Iowa Caucus

So, did everyone but me know how all of this works?

I have always lived in states where there are primaries, and I blithely assumed that a caucus was pretty much the same as a primary, and that an older word was used for the fun of it (kind of like how Louisiana has "parishes" instead of counties). But I was watching the news the other night and they started talking about "old style democracy" and standing under banners and other things like that. So today, I looked up the Iowa caucus and damn it's cool!

For the democratic party (which I am a part of - shocking, I know), each caucus goer stands under the banner of the candidate they want. People who are undecided can mill around and be persuaded by the supporters for different candidates to stand under a particular banner. Eventually a halt is called to all of this, and there is a head count. Any candidate that has a certain percentage of the vote (15-20%) is considered "viable". Those with less are declared inviable and their supporters have to stand under the banner of one of the viable candidates. After that, there's some more convincing and cajoling, and ultimately another head count is taken. All of the head counts are reported to the state and and overall count is made and the results are announced.

I want to participate in a caucus now! It almost makes me want to move to Iowa.

...

(I said almost.)