All eyes are on Iowa these days, as the day of the caucus approaches. The NY Times has a story in today’s paper about those who are excluded from the caucuses. The approach of bringing everyone together into one room for a couple hours necessarily leaves out people who work long hours, parents, people who are out of town that day, those who are housebound or who don’t have transportation to the particular meeting, etc.

I am among those excluded. As an American citizen abroad, I vote where I last lived in the States: Iowa. However, there is no absentee option for the caucuses, so I am out. However, I think the exclusions are even more broad than the Times suggests. I only attended one (Democratic) caucus, but my experience was so disappointing.

Drawn in by the romantic image of small groups gathering together to make important political decisions, I was so excited to go that I dragged my Canadian husband along to see what it was like, even though he couldn’t participate. I’m glad he was there, but only because I needed someone to share the disaster that unfolded.

First of all, I was very pregnant at the time, and there were not enough places for everyone to sit down. I stood around fwatching my ankles swell. You know how people always complain that New Yorkers won’t give pregnant ladies a seat on the subway? Well, the same goes for Iowans at a caucus, I’ve found. After an hour or so, I just walked up to someone and asked them to let me sit down. Although that was a major breach of Midwestern etiquette, it worked well enough to get me a seat.

The most frustrating part of all that standing around was that the caucuses turned out not to be a participatory process at all, for the bulk of us who were there. All of the participation was in the hands of the precinct captains (I think that is what they were called), who represent the supporters of various candidates, negotiate with each other, and sometimes switch their allegiances as it becomes clearer who is not a viable candidate. The rest of us were just pawns, sitting around waiting to be counted a few times. To add insult to injury, we had to sit in the area that indicated our support, so as the negotiations of the few unfolded, we masses had to move around the room.

My limited experience suggested that, rather than a participatory, interactive process, it was a few local patriarchs who had all the power. If I were still living in Iowa I’d probably go again, because I’m a sucker for democracy, but I can’t say that I’m happy that this is the process that makes such a significant contribution to selecting presidential candidates.