Listening to the ‘controlled-media’ pundits tell us this is the anointing of John Kerry, or other such play making, I wonder at what they were observing. I watched two locations of the Iowaean{sic] caucus this evening, and must beg to differ with any such conclusion.
The first location was in seat of Adair County, which is apparently some elderly ladies home. These had to spend over 15 minutes re-dialing in desperate search of a free line; one not jammed by Republicans calling in to vote for Bush. Finally, the vote is sent, and the totals are: Edwards 3; Kerry 3; Dean 2.
Adjourning to the central meeting room, it is literally held in a home with people along walls of each room, most never even meeting, much less seeing each other in course of the evening. After the Central Committee has to fill all Offices of Precinct Committee, they are told by the elderly matron, Ms. Kareene Eades, “ I want to hurry and get this done and when we adjourn we’ll have cookies and coffee.” She -the Chairperson that is - then has to call out to the Assembly for anyone who knows about a Rule on how to adjourn. After having it whispered to her, she replies, low, but audibly, “Do you have to ratify it?” Being told No, she then has motion to approve results raised, seconded. Asks, who says aye, never recording nays. Then asks to adjourn motion seconded, never voted on she announces meeting now adjourned and what do they do? They applaud her performance of course.
C-Span cameras then go to follow this matron on her journey through each crowded room in search of a corkscrew and a man to open the wine, telling people as she goes, “Wine cheese and Crackers are on the way”. After giving the man she sought the wine, she begins returning from whence she came telling guests as she goes, “Cakes, cookies coming.” As she goes we overhear some of the conversation circulating the room.
You know it has to be about the welfare reform, Immigration Policy, farm subsidies, Iraq and Afghanistan, right? Wrong, and emphatically so. First we hear a young lady telling an elderly gent She, “Can’t even get my car door open.” As the conversation fades we hear, “I hit a deer.”
For those who see this as reflecting America and ratifying Kerry, consider that in this entire home of over 50 people, there was no one member of minority community of any sort, and hardly a person under 60.

Flipping to CNN I hear the pundit tell us how this validates the will of the American people and that we now know, “Kerry is the choice if Bush is not re-elected.” Having nothing better to do, I flip back to C-Span and find the Hostess and Chairperson, Ms. Eades still talking about her crackers and cookies. She calls out to someone off camera, “Mr. Wilson, have you been a good boy tonight? “ Panning over we see it is a small white poodle.
She quickly makes changes without a pause on the important matters of this evening, telling her underlings, “We should take those crackers in the other room.” Apparently she has observed in passing, that there is a shortage of crackers for the meat in the other room. Quick on her toes this walking political barometer of America. Turning to another subject she then says to another, why don’t we pass out napkins and “We could pretend we were civilized.” “Okaaaay”, comes the obedient and immediate reply.
At this point, and I don’t know if it was scripted or just occurred spontaneously, but the camera man pans to a elderly man on a cell phone. We can hear him saying repeatedly into the tiny receiver,“Huh?”, HuHH?
Now we digress to a elderly lady talking to yet another Bush caller, trying to tell him she can’t vote for Bush because she is a Democrat. It debilitates quickly into a group making munching, crunching, and gulping sounds, as dozens of Democrats partaking of the cookies, crackers, coffee, and wine the old lady has been promising all night.
Zooming in to catch a glimpse of the conversation, and hoping it is now a political science is the focal point of discussions, we lean in close with the camera mic, and we hear one middle-aged man to another, “So that spring when I sold a bunch of horses, I had a yearling…” “Oh, my god!” I think to myself in moment of epiphany. This is EXACTLY what the Democrats all over this Country are talking about when they get together to talk about who they support for nomination and why.
It’s drawing to a slow close now. We hear the subtle shuffle of feet – no, that’s slippers – on the tile floor as walkers and the tapping of canes move toward the exit.

Then we go to Dubuque County to see how things are going there. Chairperson, Mr. Jinta is handling things with more parliamentary flair. He entertains motion to send out a list of 10+ pages of resolutions for the Party, as unread/unknown, but voted to be “resolve” to the Party. One lady asks to see or know what there are, and is told they are about 10+ pages long, and “Are you sure?” She lets it go and he gives her a copy to read as they proceed to approve before the lady reviewed them, or anyone ever learned what they had just resolved for the Party platform.
Then, the most Democratic event of the evening occurs when 6 people rise to be nominated for the 5 slots of the Precinct Central Committee. The lady Secretary has to go through a box and finds a piece of paper in a coat pocket of her coat, to count the votes for each. Lo, and behold there are four winners and the fifth position is a tie, meaning all 6 go despite the vote to eliminate one. There then follows by the female ballot counters, al women, if the woman should be chosen since it was not gender balance as is. They are told no by a elderly man, then publish the name of the male instead of the tied female Candidate.
The Precinct Central Committee is voted as approved, and the happy group now vote to adjourn. We hear the call to adjourn as the faithful chant “Beat Bush, Beat Bush, Beat Bush.”
Neeverr mynd.
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