Just Because Your Caucus is Held in a Middle School Doesn't Mean You Have to Act Like It.

Happy caucus night, everybody!
It's the first night of the real election season. Everything up to this point - the polling, the backstabby commercials, the name calling - has just been practice. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Iowa caucus. And while a big deal has been made about all of this as an indicator of who will earn party nominations, not nearly enough of a big deal has been made out of the fact that the Iowa Democratic caucus is bad ass.

While their Republican counterparts show up to their polling place, scribble a name on a sheet of paper and head back home to watch some football or milk a cow or what have you, the democrats can't be kept down on the farm.

I had no idea how this worked until today, but people, the Democratic caucus is just like middle school.

The basic premise is this: The voter shows up to the polling place at 7 p.m. The ringleader of this madness instructs people to clump with other supporters of their candidate of choice in specific areas of the room. A count is taken, and those candidates with 15 percent or more are considered "viable" and allowed to stay in the race. The candidates with less than 15 percent are allowed to align themselves with a viable candidate and vote again.

But - before the re-vote, a representative from each viable candidate is allowed to stand up and try to convince the supporters of non-viable candidates to support their candidate. Confused yet?

It gets better. After every camp has been allowed a few minutes for convincing speeches, there's a "realignment" period where the polling place is turned into a giant clusterfuck of people trying to figure out who to cast their re-vote for.

I'm watching the streaming, anchor-free video from CNN.com, and here are some of the things that have happened. (Mind you, I came in right before the pre-realignment speeches).

- The lady giving the Re-Vote Obama speech stood on a table and pointed her finger at the crowd while yelling that Obama is the CANDIDATE FOR EVERYBODY! The speech was short, sweet, and emphatic, managing to draw a loud chorus of booing from every non-Obama supporter in the room as she lightly insulted several of the candidates.

- When Bill Richardson's name was called, a woman who is probably the librarian at the middle school where this particular caucus is taking place read aloud a letter from Richardson. She couldn't have sounded more bored.

- The Caucusmaster (the guy yelling the rules) said that there would be a "30 minute re-alignment period". Someone yelled for it to be shortened to 10 minutes. A vote was taken by yelling "yay!" or "no!", and when that was unclear, a second vote was taken by show of hands. It got voted down, but after more yelling, everyone agreed to a compromise of 20 minutes.

That's where we are now. The Caucusmaster just gave the ten minute warning. I'm anxiously munching on my beefstick, hoping that these nice midwesterners are able to stop yelling for a few minutes and make a decision.

OMG! The Edwards guy has all of his supporters raising their hands, and is making them sit down when he points at them! John Edwards for middle school class president! The Edwards guy is crafty! He's trying to talk Clinton and Obama people into switching.

Five minutes left!

Can I just say that I wish I lived in Iowa right now? Or that Tennessee had a primary process that was just as kick-ass?

Enough blogging. I'm going back to my CNN live feed.

Proud to be an American,
Kerry