Caucus

On Tuesday, Colorado and Minnesota will hold their Republican caucuses, either confirming or casting doubt onto Mitt Romney’s lead. But why some states hold caucuses instead of primaries –  or in the case of Missouri, use both –  in order to determine how many delegates they’ll send to a party’s national convention is largely a matter of […]

The next stop for GOP presidential hopefuls is the Nevada caucus on Saturday. Unlike contests in the East and  Midwest, the Silver state’s largely libertarian voters are less interested in social issues and religion and more concerned with gun reform laws, jobs, education and immigration reform. The latter point is particularly tricky: while Latinos generally don’t […]

Friday South Carolina will hold the “First in the South” primary. Since 1980 the victor of the South Carolina primary has gone on to win the presidential nomination. But the Palmetto State is sharing the limelight this morning with the Hawkeye State as the miscount in Iowa has skewed the results of the first GOP […]

Like the Iowa caucuses before it, the relevance of New Hampshire’s primary has been questioned because of the state’s 94 percent  white  population. Major demographic changes are taking place across the country, increasing diversity in regions that have not traditionally been destinations for Latino immigrants, as well as the shift of affluent, northern-born  African-Americans to the south. The […]

What would an  anthropologist make of the curious ritual of the Iowa caucuses? Part town meeting, part beer party, part coffee clatch with hot dishes, the Iowa caucuses may seem like an odd way to elect a politician to an outside observer. Every four years, the world media tries to  decipher  the curious liturgy of this bit of […]