Republicans planning 'super caucus'

Republicans planning 'super caucus' and preparing for date changes

Iowa Republicans are hoping to get extra national attention on caucus night -- whether that's Jan. 14 or New Year's Eve -- by clustering some caucuses into "super caucuses." The hope is to get presidential candidates to attend and speak prior to the vote.

In the week leading up to the Ames straw poll, it's easy to forget that Saturday's vote is supposed to be a preliminary event to the precinct caucuses. But at the local level, activists like Todd Versteegh of Johnson County are doing the prep work for caucus night. At Monday's Johnson County central committee meeting, Versteegh presented a preliminary list of sites.

The preliminary site list, still subject to approval, includes a “super caucus” that puts all six Coralville precincts at the city-owned Marriott Hotel. Versteegh, a former Johnson County chair now working for the Fair Tax campaign, said the state party is encouraging such clustering in Johnson County and other counties. “We want to show that Republicans are active in traditionally Democratic Johnson County,” he said. “Coralville has some of our stronger and better attended precincts.”

If all goes as envisioned, all Republicans at a super caucus center would begin the evening by meeting in one big multi-precinct group to hear speeches from candidates or surrogates. People would then break out by precinct into smaller rooms for voting, platform and other traditional caucus activity. “Nothing has changed except that they’ll meet as a group first,” said Versteegh.

Even the smaller rooms need to be bigger than they were at the last contested caucus in 2000, said Versteegh. “I don’t want a situation of 40, 60, 80 people squeezing into a room that fits 20 comfortably.” The Johnson County GOP has reserved spaces at many locations for both the currently planned Jan. 14 date and for Dec. 31, 2007. “The date may be changed yet, obviously,” said Versteegh. “Some of these states have been jumping like hot cakes, and we need to be prepared.”

The party has also scheduled training for caucus chairs beginning in October and November. “So if, heaven forbid, the caucuses are in late December," said Versteegh, "people will be prepared.”