TIS:
Thanks for your interest. The primary/caucus process is a very interesting process. Unfortunately, many Iowans don't know how the democratic caucus functions (the GOP one is simple), and therefore I think their attendance mixed with their ignorance is counter-productive. It's as JFK said, "The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all."

Basically when you arrive, you sign in as a blank supporter (I filled in the bubble for Joe Biden). You want to show up early, so you can get more supporters and look like you have support. They don't allow anybody else to sign in after 7, when it begins. Then you form your preference group, and who ever is in charge counts up the numbers. If your group doesn't have at least 15% to be viable, you have 30 minutes to get people to join you. This is where the people from Iowa are stupid. My cousin Joshua is a firefighter, he caucused for Dodd. Dodd, in his precinct, needed one more person to be viable. He saw Edwards had many people, so many to where he was viable and had delegates. If Edwards would have lost one person, it would NOT have affected him. So Josh (being precinct captain), asked the Edwards group for one person. The Edwards people were being stubborn, and didn't leave their candidate, thus Dodd was not viable, and his supporters had to disperse so it appeared he had NO support.

It's just horse shit really! It pisses me off because the national news media plays it up like the primary process starts in Iowa because we're so elite and wiser than other states' voters. I'm thinking if that were true, we'd at least know how our own caucus process works.

The reason the caucus starts in Iowa is because Iowa's lobbied for it for years (since it began in 1972, I believe). The reason the media and the state will claim it starts here is because our state is a swing state. We have a democrat and republican in the senate (Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin), we have 3 democrats and 2 republicans in the house. Plus we're considered "common people" out in the heart land, not the New England intellectuals, Hollywood liberals, or southern "values voters". I'm not denying this fact, I'm just saying I think money speaks louder than anything.