What an interesting evening in Iowa!  I went to the Republican Caucus and Greg went to the Democrat.  Greg called when he got to his and told me that they had set the church up for 100 people and 280 were there!  Ward II met at the Methodist Church for the Democrats and all of the Republicans met at the high school.

The Republicans were, as typical, very quiet, hesitant to speak up.  That is until the choosing of the representatives for the County convention when this dweeb that was in charge of informing the people about the process couldn't be heard by anyone!  I mean, those sitting right in front of this guy, John something, the research director for PII, told him to speak up.  He didn't.  Then one guy stood up from the top row and asked if there was anyone there that could explain what the heck this guy was trying to say.  After he said, "I can't speak any louder" I thought, geez, what a wrong choice for this position!  So, I stood and explained the process of the convention, the requirements and the options for change.  I got thanked and a little applause.  There were so many first time attendees there that it was critical that they were told what the process entailed.

The result is that I am one of the 7 delegates to the county convention.  I must admit, it felt really good to be back in that world, if even for a little while. 

It is also exciting to see the number of first time attendees that were there!  It was exciting to see the excitement, the energy that came alive and the people that got up and told why they feel their candidate should get the vote of the people.  No one was particularly persuasive, they were just people talking about what they believe so it was good.

Greg said that 45% of those attending his meeting were people that had never voted before, they registered when they arrived.  This is something different in Iowa than in other states, in a primary state you have to be a registered voter to participate in the election process, in Iowa, you can register at the caucus and participate.  You can also change your registration at the site, go from one party to another for the caucus and then after the caucus you can change back to the other party or as an independent.  It's really a neat thing because when you vote in the general election you don't have to vote a party, you can chose whomever you want and no one knows, that beautiful!

With Obama winning the Democrat ticket and Huckabee winning the Republican ticket it means that the people of Iowa definitely want a change in Washington.  With the Congress having an approval rating of just 22% and with the Presidency at 36% it is obvious that something is not setting well with the country faith in the leadership. 

It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks.  Biden and Dodd have already announced that they are dropping out of the race, it sounds like Thompson will too.  The picture will change now as voters that were supporting them move to another candidate.  But then, none of them really had much support so it won't make a huge difference I guess.

With Hilary coming in third in Iowa one has to wonder what Vilsack will do now.  Tonight I heard a guy say that he thought that if Hilary won Tom would be her Chief of Staff.  Now, I have far more faith in Tom than I do in Hilary so I guess that would be OK, but I doubt that Hilary will be able to choose anyone because I don't think she has a shot, thank goodness!!

So, Iowa has spoken, the nation has listened and we will watch and see the results in 5 days.