thats about as good of TV as it gets. I'm sure a dozen people will post it on YouTube tomorrow.

UPDATE: That was quick.

Too funny to not share.

Kiel was able to score a couple of VIP passes to the Republican Debates held here in Orlando on Sunday night. Massive, massive thank you to him for bringing me along.

It was a pretty crazy event. We went early enough to walk around, take it all in and talk to some folks. The whole political process, when viewed up close, is extremely surreal and probably the best people watching you can possibly ask for. Some of you know what Kathryn does for a living, but for those of you that don't... well, I've been around it in some shape or form for a little while now. Seeing it all take place in our hometown, and being right up close to all the candidates at once though, was a really cool experience. Kiel and I had 5th or 6th row seats with our names on them, which meant that we were just to the side of the moderators (crazy close) and were probably the only "commoners" in the immediate area.

I won't go into how I feel about various candidates or anything like that (if you like politics, feel free to ask me in person.. I've grown immune to discussing it and keep a pretty open/even mind), but afterwards we walked up to the stage where a couple of the "2nd tier" candidates were hanging around conversing with folks. Gov. Huckabee, who has been gaining momentum lately, was one of them.

I previously mentioned that he's a member of the same college fraternity I was active in back in the day (TKE). I think his son is an active member and he was brought in as an honorary, but I'm not sure the details. I was having trouble getting his attention (he had a really big crowd around him) and his handlers were trying to walk him off the stage. I finally shouted, "Good luck, Frater!" and he turned around with "Are you a teke?! God bless you, frater." and reached back to shake my hand. Yeah, I slipped him the secret cool guy handshake. That's how we roll. I'm not sure he caught it though ;)

I have always heard stories of how President Reagan would go out of his way to shake hands with tekes, and I'm sure every frat has their own similar story. With Reagan, the line is that he's the only president to have visited a fraternity house while in office (Fundraiser at Purdue, I believe), and he mentions TKE occasionally in his diaries. He remained active in the fraternity as an alumni pretty much until he was completely unable. I've seen his signature on a letter to TKE as late as 1999.

It probably seems extremely silly to the vast majority of folks, heck, it seems silly to me simply writing about it, but it makes for fun conversation. I've served as a Chapter Advisor (up at Maryland) and occasionally try to help mentor/advise some of the guys down here at UCF (just for good karma, not in any official capacity). Alumni stories help inspire kids to over achieve (one less game of beer-pong, one more hour of studying.. or, you know.. not.. whatever). "Look what this guy, who you have something in common with, has been able to do." I now have my own first hand account to share and can quit making it all up as I go along. Rad ;)

Anyway, the day was a lot of fun. If I understand correctly, Democrats are refusing to campaign in Florida over some political beef with the state party (translation: if you're a dem in florida, your primary vote no longer counts for anything). Seems a bit short sighted to completely boycott such a battle ground state. If this election comes down to Florida again, and Dem's lose, they officially have no one to blame but themselves. It also would have been hella' interesting to compare/contrast similar events from different sides of the aisle. Maybe next time around...

I stumbled across this while searching the TKE.org site for an old friend of mine. Kind of fun.

YITB, Frater ;)