Caucus Effect

My friend Emily Thorson has trained in the twisted logic of managing an Iowa caucus and has this to say about Clinton's New Hampshire rebound:

The TV coverage I've been watching has implied that New Hampshire is a crazy comeback surprise and Iowa is somehow the "real" result. I think they're wrong. Iowa is the anomaly, because of the bizarre public forum that is the Iowa caucus. You know why Hillary does worse in a caucus? Because women who are leaning Hillary go to the caucus with their husbands, and he says "Let's go for Obama" or "Let's go for Edwards" and she says "Well, all right then" because she doesn't want to spend the next hour sitting alone in the Hillary group. I've sat through a caucus. This is how it works.

Clinton herself mooted that theory, I believe.

Comments

If this were true--and I'm sure that, like all such meta-narratives, it isn't--what would it actually say about the strength of character of women who caucus in Iowa?

Sounds to me like Emily Thorson has an awfully low opinion of women.

Posted by marcj | January 8, 2008 10:23 PM

Didn't Obama get a lot of students out to caucus? How much of an effect did husbands really have? Not much I bet. Besides, wasn't the DMR poll pretty accurate as far as the final results go(meaning percentages each candidate received)?

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | January 8, 2008 10:24 PM

The publicity of a caucus would also, presumably, lead to a *reverse* Bradley Effect.

Posted by Qwerty | January 8, 2008 10:30 PM

I don't think so. What I think we're seeing is the fact that because the polls were going so well for Obama, a lot of Independents felt Obama didn't NEED their support, whereas McCain did. So they flipped and went for the guy they'd like to keep around.

Posted by Max Gross | January 8, 2008 10:30 PM

i'm black. felt hopeful, a part of the american family for the first time. thought my fellow citizens had finally turned a page. but no. we are still the ultimate others. white americans will lie when they enter and exit the polls, ashamed of their racism.

black people should wake up. we are not a part of the american family. we should barter our votes. huckabee got 40% of the black vote in ark. why? we do not have to vote for hillary and should not! look at how bill turned on the "kid"--a grown man and former U Chicago law prof. donna brazille (not my favorite) called him out for his condescension and racism.

i will never vote for clinton. never. i have voted in every race since i was 18. south carolinians--black south carolinians--vote carefully. the clintons only respect your subservience.

Steve Gilliard RIP.

Posted by jay | January 8, 2008 10:31 PM

Pumpkinhead just said on MSNBC that exit polls suggest that 57% of the primary voters were women, and it was either women in general or maybe single women (I couldn't quite hear) broke 51% - 30% for Hillary.

NBC just called it for Hillary.

Posted by El Cid | January 8, 2008 10:34 PM

"Steve Gilliard RIP."

Come off it. Steve would have been all over the bullshit media coverage of Clinton's debate performance and tearing up. He would also have been critical of Obama's conciliatory rhetoric.

Posted by AlanD | January 8, 2008 10:38 PM

I think it was the pushback against the media response to her crying. The ladies were pissed that "the boys" made fun of her for crying thinking that there was a double standard. If a man had cried publicly, he would have suffered greatly. She benefited because of her sex.

Also, there may have been the whole public vs private racism angle.

Posted by ben | January 8, 2008 10:40 PM

Well, does this suggest the secret ballot lets people vote for who they truly want to vote for? And if so, is it a good thing? Clinton seems to believe so in regards to Iowa vs. NH.

Does this suggest anything about preserving a right to a secret ballot in union recognition votes?

Posted by stefan | January 8, 2008 10:42 PM

Clinton herself mooted that theory, I believe.

Yes, and was rounded ridiculed for it, as I recall.

As an aside, I'm a colleague of Emily's sister, and I find this post amusing -- this sort of ground-level, pragmatic argument is exactly the kind I couldn't imagine her making on this issue.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra | January 8, 2008 10:50 PM

The exit polls say that the Democratic voters considered Obama better able to beat a Republican than Hillary - at the same time half the women were voting for Hillary.

So this means a significant percentage of those women were voting for a candidate they expected to lose.

Nice logic, huh?

This is why democracy will never work - because the people are morons. (Of course, no other system works either, for the same reason.)

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 8, 2008 11:07 PM

Remind me--who was it that was sniping at who about identity politics?

Posted by ben | January 8, 2008 11:09 PM

With regard to the polling, it would be very interesting to split that open. However, a couple more structural thoughts. Caucuses prioritize the enthusiastic and those with disposable time and energy. Both these factors favored Obama. As witnessed by the enthusiastic crowds he gets everywhere, but especially NH and Iowa lately, he has the more energized supporters. Second, regardless of how big the support operations, it seems that caucuses would definitely cut against depress working class and lower income voters. These people have jobs and schedules such that they may not (a)pay as close attention and (b)clear a couple hours in their nights to go out and caucus.

It seems that Clinton did very well not only among women, but among the working class and lower income again. These categories are not mutually exclusive, and I think that is important as well. If you are a single mother, are you really going to caucus? Are you going to entrust child care to some political volunteers who are essentially strangers? Some sure, but some surely not as well. This gets us back to the wine track vs. beer track narrative. It also, importantly, gets us to low information voters, where the Clinton name alone is a big draw. She racked up her big tallies in apparently urban and ethnic Manchester and Nashua.

Bizarrely enough, and this will likely be the last time I say this for awhile, but David Broder may have recognized this best: "The outcome of Iowa's first-in-the-nation voting is skewed by two big factors. The turnout is ridiculously small, barely 20 percent of the eligible voters. And those who choose to caucus are hardly representative of the population as a whole." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/02/AR2008010202489.html

I think it still sets up well for Obama with the growing percentages of African-Americans that will make up the Democratic primary in forthcoming states where he figures to rack up big numbers to add to his youth and affluent numbers. And he is in far better shape than before either Iowa or New Hampshire happened. The question is: can he survive a low information wave as we move to states where every candidate will have far less time, energy, and money to direct per voter.

Posted by dynamicinfo | January 8, 2008 11:12 PM

The exit polls say that the Democratic voters considered Obama better able to beat a Republican than Hillary - at the same time half the women were voting for Hillary.

CNN's exit poll page actually shows some really interesting breakdowns on this question, and on other questions about which candidate is best on various things. Hillary did a great job of retaining her supporters -- 36% of those polled said she had the best shot in November and 88% of them voted for her. Conversely, those who think Obama is best in the general (46% of total) only voted for him at a 71% clip. There is a similar pattern on most honest, strongest leader and (shockingly) likely to unite the country.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra | January 8, 2008 11:21 PM

Or could it be that it's easier to mask your racism in New Hampshire's anonymous primary?

Posted by thehova | January 8, 2008 11:28 PM

My wife and I support different candidates, and if I tried to tell her not to caucus for Hillary, she'd have me sleeping on the couch. I'm not sure she's wholly atypical.

Posted by Steve | January 9, 2008 12:09 AM

This is a really dumb theory.

Posted by bob | January 9, 2008 12:31 AM

If women aren't tough enough to vote in Iowa, they're certainly not tough enough to preside in Washington.

Posted by aleks | January 9, 2008 4:43 AM

Ok that theory sounds intuitively moronic to me [and explicitly insulting, which is irrelevant], but is there any data on married vs. single women in the Iowa Obama/Clinton results?

Posted by Phoebe | January 9, 2008 5:49 AM

Phoebe--

That's exactly the right question. Anyway, yes, there is such data http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21225980/

and the data demonstrate that the theory is crap: Clinton won (albeit by a small margin) among married women in Iowa, but apparently lost among all other women, since she lost women overall.

Posted by marcj | January 9, 2008 7:46 AM

Please. This isn't the 60s. Yes some women today will go along with their husband, but the vast majority--and certainly more politically active ones--will vote for who they want to.

Absolute stupidity.

Posted by jenn | January 9, 2008 9:06 AM

I've sat through a caucus. This is how it works.

This has the ring of an anecdotal piece of "evidence." It must have happened at her caucus, but there were about 1,700 (IIRC) statewide. What basis is there to declare this was a statewide trend? Also, if someone (woman or not) is willing to shift her support because she doesn't want to sit alone for an hour, that's pretty soft support to begin with. And can't they just talk to other Clinton supporters instead of their husbands? Do they lose their ability to socialize when separated from their husbands? These women sound extremely timid to me.

Posted by ibid | January 9, 2008 11:51 AM