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Short Stuff: The Iowa Caucus · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Josh. Let's get it started. Yeah, let's get it started.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: And here got timely episode. We are rarely recording to
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: release the next day. So I was like, hey, man,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: let's do something super newsy. What's something that's super newsy
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: that's not impeachment? And uh, it turns out that the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Iowa caucus is getting a little news. Yeah, just a tad.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: It's crazy, like we thought that we would have the
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: results to talk about. Nope, I know because I pitched
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: this yesterday and the day of the caucus, woke up
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: this morning too S show and Iowa as the headline
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: cluster f crazy. Yeah, but um, we're talking about caucuses
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: in the Io caucus, uh, and why it's important and
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: where it came from. We should define caucus because a
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: lot of people think are just like, what does that
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: even mean? Well, I mean, for good reason. It's it's weird.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: It's kind of an old timey thing, a relic, and
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: that's hill still in use in Iowa. Uh, caucus that
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: was a meeting. This is the strict definition websters to
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: find caucus as a meeting in which local members of
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: a political party register their preference among candidates running for office,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: uh or select delegates to attend to convention. Right. But
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: the thing about a caucus is it's not like just
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: going to vote, that's a primary. A caucus is where
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: you are physically present in the room, like that meeting
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: you described, and the way that you show at least
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: as far as the Democrats caucus in Iowa, the way
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: that you show you are planning to support or vote,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: most normal people would call it for a candidate is
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: you go stand in a portion of the room that's
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: been set aside for that candidate supporters and their names
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: like on the wall or something like that. It's so
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: needs to go away. Okay, that's just step one. That's
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: my opinion, of course. But it's just so dumb. Okay,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: it is such a dumb way to do it. And
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: you can tell, like I was fiercely defensive about its
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: caucus tradition, I don't, I don't. I don't want to
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: go on record as saying like I don't know if
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: it's going to survive, and you know, until it is
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: under some serious threat of not more, it's more it's
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: more at risk than it ever has been after last night. Yeah,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: ironically by trying to modernize caucus. Right, So we'll get
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to all that. Okay, So so you go stand by
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: your delegates name, and if enough other people who are
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: present at that caucus go stand with you by the
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: delegates name. That delegate is a viable candidate. Usually that
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: means they have about or more of the room. Yeah,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: if your candidate that you want to go stand under
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: a sign of in a high school gym is not
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: considered viable, you can go join another group. You can
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: try and recruit people, say hey, man, stand under this sign,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: come ye, or you can go home if you want
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: a right, that was my candidate. Right, there's only like
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: eight other people here standing under the Yang team sign.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Yang had more than they. Yeah, of course you did.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I think you're thinking of Biden. But yeah, that is
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: how they run. The Democrats run the Iowa Caucus, Republicans
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and the GOP or the Republican National Convention. They they
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: just vote like a regular old primary. Right, And like
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: you were saying, ironically, they tried to modernize the caucus,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: the Iowa Caucus, and that's what caused this huge problem
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: with an app isn't there right. Well, originally they were
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: going to have virtual caucuses. They decided not to. The
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: the d n C rejected Iowa's planning to have a
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: virtual caucus where you could go online and be like,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I'm standing in the yang Gang room, so I'm caucusing
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: for yang Um. This was This was rejected by the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: d n C S two. They had too high of
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: a potential to be hacked. But they still did use
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: an app to tally these delegates and apparently it was
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: not doing what it was supposed to do. At least
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: this is the official line. Um. Everybody is saying, No,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: it's everybody from Russia to the d n C engaging
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: all sorts of terrible stuff. Regardless, this app apparently really
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: screwed up the caucus and in an attempt to modernize
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: the caucus, that actually set it back, possibly drove it
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: to extinction. Yeah, I mean, they're saying the app did
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: not crash, and then there's other people saying the app
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: totally crashed, So I don't know who to believe. The
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: long and short of it is, we usually wake up
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: on the following day of the Iowa Caucus with a
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: decent idea of who the top three candidates are are
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: going to be going into primary season. But we woke
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: up this morning with no idea and I just looked
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: on my phone. The breaking news is that in two
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: hours from now, they will have fift of the results
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: released by five pm Eastern. Yeah. Usually you don't even
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: have to wait. Yeah, you wake up and you're like, okay,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: but no, no, I mean, like like you don't even
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: have to go to sleep. They usually report within a
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: couple of hours. If you're in the eastern Eastern time zone,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're in the Western time zone, you
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: might know like you're in a cheeseburger getting all the results,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, so it's been a big embarrassment. Um,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: But maybe we should take a break and talk a
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: little bit why the Iowa Caucus is important. To begin with,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: it's not, alright, Chuck. This is one thing that that
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: makes the Iowa Caucus so at risk right now because
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: of this um problem that came out of caucus. Okay,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: it is artificially important. The Iowa Caucus is not actually,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: when you dig down into it, substantially important in any
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: real way. It is important, but it's important because the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: media has made it important over the years. That's right.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: It is. Uh, well, first of all, it is it's
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: not the most diverse state in our union. That's one
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: criticism of the Iowa caucus. Yeah, I saw like apparently
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: the caucus goers were white. Yeah, largely rural bunch of
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: white people standing around in gym. Yeah. Uh, I know,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: but people and I are going to be so mad
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: at us, but it's antiquated. I'm sorry, I saw, I
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: saw that. They're sorry, just real quick. Two things. Last night,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: there were at least two ties, and so to figure
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: out how to divide dell it gets to break, a
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: tie of coin was flipped and a name was drawn
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: out of a hat. Wow, that's how they broke ties
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: with the Iowa caucus last night to decide delicates for
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the state. Okay, I'm sorry, now that's that's unbelievable. But
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: then again, what's more diplomatic than a coin toss? Then
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: get any more than that? Are you ready for some football?
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: So two, Senator George McGovern was running for president. Uh,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: he did a pretty good job at the Iowa Caucus
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: and that was good for his campaign. And it was
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: sort of the first year that the media really put
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: a lot into this On reporting on it, and I
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: think from like V two is sort of looked at
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: as the watershed moment of when the media would come
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: out the next day and start start saying things like
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: dark horse and front runner, and the media has it's maddening,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: but the media has such inf elements on the way
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: people vote, and not just by saying like here's sus
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: person's policies. Is people saying like, oh, I don't want
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: to vote for the dark horse, sure, and like who's
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: the front runner? I might be interested in that person precisely.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: It's absolutely true. It's all fake. They can influence voting
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: um or caucusing, not just by releasing polls, but by
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: withholding polls. Right. So um, this nineteen seventy two is
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: a big year. And the reason why it's because it
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: was the first year that Iowa became the first in
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: the nation. That's why I was sure. It's the first
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: time that voters have any chance anywhere in the country
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: to say, this is what I think about all these
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: primary candidates who have been jabbering at each other the
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: last few months. I'm gonna stand over here, We're gonna
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: see where the rubber, right, We're gonna see where the
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: rubber meets the road for the first time. I was
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the first at that and it became first for two reasons.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy two, the GOP decreed that you had
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: to have you had to give thirty days notice before
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: any kind of um, any kind of caucus or primary
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: was held, and apparently that meant that Iowa had to
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: move their caucus closer to the beginning of the year.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: And then secondly, they couldn't get a hotel for the convention,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: the Iowa State Convention at a time when they wanted it,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: so they again had to push the caucus back, so
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: it inadvertently became the first in the nation. And they said, oh,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: everybody's paying attention to Iowa. All of a sudden, We're
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: getting a disproportionate amount of interest from the national press
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: from these candidates that are coming to town spending money
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: um and we have influence politically because they're going to
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: listen to us. So we're gonna make a state law
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: that says Iowa has to be the first contest in
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: the nation no matter what, doesn't matter what any other
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: state does, Iowa has to figure out a way to
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: be first, Which doesn't mean there is a some sort
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of federal rule that says you go first. That just
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: means it. In Iowa, they're like, well, if New Hampshire
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: wants to move it up a week, then we'll move
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: it up. Yeah, it's a state law there, and New
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Hampshire has a state law as well that they're the
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: first primary. That's right. That's how i was gotten away
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: with it. There a caucus. New Hampshire is the first primary.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire is like, we vote, we don't go stand
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: around in a gym. I saw a tweet apparently the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire Democrats tweeted to the Iowa Democrats and said,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: don't worry, We've got this. Really yeah, man, they So
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: that is why the Iowa caucus became such a big deal,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: because their first. Because the media has an outsized influence
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: on elections. Whether or not it matters is a matter
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: of debate. Um. In the history of the caucuses, you've
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: never gone on to win the nomination if you finished
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: worse than third. But there have been cases where Bill
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Clinton placed third. Uh, And you know, so it's not
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: like you gotta win Iowa. Look what happened to him. Yeah,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: to term or impeached. Right, we went through it all.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: He went through it all, the highs and the lows,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the good and the bad. Right. George McGovern the first
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: candidate in ninety two when Iowa was like the first
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: it was big, a big deal for the first time.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: He came in first second, but and he got the nomination,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: but he didn't win the presidency, So it's not necessarily
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: that could have an indicator. Jimmy Carter won the presidency?
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Did what? What place did he come in? Chuck, Well,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: apparently he did a really good job at Iowa, because
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: he spent a lot of time there stumping for a year.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: But it says that he was actually beaten by uncommitted
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: So the people who said that they hadn't chosen a
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: candidate yet outnumbered anybody supporting Jimmy Carter, which makes sense.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: But when you just hear it like he got beaten
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: out by uncommitted, it's even that's so Jimmy Carter. It
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: really is. It's so nineteen seventies six Jimmy Carter, because
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: that guy has turned into one of the greatest statesmen
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: in living in Saints Great American history. The best thing
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: ever is being a like at a Braves game when
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: they showed Jimmy and Rosalin are at the game and
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: they're like oldest dirt and they always give each other
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: a kiss and everyone in the stadium melts. I know,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: it's amazing. And she's always like got She's always cheering
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: on a hot dog or whatever, and she has to
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: like stop and swallow before she'll give Jimmy a kiss back.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: It's it's their thing. The other thing about Iowa is
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: if you don't do well there, then you might drop out,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: or if you do surprisingly well there, um, then you
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: might you know, that could kick start or very much
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: will kick start your campaign again. So now we've reached
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: why Iowa is actually important. But again this is artificial
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: because the media putting labels on people. So the media
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: basically says, hey, this candidate is expected to do really well.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: If that candidate doesn't do well in Iowa, the media says,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: this is not a viable candidate. You should drop out.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: That actually causes funding to dry up for the campaign.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give money to someone who's not viable, right,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: the media said they're not viable. And then conversely, like
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: you said, if somebody is not expected to do well
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: and then does really well in Iowa. There can of
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: pain can just take off. That's what happened to Obama
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: in two thousand eight. Oh Iowa made Obama in two
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: thousand eight, right really launched that campaign. So all of
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: this stuff, again is just self fulfilling prophecy, which is
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: what makes so nuts that all of the Democratic candidates
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: spent so much time and so much money and so
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: much effort in Iowa to get this. I saw a
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: tweet from Glenn Greenwald actually basically laying this out to
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: get this artificial bump, and then the artificial bump didn't come,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: which rendered the Iowa caucus totally unnecessary. The whole thing
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: was unnecessary. I think they're plowing ahead to New Hampshire.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: A lot of the candidates were we're claiming victory and
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: sort of backhanded ways not backhanded, but um just sort
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: of they couldn't come out and say we won. But
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: every single one of them were like, oh, I think
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: we just we did very well tonight. Right, They were like,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: I wanna I want to congratulate my fellow nominees on
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: coming in second. Yeah, everyone kind of claimed victory because
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: no one could not. Everybody claimed victory. Well, some people
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: clearly could not. The people are in that gym uncommitted. Yeah. Um, well,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: if you want to know more about the Iowa Caucus,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: you better find out about it now because it might
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: not be around next time. Maybe not. We'll see what happens.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I guess. Well, let's just say short, stuff appen. Stuff
• 14:27
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