What is the point of the Iowa caucuses?

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

The other thing to remember though is that Huckabee won in '08 and didn't come all that close to the actual nomination and McCain ended up 4th.

Yeah, this is why it confuses me as to why it's important. Although Julia's explanation makes sense in some ways. It's like, don't completely lose, etc.

I also remember them saying that moderate candidates don't do that well in Iowa since usually the more passionate people in either party are the ones who actually vote.

[civilspouse]

We are in Iowa now. I don't know why they get all this attention and go first, but it has been really interesting to be here. We went to the democratic caucus four years ago and then the republican caucus a couple days ago. It was really interesting to see the differences between them and be a part of the process.

[oceanchild]

We are in Iowa now. I don't know why they get all this attention and go first, but it has been really interesting to be here. We went to the democratic caucus four years ago and then the republican caucus a couple days ago. It was really interesting to see the differences between them and be a part of the process.

So did you change your registration, or are they open caucuses?

[civilspouse]

We had to re-register with the different party each time. You can do it at the caucus and then we just usually change back to no party affiliation afterwards.