Iowa Caucus Day 7: January 3, 2008

CAUCUS DAY! Today is the big dance and I got to start it off in the best way possible. After a grueling week of long hours, thousands of phone calls, a couple hundred of miles driven, and living out of a hotel room, I think we were all in need of some motivation - a little refreshment. Well, there's no person that can energize you more than Fred Thompson on a cold Thursday morning.

At 7:45, I picked up Burger and we headed out to the Embassy Suites for the beginning of Fred's last day in Iowa. Fred was fired up this morning and delivered one of the best speeches I have seen him give since we were in Franklin at Monty Lankford's house. We had about 360 people give Fred about four standing ovations in is twenty minute address. Congressman Steve King was also there to introduce Fred. The energy in the room was electric - and it was definitely the pick-me-up we all needed to go through with the rest of the day.

Once we got back to the office, we made some last minute phone calls in order to get people to come out to the Caucus. Kristen also gave us the address of the precincts that we are going to tonight.

If you all aren't familiar with the caucus process this is how it works:
The caucus is essentially a town meeting, as opposed to a primary which is more like what we do on election day (a long line of people that go into voting booths, get their sticker, then leave). Every caucus starts at 7pm. And each caucus is divided into precincts which are based on county lines. At the local precinct, there is a chair who essentially runs the meeting. At the beginning, anyone who wants to speak on behalf of a candidate may speak. Once everyone has said what they wanted to, the chair moves to vote. Everyone is handed a slip of paper, upon which voters write down who they want to be the President. I should note that the Democratic and Republican caucuses are separate - so each precinct will be all registered republicans or all registered democrats. The votes are then collected and hand counted, sometimes twice, in order to ensure accuracy. All candidate representatives may monitor the counting of the ballots. Once the votes are counted and verified, they are called into the state party who then gives the numbers to the media.

Well, I got to speak at two local precincts (that happened to be in the same building) in Montezuma county. It was truly worth all my time here just to be able to go to this courthouse and speak at one of the most important pillars of our political system. I experienced a huge rush simply from being a part of this process.

I gave a 7-10 minute speech at each meeting. It was great looking at people - people who you could truly tell were undecided - and convincing them to vote for your candidate. I tried to stress a message of hope, strength, and resilience - qualities of Fred that I greatly admire and the message seemed to resonate with many of the local Iowans. Once the votes started being counted, I was so anxious I could barely contain myself. In one precinct, we placed second and in the other precinct, we placed first!

At this time, all the work I had put in for Fred in Iowa culminated to this very moment. There was no more I could do. I had made phone calls, I had driven around the state of Iowa, I had spoken at two precincts and gotten received excellent results. I hoped that the results I saw in this precinct would happen across the entire country.
As I headed back into Des Moines from Montezuma, I was estatic. All of my hard work and dedication had been rewarded with excellent results. I was ready for the Victory Party.

I arrived at the Victory Party at the Marriott, greeted by Woody and Gary Brown. As I got my (well deserved) first drink, I saw that we were in a very strong third place. Alas, we had reached our goal - the chance to stay in there for "the next dance."

Onto South Carolina!