Many candidates, 1 farmhouse: Politics, Iowa style
Originally published in the Chicago Sun-Times
Many candidates, 1 farmhouse: Politics, Iowa style
January 20, 2004
BY SCOTT FORNEK Political Reporter
FARMINGTON TOWNSHIP, Iowa -- The Howard Dean people were camped out on the burgundy and cream-colored couches in Rose Sessler's living room. On the other side of the room, the John Kerry crowd had the brown love seat and a few folding chairs.
The Dick Gephardt people were in the next room over, between the computer desk and the bookcase and terrarium. The Dennis Kucinich folks were hanging tough by the kitchen sink not far from the John Edwards contingent.
"I was going to put the Dean people in the machine shed," joked Sessler, an ardent Edwards backer.
Welcome to Iowa's precinct caucuses -- farmhouse-style.
Sessler, 49, a widowed special education teacher, was hosting one of about 75 caucuses held at private homes across Iowa. The other 1,922 are mostly held in public buildings -- school gymnasiums, fire stations, restaurants, city halls, even grain elevators. The public buildings provide more neutral territory, better locations and access for the disabled.
"The charm is really in the fact that it's Grassroots Democracy 101," said Gordon Fischer, chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party.
And there was plenty of that in Sessler's two-story frame farmhouse just off a gravel road in this rural area about 30 miles west of Davenport.
A widow and mother of five, Sessler lives in the two-story white farmhouse with her two youngest sons, a Scots terrier named Angus and an orange tabby named Peanut.
It's the fifth caucus the special education teacher has held there. Her past record for attendance was four years ago, when the Al Gore-Bill Bradley race drew 11 people.
One year, she had three -- herself, her late husband, Dean, and a friend.
This time, with the race so tight, she knew she would break that record.
Sessler was so concerned that she had a friend borrow a dozen or so chairs from the local undertaker.
"He's a Republican," said Sheri Heiland, 51, a potter and Subway clerk who served as caucus secretary. "He thought about putting George W. stickers on the backs of the chairs."
She wound up getting 47 people, 20 percent of the 235 Democrats registered in the precinct.
"This is the most I have ever seen in Farmington Township ever," she told the crowd after they counted off. Sessler then explained the complex caucus rules for delegate selection. The precinct had seven delegate slots for the Cedar County convention.
The caucus-goers divided up based on whom they support. Under the complex caucus math, a group needed eight members to get at least one delegate. Any group falling short of that was then fair game for the others, who could try to coax, cajole, flatter or do whatever was necessary to win them over to their own group.
Initially, only the Kerry, Dean and Edwards crowd made the cut. Fourteen were backing Dean, 11 were for Kerry, nine liked Edwards. Falling short were Gephardt, with seven, and Kucinich, with five.
"This is where we make the money," quipped Chuck Cook, 57, a federal worker with a handle-bar mustache from nearby Durant who was camped out in the dining room with the other Gephardt backers.
But as they huddled between the stove, sink and refrigerator, the Kucinich crowd was hanging tough. Even Sessler's son, Andrew, 21, refused to budge.
"You don't get the truck for the rest of the month," Sessler joked.
Mike McKinley, 47, a millwright backing Gephardt, cut through the Edwards crowd on his way to the Kucinich folks. Edwards supporter Donna Schneekloth, a school nurse, grabbed his shirt, trying to get him to stay in their group. In the end, the Gephardt and Kucinch crowd joined together, forming one group not committed to any candidate. They numbered 11, behind the 15 people for Dean, 12 for Kerry and nine for Edwards.
And the Dean, Kerry and uncommitted groups each got to send two delegates to the convention, and the Edwards people got one.
Sessler's fellow caucus-goers gave her a round of applause in the kitchen a few minutes before the two-hour caucus adjourned.
"We need people like you," said Gephardt backer Greg Benischek, 43, an iron worker from Durant.
"That's just to get me to do it again," Sessler said. "It's suck up time."
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