this is iowa and new hampshire because it is where politics really matter. florida, it is all about money. you just heard the callers corporations. if you want corporations to run our elections, have this process start in huge states with expensive media markets. i think iowa has done its job very well and i know it is always fun for people to kick iowa and the caucuses because they do not like who we pick. we take a presidential preference vote. is our opinion. i think it is a great place to start because of the type of state that we are and the seriousness that our people look at it. a candidate like barack obama

has been -- we defy traditional fought for years ago on the republican side and we went with mike huckabee, but a guy like the george w. bush has won. i think we want our candidates to be hard-working and be able to look people in the eye andone basis. i think if we get rid of the hampshire primaries, i think we run the risk of making this all about tv ads and money which is all about influence of big dollar donors and corporations. host: indiana, terry is on our republican line. good morning. caller: i want to stick up for ron paul. people keep knocking his stance

on drug legalization. -- cut the murder rate in half. it would end the drug gangs. my son's jaw was broken by a gang member and he was afraid to tell on them because he was afraid what would happen. i told the police his name and everything. they are talking about the gang issues in the paper. there are something like 28 gangs in this town and they make most of their money from illegal drugs. guest: ron paul is probably the only candidate in the republican field or democratic field that will advocate on the legalization of some drugs, if not all. that is a position that most republicans do not agree with. however, i appreciate the

caller share in his views this morning. host: welcome to the conversation. caller: my comment is i am all for the ron paul thing, and i understand what he is trying to say. what can he really do? what is he going to get accomplished? he is like his only vote sometimes. i mean, it seems like he has a more radical view than everybody. what is he really going to get done? guest: that is a great question i think and one of the things as we have seen some of these candidates start to criticize or highlight what ron paul could actually accomplish as

president. a week ago, we had an intense talk and i what about foreign policy and ron paul, and there was one candidate who said ron paul on his fiscal policy that we by and large agree with past to get congress to agree to pass those and move those things forward which is going to be very difficult. the things he can do are easy. if he is the commander in chief, he can pull back the military and do a lot of things. i think that is why we have seen in the closing days his foreign-policy views have really concerned people because i think they are starting to understand that as president he would have a lot of power in dictating where our troops are and what our posture is in the rest of the world. host: another craig, this one on our democrats' line.

caller: it seems like the republicans are just going through the motions. the good thing about the democrats is they had an infusion of young blood from obama. you have a bunch of old fuddy duddies over there. they are a rehash of what has been going on. if people looked at what on paul supported, all of those caches would disappear. guest: there is nothing you can do about the field. as i travel the state of iowa, i think there are a lot of people who are happy with this field. there is a place for you -- i

think people feel like they can find a home that is a natural fit for them with all these candidates. there are always going to be people dissatisfied with the field, but by and large this is a very good, deep and solid the road and there is something for everyone. host: a couple of predictions from our guest. he predicts that michele bachmann will not win in the county of her birth. he also believes that ron paul will win double-digit counties, and rick santorum will win the most in total. tell us more. guest: excuse me. i am sorry. host: tell us more.

guest: michele bachmann came into waterloo to announce her campaign. the reason i made that prediction is is i think that shows where sheet is strong, it just has not materialized. michele bachmann has had a lot of trouble in the final weeks leading up to the caucuses. i think that she will probably have a disappointing night tonight. we can understand why when we see a major top tier county in the state, she will struggle. even though she announced her candidacy there, i do not see any way she can win it. in terms of other things that i predicted, four years ago, ron paul one jefferson county. this year, i think he is going

to win 10 or 12 counties. he is going to be very strong tonight if he wins urban counties. if he wins second tier counties, i think it will be tough for him. i think rick santorum, even before his surge, i thought he was going to do well in rural iowa so i expect him to win a lot of rural counties. i think he will be competitive with people like ron paul and mitt romney in these urban areas. rick santorum did an outside loop of des moines. he had a huge turnout. i think he is going to do pretty well in urban areas tonight as well and he needs to if he wants to have a chance to win. host: craig robinson, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

>> you just be quiet. you be quiet. >> you do not on need. >> i can tell you right now. >> i will remind members of -- >> i work for the private sector. >> the confrontation at a congressional hearing between don young and douglas brinkley ranked as the fourth most watched the video in the c-span video library. watching yourself at c-span.org /videolibrary. it is what you want, when you

want to. >> president obama back from his vacation will be on the road tomorrow in ohio at shaker heights high school. our route to the white house coverage continues in the new hampshire tomorrow. less than one week from the primary, john huntsman with a town hall meeting. rick santorum in new hampshire in brentwood. we will have that for you live as well. heading into next week's new hampshire primary, a new poll out. lisa tweeting about it has ron paul at 16%, huntsman at 10%. another tweet, mitt romney will do a round robin of five network cable show interviews tomorrow

morning. first time he has done that this cycle. the weather in iowa should not be a problem as far as turnout goes. next up a look at some of the tv ads looking up to the iowa caucuses. >> born and raised in iowa. she fought obamacare as other republicans were cutting deals with obama. she will fight for deep cuts in spending and to restore our economy and to create real jobs and she will never back down. michele bachmann for president. >> i approved this message. >> america is in trouble. >> government has become too big. >> we cannot afford to make the same mistakes we made in the past. >> he went the other way when he got paid to go the other way.

>> this election is about trust. >>it is about serial h ypocracy./ >> ron paul has been so consistent from the very beginning. >> he tells the truth about what he believes. >> he never once voted for a tax increase. >>never once coted for an unbalanced budget or tax increase. >> when he says he will cut $1 trillion in the first year, i believe it. >>if you are tired of politicians, choose something different. >> ron paul. >> ron paul. >> i am ron paul and i approved this message. >>we appreciate you coming out and caring. >> i think we all care right now and we're concerned about our country. i believe in him.

i believe he has the experience. i have seen as a husband, a father, and the governor. everything he does, he does well, and he does with his heart and commitment. if there is a time this country needs mitt romney, it is now. >> it is about saving a vision of america. the challenge of each of us. it is time for this pessimistic president to step aside and let america's optimism to build a greater future for our children. ♪ >> if you can get out of here in this cold and wind, you can get out on tuesday night and you confined eight few people to bring with you -- and you

can find a few people to bring with you. >> coverage getting under way with a review of the day's events and a look ahead to the caucuses tonight at 7:45 of from urbandale. that will be live. all of that tonight on c-span and c-span 2. go to facebook.com for more coverage of the caucuses. plus, the road to the warehouse video clip of the day. add your comments and vote in

our poll question. right now at facebook.com/cspan. >> leading up to the caucuses, in december the scott county republican party held a training meeting. judy davidson hosted the event. this is about one hour and 40 minutes. >> i think we are going to go ahead and get started. thank you all very much for coming. as you be have a great crowd.

i did it tell the community center to set up for 130. when we got here today they told me they only had 80 chairs so we had to scramble. i am sorry for the confusion. that was not on our and appeared we are trying to accommodate as best as we can. i'd like to start by standing and saying the pledge of allegiance. [pledge of allegiance] >> thank you. i know many of you, but many of your new people and i would like to welcome you to be involved in the grass roots process of scout -- scott county republicans.

those of you who served on the central committee for the last two years know who they are, but those who are not. my name is judy davidson. don artega is one of our vice chairs. tom may is one of our vice chairs. melissa who is probably back in the kitchen with registration is our director of social media. jane murphy has also served on our executive committee. i would like to also give a big thank you to all of them. this is a wonderful process to me. it is very fun. it might not be as fun for everybody. the executive committee has really worked hard and getting everything together. especially carol and a chain, i have to mention to all of you, when it started everyone saidit"why does it take so

long?" we have to stuff all of these packets. i really appreciate their help. it is not glamorous work. everybody is a good worker on the executive committee. thank you very much. [applause] i would like to talk about a few general comments regarding the caucuses coming up. if you have not had a chance to meet your counterpart tonight, please try to do so before you leave. as we sent the e-mail to you, the caucus chair, we were saying it was crucial for you to come. secretary is also crucial, but maybe 90% vs. 99%, it was not necessary to attend if you are here, reporters. if you are -- if you have not had a chance to be your secretary or reporter, maybe you could look on your list and find

their names. maybe you could introduce yourself to them. thank you for your service and dedication. i know it is a busy time of year for all of us. january 3 would not have been my choice. unfortunately, florida put us in that predicament. we have all had to step up a little bit. i appreciate you taking time at the busy time of year. this is grass roots activism at its best. you will see a chance to take part in history making. a couple of strategies that we were thinking about this year's caucus i want to alert you of. in terms of projected attendance. in 2008, that was a big caucus here, we had about 5700 caucus attendees boaters. for this one we plan for 20% more. we hope we are accurate and that. we feel very good a about that. that means we are anticipating

more than 7000 caucus voters. your caucuses will be very busy. if he knows of somebody who might be able to help you, as i said we have a caucus chairman, a secretary, and a reporter for all of the precincts. the more the merrier as far as registration process. that is why it would be good to meet your secretary while you are here. we work very hard. todd may was in charge of all the caucus sites. another thing we found out is it is not good to have many caucuses at one building. parking tends to be a problem. registration tends to be congested.

we are hoping that will relieve some of the congestion. please be sure, i have been fighting this is a question when i talked to a lot of people, please try to help spread the word that you do not caucus at the same place that you vote. that is a big misconception. when we talk to people they say to me, i voted imark twain school. do not caucus at the same place. the other thing that is crucial is to let people know that where they caucused in 2010 or 2008 may not be the same place they are this year. we are trying our best to get the word out to everybody through e-mails. we all have two add in the quad city times. i hope they might do a story on all of this. we sent out press releases to all the sites. we are -- we have a block it.

we are tweeting about it. we are doing our best to get the word out. i know that people will still go to some of these sites where they voted or they may be went last year. >> what about putting a sign on the doors of the voting precinct buildings saying that if you voted -- >> we have it. it is in the packet. i will review it a little bit later. we have that in the packet and we will go through all of that later. when we talk about 2008 and 2010, that was another thing that we got comments from people saying they did not know what door to go and, where to go. it was confusing. we have these handy outdoor signs that each of our site leaders -- we have 29 buildings as i said. one person is in charge of each of those buildings.

tonight we will have a 15 minute meeting afterward and i will ask you to take two of these signs and a director. the bricks are in my car. i meant to bring one up to show you, but you can visualize the correct. a couple of the sites we have three signs for. we hope that might help. in your packets as you will see later, we have directional signs and signs that say b4, b5, are caucusing here. we are doing our best to try to alleviate any confusion and any congestion. if something should happen and you cannot serve your role as temporary caucus chair or

secretary, please be sure to give us a call. the earlier we know that we can fill that spot. if something happens that night, if you start throwing up at 5:30, it probably would not be a good idea for you to attend. that is what we headed out the names and phone numbers of your counterparts. if there is a chair that you know -- if it is 5:00 and you could not attend, could you call your secretary or your reporter and they can come and get the packets and take over running the caucus. if in advance you know something will happen, please give us a call at headquarters and we will try to make accommodations to felt that. i am pleased to say we have caucus shares for all of the precincts. we were able to do that. we also were charged with finding secretaries for all of

the precincts and reporters. that is 190 slots, but everybody does have a caucus chair. there might be a secretary or reporter still missing. i am proud of that and that is because of all of these people standing up here. we have all made a lot of calls. i know we are getting tired of calls the last couple of days. i am happy about that. site managers i would ask that you get there at 5:30 and we will go over it afterwards. at recent years, because we are expecting a large crowd i would ask if you could please arrive by 5:30. if you would like to get there early and make sure that everything is set up, the doors will be opened at 5:00. we have found with all of our republican event that republicans tend to get to places early. as early as you can be readied the better. our official word on when we are

letting people in is 6:00. caucasus' start at 7:00. if you get to your building, everything is ready, everything is set up, here site manager is good with it, everything is ready to go and people are standing outside on a cold winter night and is all right for you to let them in early, that is fine. we are not say you have to have them standing outside until 6:00. we are saying that in case there are some problems he might have to take care of -- which we do not anticipate, but the latest the doors will be open is 6:00. the site manager situation is, for some precincts as where k is the only caucus chairman for her precinct, she is also the site manager. we will meet with her for a few minutes and give her -- each side will have a set of maps that are posted back there and

some other things. they will also have extra forms. there are a couple of buildings that have several caucuses. todd, where are you? there are four precincts caucusing there. todd will be the building manager there. all of those people will have -- we will have the merge its ink -- the emergency phone numbers for you for those facilities. if there is a problem with the facility you could call a cell phone number. we will be covered there. the registration process. you must be a registered republican to vote in the caucuses. visitors are allowed, they just cannot vote. if somebody is not 18 but they will be 18 by the november election, they can register and they can vote. if somebody is 70 now and they will turn 18 on november 1 which

is before the election, they can register and vote on the caucus. any questions on that? november 6, i think. i met to put that in there. >> what about registered democrats that want to change? >> that is okay. they can do it that night. we will talk a little bit about that as we go through the caucus back it. you can do same-day registration. there are some things that they need to prove that they are who they are. we will talk about that a little bit later. we have gotten today and yesterday, we will have headquarters doing stuff. we got a lot of calls. people who want an absentee ballot to vote at the caucus. somebody said that a campaign or somebody called them and told

them to request an absentee ballot. that does not happen in the caucus. no absentee ballot voting. you must be at your caucus to vote and you must be a registered republican. any questions on that? you can change, yes. >> a little bit earlier you were talking about opening up -- what do you do with people who come in at 7:30? >> the caucus is called to order at 7:00. depending on how busy the caucuses, maybe you can have a registration person they're like your reporter check them off. it is likely to buy have already done a presidential ballot by that point. if they come light they probably only what to do the presidential ballot. you have to gates that i how busy you are. we will try to have somebody at the entrance to the building all

the time so they can come and change and register. that may not always be the case. you need to be there and be in with the meeting is called to order. >> you are not going to lock the doors? >> know. we will take them. now we are going to talk about the registration process. it is a two-step process. if you look in your backs -- if you look i nyour bags -- thomas can i use your stuff for a second? can i use you as an example? you should have a second procedure. he needs to check into that one right there. can i use this one to show people? you all should have these little sheets.

these little she's came to us today. mary was gracious enough to pick them up yesterday and bring them to us. this was one of our 12 hours of stuffing. these sheets are current registered republicans in your precinct. when somebody came and he should have an instruction for caucus sheets -- signed in sheets. when somebody comes into your precinct, you have your registration forms here. you ask their name. you follow the instructions and i believe you have to fill in the little lion at that they have attended. you also have these instructions. >> those items are in the big

back or the little back? >> the big bag. if they are not on here, then they have to complete the registration form. now, the problem may up core that somebody went to the office between now or the last two weeks ended january 3 and registered as a republican. in a week -- in that case, there registration update probably did not make that list. if they tell you, i am a registered republican and i've registered one month ago, it just has not caught up to this list, they have to register again. it will not hurt them with the register on december 23 as a republican and they do it again on january 3. just have them fill out another registration form. >> we have those forms?

>> north dakota other packet, yes. i will go through the other package. >> are they supposed to fill in the little bubbles like the "y" for yes? >> it says right here, make sure the person is at the correct precinct caucus because sometimes they might be at the wrong one. make sure the spelling is correct. if they are not there to fill out a form, how to sign in on the form, verify their address, fill in the circle with "a" on the right side. if the wrong side and -- here are the instructions about what to do. i would say it would be a good point, phil and the bubble. we did not get new instructions. these are old instructions. thank you for pointing that out. that is the registration to see

if they are registered as a republican. you also have in that bag -- whose are these? you also have and that bag, some of yours might look a little different, just a planar registration form like this. this is for our information. you may notice an e-mail address on that form. there is not on the bubble sheet. i know it is a lot of stuff to fell out. this is not mandatory. you are not required. this is to have their contact information to add to our master list. if it gets crazy and you have 100 people standing there and you want to disregard this, i understand. the additional information form is for our purpose. ok? >> are different people to be assigned to the registration or

one of the three? >> one of the three -- hopefully to double-a-3 of you. >> the you need a number of people to do that? >> yes. >> a lot of people will come early and most of them, all at once. they become very impatient. these lists are incredibly inaccurate. you may have somebody who have lived in the precinct for 15 years and they are not on the list. they will have to sign a new registration form. it sometimes frustrate them. a lot of patients on our part. i will have at least 10 volunteers signing in and i encourage you having as many people as you can with sign and because it will not get started on time. it will make the process prolonged period please start recruiting volunteers for sign and now. >> that is a good. yuri thank you.

you will need more people. you will see an indication of how many you are expecting in your precinct. i will tell you how to figure that out. >> the voter registration form, what does it look like? >> they are in in this package. we will go through that. >> never mind. thank you >> any questions about -- what we are covering is a state registration form and our information form. maybe we should call it that. people have come in, registration has gone gray, everybody knows where they are going to be, and they are at the right side to. >> what if they are not at the right side? >> we will go through that in this package. now, we will start going through this package. put all of your registration stuff a way and take out the

stuff from your other package. >> have them signed and on the car forms and checking these here, did not have% and on our

forms? >> there is not an e-mail address on there, is there? we want to their e-mail address. if they do not want to mess around putting their address and everything on, at least ask if they can put their debts and the bill addresses. that is how we are primarily communicating with everybody. try to put a name and an e-mail address. i said it would have been nice to have e-mail addresses right on there, but that did not happen. that is why we have additional ones. >> are you saying you cannot ask them to add their e-mail addresses? >> know. >> i would have them do it while they are registering or signing in. i have them take the form and have somebody responsible for collecting it later. that will slow down the process. it is amazing how long this can

all take. it can be time-consuming. >> when the caucus are, you can pass it and people can fill in as they are sitting there. that is fair -- that is fine as well. i do not want you to get hung up on that form. if there is a choice of getting people in and getting it going on time, that is a priority. if you have a bottleneck and these are becoming too much of a pain, take them into your caucus. when it starts, pass them iran and asked if people can't complete them. any other -- passed them around and ask if people can complete them. any other questions? ok. i apologize. everything and everybody is packet is not necessarily in the same order. i will give you time to find them as we talk about it. i would suggest people out the

orange sheet. that is what we will go through right now. does everybody have one? yay. we will go through the agenda to see if there are any questions. you are the temporary chairs until you are voted in. you start the meeting. you say you are the temporary care, the pledge of allegiance, the purpose of the caucus is to conduct a presidential poll. elect precinct and county convention leaders as you will see as we get further on in the agenda. make sure everybody has signed in on the computer sheep. if somebody has not signed and they need to do so. if they are not on the computer sheet they need to complete a republican registration form.

when you are signing people and, you need to give them two things. when they give you their completed republican registration form or you sign them off on that sheet, you can hand them a presidential ballot which is in your packet. may i see that for a second? that is not it. s?y i see your ta we estimate 20% more ballots for everybody than 2008. if you look on your rubber band here, carey says she is precinct's share for d-82. that is the number recalculated on. that is the 20% higher in attendance. you can look at your number and you know how many you might expect that your caucus. ok.

if by chance -- let me move on to this first. then you give everyone a packet of these colored package balance. i have to thank the republican women who were here that spent probably about 12 or 16 hours stapling 7000 of these. >> i was one of them and i did not get any. [laughter] >> de you have them? ok. we will get some to you. they are in a little plastic bag. these are to be used for -- if you need, you may not use them. there are a couple of other votes happening during the caucus. you have to vote for your permanent chair and secretary.

you have to vote for precinct chairmen and the county convention chairman. most of the time you can just do that by a hand and vote. most of the time there is not a problem. if for some reason because there is a lot of interest this year in what is happening at the caucuses -- if there is a contested race for a precinct chairmen or county convention delegate and those who are trying to get to those positions would like a written ballot, you have seven different sheet of color. i say, ok. we will vote for precinct cheer people. everybody take out your pink sheets. that is how you can keep that straight. when they signed an order when they have filled out a completed voter registration form, and that should be on your oranges

she, give them one presidential ballot and won other ballot. is that yours? so the temporary chair calls the meeting to order. yes? >> 4g few of you who are not -- >> there is a sheet and there on that. >> there is a yacht who yells division of the house, then you have to do the voting. >> there is a sheet on that. then your first order of business is to elect a permanent chair. in most cases it should be all of you because some of you were precinct elected officials are ready for the scott county republican central committee and you are here tonight. you're going to the process of the caucus chairman at training. since we have called and made all of those of pop --

appointment, that should be the case for all 63 but not necessarily. you ask for nominations and you as a temporary tariff should be one of the first ones. there should not be a problem with that. the secretary then a record to that on form a. yes? >> can we nominate ourselves? >> yes. you do. you are putting in the time tonight so i think you should have the honor of doing it. you count the votes and declared the winner. then you move onto secretary. everybody has a temporary secretary. same procedure. ask for nominations from the floor. perhaps the caucus chairman might nominate a secretary that we have called on and asked them to dedicate their time. they put it on a vote and put it on form a again.

one of the new positions of the state party asks us to find this year is a reporter. i wrote this long before i was happy to say be are pretty much filled except for four slots. if you do not have a reporter, you might ask somebody to serve as a reporter. they do not have to be elected. their only job is to call in at the results of the presidential ballot. that should be fairly easy for somebody to find. most people you will find are there at their caucus for the presidential ballot poll. it is unfortunate to say, but sometimes people leave after that. before the presidential balloting, we will ask them, again, to help us to help with

all of the cost that cost to put -- run the facility. if appropriate for you, if you could hold up the bag and tell them a it will be passing in a round. if people have that $5 or more -- >> or less. >> if everyone gives $1 and we have 7000 caucus attendees, i will jump for joy. we will not say that. we will save maybe they can throw in a $5 bill. if you could throw and $1 or $5 as an example. explain to them we do not receive outside funding. we have to raise every penny that we earn. this whole process cost us a lot of money. pass in a round accurate clocks

at one time we did take personal checks. >> that would be fine. >> also, write your basic number of on the corner of your back so you know. >> it is not necessary, but if you want to that would be fine. if you want to do that right now you could put that on there now. >> [unintelligible] >> if they give more than 10, they are supposed to write their name on the back. we have to report that for disclosure. >> i need one. >> you need one? you can have this one at the end. i will give it to you. questions? >> what if they give more than 10? >> 10 or 1. >> $10 is fine. >> then we will move on to the

petition papers. some of you have the your packets petition papers from candidates. they look like this. you may not all have the same ones. we have representatives running in the 2010 election. some of your precinct's may be appropriate for them and some may not. if you have a petition papers to have two choices. you can either pass them around at this point or you can put them in the registration area for this to sign. that will cost -- that will be another thing for them to sign. i would suggest passing this the route and having people sign. it gives them the names that they need to be put on the ballot.

conduct a presidential poll. everybody should have a ballot already. each presidential campaign is a loud one representative to speak on behalf of that can it -- campaign. five minutes per person only. they do not have to take five minutes, that is the maximum. you should ask if there is anybody here for -- of would go in alphabetical order. we are starting with michele bachmann. is there anyone here from they bachmann campaign? you have five minutes to speak. they need to be given the same opportunity. after everyone has a chance to speak, how people vote. >> if somebody asks -- as long as they are not going over five minutes, somebody will say can

this person talk for a few minutes as well? >> know. >> ok. >> only one person only. there are a few congressional candidates that will make the circuit. those candidates are not allowed to speak. if anybody comes to your precinct and says i am running for state representative or senator, can i talk for a few minutes -- the answer is no. if they give you a hard time are anything called one of us or refer them to -- they can talk to us. >> am i being told that one person can stand up and speak for their candidate? one person? >> yes. most campaigns will have identified somebody to do that. most campaigns are working hard now finding somebody to eat their read a letter on behalf of the candidate -- to read a

letter on behalf of the candidates. if you want to be that person, you can be but you should contact their campaign. >> that is not the way it was the last caucus? >> yes, it was pierre >> not at my caucus. >> that is how it should have been. you could have somebody -- you could have nobody there for bachmann but somebody feels compelled to speak on her behalf, that is okay. that could very well be the case. but most campaigns will have contacted somebody to speak or they will have a prepared a letter to read it. if not, offered the opportunity to somebody else. it can only be one person. >> the cheers do not make a speech. i would suggest it is inappropriate for the present

chairman to promote a specific individual. >> appearance or try to find somebody else? >> it is a boy's got rolled. >> i was going to say the same thing the other person was talking about. in the last caucus i was contacted through their campaign. i really did not do much but speak at the caucus. i was the only one who spoke and i can get it one in my caucus. that was really interesting to me. i was definitely contacted through official channels. >> is it ok for the secretary? >> i think so, yes. >> if there would be two people who want to speak for somebody, you flip a coin or arm wrestle? >> they will have to figure it out. any other questions about that? >> if you have more than one

person who wanted to speak and they get testy, then what? >> then you would pick them. only one. you can do it by alphabetical order or however you want. just do it in an ambiguous way. easily that does not happen. >> rock paper scissors? >> yes. >> i was told that you could be a tear and speak for a candidate. >> well, i think -- i think if you are the only person who wants to speak, i would say relinquish your job as the chairman for that particular time. that would be ok.

>> i am having a problem with this. if these people are going to make an effort to come out in cold weather to a republican caucus on january 3 and they are going there to speak their piece and they are not allowed to speak, i am concerned about that. >> they are not going there to speak. this is a state party rule. they are going there to vote. it is a state party role. i am sorry. they are going there to vote. you could be there all night. >> that is the way it was at the last time. we had to agree between ourselves to will read the letter. >> ok. we are going to move on. >> if you do have more than one, what is the why? >> is a state party rule.

they sent me a e-mail. every candidate has one person and five minutes. if there is a problem with that, they can call the next eight to the republican party of iowa or contact your site manager and we will have them contact the state party. that is what all the candidates -- that is what all the campaigns have been told. it should not be a surprise to any of the campaigns. they have all been told that. we are trying to move on so we are not here all night. regarding no. 10, you take all your balance. you can go count them. each campaign, and again, has the opportunity to have one person observe the counting process. we have, the candidates? i should know by now a. we have eight candidates.

the caucus chairman is counting with a reporter. you could have eight observers there, one from each campaign. you tally up your votes. there is a new form i did not know about until a 11:00 today or i would have written it on your agenda. form e, i believe. it was probably in your big back. does anybody have that handy? it says "straw poll" -- can i have this for a second. i did not know we would have this until about 11:00 today. this was from the state party. the senate to us in the boxes. i do not know why they called it a certificate of straw poll results. it is really the certificate of our caucus results. after the record and after you

count up your palate, this is where you record that. -- after you count up your balance, this is where you record at that. >> are you saying they are part of the counting process and they can stay right in the room? everybody is waiting? >> it is very informal, yes. >> is that a requirement that the chairmen do the counting or could you have volunteers? could you could continue with the agenda and people would not leave before you elect precinct. >> if you just want your reporter to do it -- that is a good point. it probably would be better to have your reporter go and maybe a couple of other volunteers are observed. each campaign is allowed one observer. >> to diminish the chaos, is it ok if they step out of the room?

>> yes. >> ticket necessary to announce that somebody can come and account? >> i would maybe ask somebody that you know. there might be somebody there that you know. you could ask if you can be somebody who can count or your reporter. we could not ask the reporters to be here tonight because they are -- we were out of space. that is part of the reporter's job. >> you mentioned that somebody from each camp paid could observe. do you announce that? >> they are given the opportunity to announce one person only. >> i just want to clarify, the observers are not counting. >> correct. they are watching. along those lines, we have not

been given a phone number to call or how we will actually report these results. there is a reason for that. there have been some electronic funny business going on. >> there have been threats. >> because of that, they are staying tight-lipped on that and we will get that to either the caucus chairman or the reporters or your site managers. what i am alerted to that process, someone in your caucus will know what to do. i was hoping initially to put a number on their, but they don't want to release it.

they will have 99 counties reporting in. moving on to no. 11. for me, the presidential poll is a good thing. -- yes, roger? >> make sure you have a cell phone with you. >> we do allow reporters to bring a cell phone. >> in the past, i have invited a representative from each of the candidates to listen in. what gets reported that night is what is phoned in. it would not be anything to stop them -- [unintelligible] [laughter] >> if you have eight of them there observing and they want to stay there, that's fine. thank you.

one of the most important part of the caucuses at least for me is electing the precincts chair people. each precinct, we have 63 precincts, has to precinct leaders elected at the caucuses every two years. that's what makes up the central committee. that central committee, we meet every other month on a tuesday night, usually. they are the voting members of the central committee and they are front-line people when we talk about asking them to make a couple of calls in their neighborhood or walk through the neighborhood and try to get some republican votes or help us with some other activities. a very detailed list of what precinct responsibilities is is on this hot pink list. next on the agenda, as you can see, number 11, you might read

in advance -- you don't have to read the whole sheet. maybe highlight a couple of things. you should have several of them. if someone is interested in being a precinct leader and want to read what it is all about, give that to them. each precinct is allowed to people. your next vote is selecting your precinct leaders. please encourage people that we will be asking them -- i don't want to scare people away, but we will be asking them to come in a little bit at a time. one of the most important lunches and our national history. we're going to be helping with our precinct leaders. any questions? when the secretary records that, on form a. if you have to conduct a paper

ballot, conduct a paper ballot. if you can do it by show of hands, do it by show of hands. >> sometimes you are writing down three or four people as the precinct committee person. would they be able to stand up and introduce themselves? >> sure. >> because of the pretty big turnout we are expecting, there could be a big turnover of precinct committee people. whoever is the outgoing committee person should tell this new person what he's got to do. >> our first meeting will be in february. i believe we have it on one of the sheets. february 13. thank you. at that first meeting, we will talk a little bit about what a precinct leader does more and

answer questions about the role of a precinct leader. the next order of business is to elect county convention delegates. who has a blue sheet i can look at? thank you. each precinct, this is what we stuff in these packets. everybody gets different numbers. based on the 2010 election and the amount of republican votes cast, each precinct gets a different number of delegates allotted to our county convention and alternate delegates. so if you look at allen's grove, there are two delegates and one alternate delegate. anyone interested in the county convention, it's march 10 at the mississippi valley fair grounds. there is a fee. i believe i have that down

there. $15 per person. star registration at 1230. the convention begins at 1:30. -- registration begins at 12:30. if three people want to go but you only have to spot, may be the third person will say i don't really want to go that bad. >> what if they are unable or unwilling to pay whatever the fee is that night? >> i'm going to get to that. we have tried to cover everything. do we have extra sheets? does everybody have a blue sheet? you have it. here you go. you don't have one either? do we have another?

we have extra forms for everybody. county conventions -- $15 to go as a delegate. if they can pay that night, it makes us all have to call -- if they can't pay that night, it makes us have to call at night and hound everybody. sometimes we have to call people two or three times. if they can pay that night or even if they cannot, please fill out this yellow sheet. if they pay, but yes. if they did not, put no. any questions on that? we have an envelope in your packet that looks like this -- put the money. make sure you write your precinct on their celaeno what precinct this is.

if they cannot -- write your precinct on there so we know what precinct this is. there are self-addressed white envelops -- white envelopes. we will probably still have to make 100 calls. that's the process for that. record the names on the form. then we move on to the alternate delegates for the county convention. same process. it's usually half the number of delegates. if you are allowed to regular delegates, you are allowed an alternate. there's an alternate the of $10. same process for collecting their money. if they do not have their money that night, that's ok. i do not want to hinder any

attendance because somebody cannot pay. if you run out of self-addressed envelopes, that's ok. we will call them and make that occur. >> our attendees allowed to pay for someone else? >> sure. if somebody says can i borrow $10, that's fine. >> [inaudible] >> if no one steps up to be a delegate, there's nothing you can do about. we'll try to find delegates to fill your precinct, just like we found all of you. questions? >> somebody asked if they could be an alternate when delegates had not been filled in totally. [inaudible] [laughter] >> it there is no rule against that. if they put their $5 in, we will

take them. there is no rule against that. you might tell them all the money we collect for the county convention, it's not like we use it to go out and have lunch. we have a lot of material to prepare, a lot of printing, we are at the mississippi fairgrounds and we have to rent that. there are a lot of expenses incurred. those fees are only a portion of what we need to cover our costs for the caucuses and the county convention. we did alternates -- junior delegates. one of the senators will be conducting a junior delegate session. any junior delegates are welcome to attend. the real rule -- although i

don't think anybody under 17 -- most of the kids to go are nine, 10, 11, 12. no fees involved, no election involved. somebody might raise their hand and say i want -- my daughter might want to attend. put their name down. even if they are not sure, put their name down and we will contact them. if they tell us they cannot go, that's ok. i would rather have more possibilities than not enough. any questions? next, we differ on some of the counties in this next process. we are asking for people to indicate their interest in attending either the district or the state convention. in order to attend the district or state convention, you have to be a county delegate. if you are not elected as a

county delegate, you cannot go to the district or state convention. if people are interested in attending the district or state convention, asked for their names and either they can fill out this green form or you can fill it out. no money is collected. the difference being at our county convention, we will submit a list of names for the district and state convention and we have to vote on all those people. it's usually never a problem because we don't have quite as many as we need. sometimes we have to find a couple of additional people. yes? >> wears the district convention? >> the site has not yet been determined. -- where is the district convention? >> we don't know. that's why it is not on there. the state convention will most likely be in des moines and that

is a 9:30 a.m. start time. people can go to both the district and the state convention or just one. the dates are select already and they are on your information. if somebody is not sure of their calendar as to whether or not they can attend but think they might want to attend, i would encourage you to submit their names because we can usually all fill slots. i would rather encourage people and have them submit their names. we can do a pretty good job as you can see by this crowd tonight trying to fill the open slots. who did i take here? >> everybody gets a blue form? >> i have all of this stuff up

here. moving on to no. 24 -- platform resolutions. everybody should have several of these forms in your packet. if you run out of these forms, people can write on a blank piece of paper. it does not have to be on an official forum -- official form. some people will bring them and already signed or ready to read. some may just want to completed at the caucus. you need to consider each resolution submitted and vote on each resolution as indicated on no. 25. voting for approval is simple majority, which is 50% + one of your total caucus attendees. -- 50% plus one of your total caucus attendees. >> [inaudible]

>> it depends on how long you want to stay there. people should have the opportunity to speak on behalf of the resolution, for and against it. unless you want to stay there for a long time, i suggest before you get there, you have a certain procedure in mind. as i indicated, a minute or two for pros and cons on each side for each resolution. the reporter can do that or someone can look it up. >> [inaudible] >> yes. >> what is an appropriate resolution? [laughter] >> i thought you are going to

answer that question. >> you don't want to have somebody halfway through who will just hand the chairman a piece of paper. >> would simply like to give an example of a resolution? >> that congress pass a balanced budget amendment. >> thank you. i don't think you will have to many arguments. whose form is this? a couple of others -- just housekeeping business. he will see in your packet that you have red and yellow sheet. we have a fund-raiser coming up on february 18. while we have a captive audience of almost 7000 people, we are asking you to send out these flyers. we only gave you 20% of your attendance. we did not give you enough for one of each.

we figure we don't have enough for everybody. most people should be able to get these. we have another sheet i don't necessarily have on the agenda because we did it a little bit later. you can either put these out where people are registering and they can take it or you can pass it on at the end. these are all of our social media outlets, facebook and our blog name and our twitter feet. this is just an informational sheet. -- arch witter feed -- our twi tter feed. make sure you have all of your a, b, c, d forms. everything that you can collect, collect.

>> it is the result winner-take- all? >> the top vote-getter gets a 395 and the next person gets a 390, its 395. get all of your forms. there are four precincts and taught is the site manager. you should have a list about the site manager. take all of your stuff to your site manager. your site manager will bring in on wednesday -- they don't know this yet. we have a 12 hour opportunity from 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 in that evening. bring everything to our headquarters. you will have to sign out. if the precinct leader brings this up to him, make sure they

sign the outside of the envelope. yes? >> [inaudible] >> what do you mean inside the bag? take all of your forms to your site manager. you are the only precinct person, keep all your stuff. the managers will have instructions about where to come to our headquarters. who's are these? thank you. take all of your forms to the site manager. the site manager collects everything.

we'll ask the site managers to collect the signs so we can hopefully use them again in 2014. bring everything to our headquarters the next day. then we get to start working some more on all of that process and submitting it to the state party. any questions? >> there are often questions about the process. there is a process that goes through and i circulated a brief explanation. hopefully [inaudible] there might be a succinct

explanation of the process of people understand how it works. it doesn't seem to be worked out, but perhaps it can be done and there will be brief statement that will be wholly self explanatory. >> thank you. a couple of additional things in your packet that we might not have gone through. everybody should have a handy dandy piece of notebook paper. we tried to give everybody a supply of pens. he probably will need more. it might be a good idea to bring a stack of pens from home. we are asking for that for your contribution. the purple is all of the caucus sites by precinct, the district and state convention. terry was talking about parliamentary procedure. you should all have a handy dandy short form of

parliamentary procedure in your packet. polling places -- if somebody does not know where they are going to vote and we're going to go over this shortly, that a couple of options. they can look at the map and figure out where they live. you can look at d-31 and they will see where they are caucusing based on the map. if they cannot find their place on the map but they say i remember in 2010 i voted at the first assembly of god, you can look -- this is the place where they voted in 2010 and if they voted at the first assembly of god, they are in d-12. you should also have in your packets, we made signs that say

"precinct caucus in here are -- ." we will put them on the door. when people come up, they know what precincts are at their building. we also given signs to everybody that say republican caucus -- just 8.5 by 11 signs. everybody has directional signs to put in their buildings. areas that go that way and arrows that go that way. so when you get into your building, you will have to figure out where those go. we also have signs that say d-3 1. you can put that on the door of

the choir room so they know that is the precinct. we are trying to make it as easy and clear for everybody. >> scotch tape? >> each manager has scotch tape and the packet. >> [inaudible] >> in the site manager packet. that's why they have to get there a little bit earlier. >> could there be times that you put up at the actual polling place that the caucus will be held -- like that of the fire station [inaudible] >> at the actual polling place? we did not do that. if somebody would like to volunteer to go to all 63 polling places and do that, see me after. if you know where your polling

place -- that might be a good idea if you have the time. that would be a good thing as a volunteer. >> [inaudible] >> questions? >> we found in the presidential poll -- >> i cannot tell you how that process will work because that not -- because they have not told me. >> where you asking us to report? >> the president -- one candidate might get 5000 votes here, but in another county, they may get 300 votes. it is a big poll, so however we've reported, they will have to report the totals for each candidate. questions?

>> [inaudible] it probably would not be much trouble -- [inaudible] on the speakers, maybe have a one-minute warning so you can tell the speakers for the candidate about their time limit. >> another thing i did not mention -- same day voter registration. you need to have this sheet. it talks about the kinds of identification needed for same day voter registration. i would post these at the entrance to your rooms or your buildings rather than keeping it down so that if somebody comes up and says i want to register today, you might alert them to go read this and say please make

sure you can attest by one of these ways. license,er driver's id, there's a whole process for that. we have given you each several of these to post so people can read those and make sure they have that information. yes? >> if somebody is not in the book, -- [inaudible] >> we've got people -- will we have a map or something that says if you live -- >> everybody will have one of those maps. if they remember where they voted last time, they can look up where they voted and that will tell them what precinct they are in. >> with regards to the county

delegates process, do you have to be precinct delegate to be a county delegate? >> do you need precinct leader? know. there are seven county delegates but we only have to precinct leaders. -- no. it is based on the 2010 election and, republicans voted. >> it doesn't matter about precincts? >> yes. that is how that formula is based on. that is district and state. >> to become a county delegate, you are voted on at the caucus. county delegate must be voted on

at the caucus. district and state -- >> we're voting for precinct leaders and county delegates. >> other questions? >> what if on the off chance we do not have enough ballots? >> i asked our executive committee and i did not get a lot of response. my suggestion would be -- without giving everybody a thousand ballots, take off your last caller. initially it, and give it to the people to use and they just write to their candidate's name on it. if anyone has a better suggestion, i'm open to it. the key point is initialing it

which is a i know another thing for you to do, but you need to do that so if you run out of ballots and give it to somebody, they don't just give it to someone else and you will be the one in control of that. >> we did run out of ballots last time. i had notebook paper and weak cut it up. i initialed it and pass them out. i hope that does not happen because it's another hang up. >> [inaudible] >> [inaudible] >> if they are not on that list, and you know we will get complaints and people will say i

did it and i don't want to have to do it again. if they want to vote, we are really working hard to preserve the integrity of the process. you can mention that to them and say we just want to maintain the integrity of the caucus voting process. >> that issue comes up all the time. i work for the county during the regular elections. they will come in and have a beat up voter registration card they have had for 30 years and they are upset, but there is a time and are off the rolls and we have to same day register them. that's the state law process and it is good they get introduced to it now because it will save time in the general election. >> again, we anticipate a 20% higher turnout. here is where we go into the hours of packet staffing.

expecting almost 500 people and we did not give her 500 forms. we estimated half. i would think that's a pretty good -- we have given you enough blank registration forms to fill half of our projected attendance. you should be good on that. if you want to bring more, you can bring more. >> i just want to emphasize if you have not done this before, you need to have volunteers helping you with registration. maybe a separate table to fill out new forms and a place they can do it so they are not standing in line. someone to help you in the voting, when you are voting by hand. someone to do your timing for you. recruit volunteers. it will make the evening so much better.

>> the doors will open at 5:00. we are asking the site managers to be there of five. if you want to get there at 5, you can, but we are saying at a minimum get there at 5:30. >> i think i said earlier, people can come and observe. we've gotten calls from people across the country want to come and observe. that is fine.

two other things and we will meet with the site managers and we will be done. ofve gotten calls from a lot media. a lot of national media, which is very exciting. but it can also be confusing. carol crane will be our media person and we have these handy dandy media credentials. we are going to try to give these to people before that night so you know who they are. if someone walks in with a camera or microphone -- however, it is not required. there will be media that show up that day and they may want to go from one caucus to another and they might bring an extra camera or person. it is not required. it's only an extra added benefit we are trying to alert all of you. any media questions -- in your

packet, there's an important phone call list. any questions should go to carol. any caucus or facility questions should go to tom. his number is listed. we also have melissa's and john's and greg has a city -- has a city council meeting, but other than that you can call them. if there are any problems at your site, contact your site manager because they will have a cell phone and you will be able to call -- if there are only 10 chairs and you are expecting 100 people. >> would it you want to know who was recording? >> that would be nice, but i don't want to have the to do

something else. if that's something you can do and you don't feel like you are neglecting registration, you can do that and that would be good. you may have noticed we have some cameras here today. we are lucky tonight to have c- span filming us tonight. i understand it will be aired at some time, but the neat thing i would like to do is when they send me the link, i'm going to send the link to all of you regarding this train, so if you feel like you might have a question next week, or you look at something and say what did she say about this, you can click on the linked and hopefully get your question answered >> what if somebody comes in with a laptop? is that all right? >> sure.

what if somebody comes in with a laptop? is likely that especially if it is a school, they will not be able to get into the wireless anyway because it will be password protected. >> the media love actuality. they're going to be sticking microphones in people's faces and will want comment. on an official basis for the republican party -- >> if somebody comes up and says your caucus chairman, of course, talk with them, but if there's a question about what they can or cannot do or where they should go or why this site was selected or how we came up with numbers of things to give to people or any media question you cannot answer, she's your gal.

any other questions? >> i asked that same question in october. i did not really get an answer. what happens if there's a blizzard? they did not give me a clear-cut answer on that. she said they are basically just going to go with it. so watch the news. before everybody leaves, if you could take a look. if you are a site manager or the only person in your building, you are a site manager. if you can stay for 10 more minutes, we've got maps to give you. have some coffee. thank you, everybody.

[applause] site managers, let's get started so that we can be done. tost of all, we're going hand out packets per building. let's pass these out. we're going to name a building and raise your hand. armstrong. would. we don't have anybody here.

bill mathews? where are you? everybody gets maps. blackhawk hotel? who has the blackrock? who is at the black hawk? the st. ann's church? riverdale heights?

radisson hotel? melissa? wait can you help pass out those maps? mark twain elementary? who is that? knights of columbus? he's not here. hi decenter? that's the whole building. you have a big one. hoover? hopewell? central high school?

nice to meet you. we are passing out the maps. radisson is melissa. your map is on the wall. you can take it down when you leave. riverdale? who is riverdale?

that's where they vote? armstrong? who is armstrong elementary? could you pass that back? i thought i gave that to you. i the center? we don't have to do that? bill mathews? where are you?

can you pass that back? blackrock? can you stay and i will check that out so i can get these guys going? everybody. let's try to get this going as fast as we can say you can get out of here. thank you for your dual responsibility. please try to get more people to help you because you have another responsibility as being the site manager, and tom is

going to be working on getting sell phone numbers for each of the facilities. we will either send an e-mail once you get all of that, so please make sure we have your e- mail address. if there is a problem with your facility, you will know who to call. if you can arrive at 5 -- i'm going to keep picking on you. he's got four precincts. when you get to your building, a check each of the rooms were used are supposed to be. make sure the doors are unlocked and the lights are on that it set up the way it is supposed to be set up. if not, call your emergency contact. we gave everybody extra pens and stuff but i would suggest if you can, bring more. you should all have tape in your

packet. you all have a map. put the maps out. if you're a single precinct, put it where she's going to register people. if you're a multiple precinct, you might put your maps out. we are asking for people to have a registration table. those maps only serve to look at what their precinct does. >> [inaudible] you have tables for registration. i'm hoping multiple tables. >> in your location yes. >> he has requested sound systems for a lot of the locations. before you leave tonight, in mary's car, we've got these signs for you to take.

if you could take two of these -- is there somebody here from west high-school? you get three because those are bigger locations. somebody thegive keys to my car. if you could go get a brick for each of your signs. if you already have yours, that's fine. put these up when you get to your site where you think would be an appropriate spot for people to see. check your entry area to make sure you've got enough registration forms. if not, call your contact. this is all in your packet. post your precinct map and caucus locations site sheet said people can look if they're not

sure where to go. everybody has access reforms. have extra everything. you can put those out at the registration table. as people enter, if have questions, tell them they need to be a registered voter. if they are confused about where they should be going, they can look of their map and then look at our site locations or they can look and see where they voted last time. when the caucus is ready to start, we need to have somebody out at the registration area. since they are serving a dual role, the need to have one of your volunteers stayed there and answer questions. >> a do you have to be a resident of the precinct to be a

volunteer? >> anybody can volunteer, but to vote, you must be in that precinct. >> what is the age limit on the workers? >> i would say probably somebody who is not six years old. >> but if they can read and write? >> you can take a gander people, of course. we are trying to get young people involved. teenagers would be great. if there are responsible antitrust them, that's great. at the end of the caucus, everybody needs to bring their staff to you. we have a 12 hour window from 8:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m.. you have to bring all your stuff to our headquarters. if you cannot, please call us and we will make other

arrangements. my last line is rest and recover. about these signs, -- because they did cost us some money and we want to be able to use them next time -- >> everyone here should have gotten my e-mail regarding the training for next thursday. you don't have to go to that. when we go to send out the contact numbers, i want to make sure you receive that. i also want to acknowledge mary who worked on the caucus committee locations and they are still out working securing the

emergency contact. >> they are all going to visit their site and information -- to make sure the people at the facility know what we are expecting. we are really trying to do whatever we can to make sure everything is covered. although there will be things not within our control and we will do the best we can. other questions? >> i have for precinct? >> in your precinct packet, everybody got that name and phone numbers. you know who all of those people are. a way to get volunteers if you don't have any is to call your

secretary or reporter and say do you know three people you could bring to help? >> the emergency numbers? other questions? you need to get signs from mary and can i give somebody my keys? can you meet them at my car and take your break? thank you very much. i appreciate it. goodnight. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> does anybody have bender high

school by any chance? >> ago 2 facebook for more coverage of tonight's caucuses. exclusive behind the scenes footage of c-span on the road and the road to the white house video clip of the day. you can vote in our facebook poll question. will the winner of the caucuses become the presidential nominee? that's right now on our facebook page. >> wednesday on "washington

journal" -- a look ahead at the new hampshire primary with neil levesque. then former homeland secretary, tom ridge, discusses his support of john huntsman. then mark trumbull contrast the plans of the gop candidates. "washington journal" -- live every morning at 7:30 eastern on c-span. also on wednesday, president obama talks about the economy at shaker heights high school near cleveland. that is at 1:15. then we will go to jon huntsman and a town hall meeting in new hampshire. more from the granite state with rick santorum and his town hall meetings live from brentwood at

7:30. >> that site has already made up its mind. this side has already made up its mind. i call it garbage, dr. rice. >> dr. brinkley. rice is the university. >> i will call you anything you want. you just be quiet. you be quiet. >> you don't own me. >> the gentleman will suspend and i will remind members. >> i work for the private sector. >> the confrontation at a congressional hearing between don young of alaska and historian douglas brinkley ranked as the fourth most watched video in the c-span video library. watch out for yourself at our home page. click on the most watched tab to review other videos from the past year. it's what you want, when you want.

>> c-span's wrote to the white house coverage follows the candidates as they had to new hampshire. "washington journal" will be live in new hampshire and you can watch live coverage as candidates talk to new hampshire voters. on primary night, coverage of results and candidate speeches. you can join the conversation on our facebook and twitter pages. >> welcome to c-span's live coverage of the 2012 iowa caucuses. there is a live picture of the state capital in des moines. tonight, iowa andns will be caucusing the route of the states. both democrats and republicans will be caucusing, although on the democratic side, president obama is unopposed. the more interesting side, the gop, caucuses around the state and its the first official test of the candidate's strength and their race for the white house. c-span will be covering the two caucuses live.

one on this network and one on c-span2. the caucuses began in about 1972. c-span got into the game of televising caucuses in 1984. our very first iowa caucuses, gavel to gavel, showing what it was like for the first time inside the homes and council rooms and gymnasiums across the state. we thought we would look back at a 1984 democratic caucuses in iowa that we covered on february 20 of that year. the democratic caucus in polk county, iowa. let's take a look back. >> i will repeat that one more time, kathy sears, larry lewis, -- [reading names] do i hear a motion the entire caucus validates that selection? is there a second? all those in favor?

hurray. we are not finished. we still have two more elections. we need to elect one member to the county convention for the platform committee. one member for the county platform committee. is there a nomination for the platform committee? do i hear a nomination for the platform committee? >> i nominate neil hamilton. neil hamilton has been nominated. >> you are nominating guy cook? is there another and nomination? >> pat brady. >> are you not already a delegate? >> 28 years have passed, but the process is the same. iowans are selecting delegates to the county convention and ultimately the convention this summer. in the democratic caucus, walter mondale played -- placed first

and gary hart came in second. tonight, we will show to republican caucuses. the first is on this network at urbandale, a community near des moines, about 50 minutes outside. that begins at about 7:45 eastern time. our companion network will be in a different part of the state, just outside of council bluffs. you will get a more small, rural and conservative community and the issues there that will shape the outcome of this caucus. also tonight, we will learn about president obama's involvement in the democratic caucuses. he is speaking to many of them by video caucus -- by video conference. following our live coverage, we will open our phone lines, so you can get involved. the first results of the presidential preference poll, when the caucus gore's first meet.

we expect results available at about 8:30 eastern time. we will tell you those as they come and as we continue our coverage. we begin tonight setting the stage by letting you listen in to a local cbs affiliate with their caucus coverage. this is from des moines, >> the rock the boat folks want the team to rock the caucus, and so did the candidates. >> our campaign has been known to be a great appeal to the young people. >> he got more applause after this. >> we should not send young people off to war unless it is absolutely necessary. everywhere my dad has gone, it has fixed things. i think barack obama is actually a pretty good person. i think he is a good father and

he has good intentions, but i think he is in way over his head. >> you don't have to be 18 to attend the caucus, but you do have to turn 18 by election day. the caucuses began sharply at 7:00. >> we have crews with each of the campaigns, and we start with newt -- news channel 8 live at romney headquarters at the hotel des moines. >> they hope to have a victory party it later. we had a chance to sit down with governor rahm the earlier one-on-one for an interview. we will show you -- with governor romney the earlier for an interview. lots of media waiting for this to happen tonight. governor romney had his last chance to convince iowa voters to make him the winner at tonight's first in the nation caucus.

>> you seem to be the candidate that most people either really support or perhaps will settle for because the others do not seem to be viable. is this the way this might turn out in the end? >> i think we have eight candidates of significance that are all battling. we are all trying to get people to support us. we have other good people in the race. i understand that some of those folks have good supporters. i am pleased that in iowa, i am in them top two or three. i hope to build on that support tonight, and i hope through the campaign process of will be able to garner the great support of our party and go on to defeat the president. i do not expect to get all the people to get behind me, just that 50.1% i need to defeat barack obama. >> governor romney says he is the only one in this race with enough money and support to make it all the way through to be president obama.

i am guessing ron paul probably has a different vision than governor romney. >> that is exactly right, todd. we are here at the ron paul headquarters, and they are expecting a celebration tonight. ron paul in recent weeks has surged in the polls and is one of the top republicans now in the race. they believe he will finish at least in the top three, if not at the top of the race. the campaign is well aware that a lot of undecideds like what he has to say, but they are not convinced he is delectable in a general election against obama. today i asked ran paul what advice he would give caucus goers as they are prepared to walk out the door in the next few minutes. >> if you want someone who will truly cut spending in a significant way, not just cut the rate of increase of spending, but eliminate unconstitutional department of government, and make government

smaller, and on our budget within three years, there is only one candidate, and that is my dad, ron paul. he will really cut the size of government. >> senator rand paul will make the case in person to voters, trying to coax them into his campaign. then he will meet up with his family in march returns command throughout the evening. another campaign is the rick santorum campaign. >> we are here at the rich santorum and quarters. all eyes are on senator santorum right now. he is really the underdog in this race, but the latest polls have put him at no. 3 behind mitt romney and ron paul. we talked to one of his closest friends, who is also a senior strategist for the santorum campaign. we asked what his expectations are, and could the underdog come out on top? >> we have seen all the polls in

recent days. his message is resonating. we don't know where we are going to finish. i think it will be close. we are excited that people are finally listening to rick santorum is message. it is resonating. >> he did tell us just a few minutes ago that rick santorum as a sore throat and is actually losing his voice, because he has been crisscrossing the state so much the past few days. it is resting right now with his wife and six children. we are hoping to see him here zero later. pass emily will bring us -- emily will bring us the latest coverage from the new gingrich headquarters. >> this morning he called mitt romney a liar, in reference to the fact that romney, ask a superpower that is linked to him to pull those negative ads. >> you said of mitt romney, someone who will lie to you to get to be president will lie to

you when they are president. have to ask you, are you calling mitt romney a liar? >> yes. this is a man who staff created the pac. he pretends he has nothing to do with it. it is baloney. he is not telling the american people the truth. i do think he should be honest to the american people and try to win as the real mitt romney. i think he ought to be candid. >> speaker gingrich told me two weeks ago tonight at an event in oskaloosa that he was not going to go negative, saying it is bad for america. we wanted to ask him today why he decided to change his mind and go-today against the front runner, mitt romney. the was doing some last-minute pushing to get people to go his way. he has had a stunning fall in the polls here lately. he went from first place to fourth place here in iowa. we will stay here all night and

see what the final result is for newt gingrich in des moines. >> michele bachmann spent time campaigning today. she will return to des moines for the results. she said she will do fine tonight. she says she is already focused on the next races. >> we are confident. that is why we bought our tickets for south carolina. we are moving on and moving forward. this election is far from over. >> texas governor rick perry campaigning hard over the last few days. >> recent polling data and it shows texas governor rick perry is not in that coveted top three tier of presidential candidates. that is why his campaign is hoping that a frenzied last- minute campaign blitz throughout central iowa will be enough to land those all-important undecided voters. he spent his entire day on the

road, earlier this morning rallying voters and supporters to do all they can to sway those undecided iowans. a no-holds-barred fight for the presidential nomination. >> this is going up the hill, realizing that the battle is worth winning. >> governor perry will soon leave the campaign event and had to six flags event center, then here to the caucus party at the sheraton west des moines. he is anticipated to arrive around 8:00. it will be fascinating once again to see if the last minute campaign blitz can deliver those undecided voters that his campaign so covets. >> the weather is the one factor that no candidate can control. it does not look like anyone will have to worry about that, the weather is in control.

>> it is quiet, fairly comfortable for this time of january. it will stay that way. temperatures dropping very slowly. we are in the mid-30's now and may lose a degree or so by 7:00. back around the freezing point at midnight, but a warmup tomorrow, with highs in the 40's. >> the weather is not the only thing that can affect the turnout tonight. >> what kind of turnout at we seen? >> we will be back with them throughout the evening. we will be partnering to show some the post-caucus attended events around the state. you are watching c-span's live coverage of the 2012 iowa caucuses. looking at a live picture of the

state capital in des moines. we told you earlier we will cover two caucuses, one on this network and one on our companion network, c-span2. it will give you a real flavor of what the caucuses are like. we will introduce you to a gentleman who is very much involved in procedures and the process of urbandale precinct eight. his name is mike carper and he is a member of the urbandale city council. he will be joining us for an interview as we set the stage here. that caucus is happening at the gloria dei luka when church outside the center of des moines, iowa. although much attention and money spent in iowa caucuses in the past 30 years, among democrats and republicans, only three have won the caucuses and

gone on to win the white house. that includes jimmy carter in 1980, george w. bush in 2000, and barack obama in 2008. here is mike. he is a member of the urbandale city council, and tonight he will be serving as the colchis temporary chairman. thanks so much for being with us. -- serving as the temporary chairman. debicella little political snapshot of your precinct. -- give us a little political snapshot of your present. >> we are in a suburban area and we have a pretty good cross- section of people that live in our community. in terms of the income, pretty much across the board. i would say the other thing that speaks well of our community is the fact that we have a lot of involvement in our community. we have a lot of civic pride and

we have been ranked high in the nation in a lot of different categories. people like to be involved. they are involved with projects here locally, as well as on the political side. we have always had active participation in our caucus is through the years, particularly when there is a complication like there was in 2000, 2008, and now going into 2012. the other thing that sets us apart is, people are very simple. they respect the differences. everybody does not agree with everybody at the same time, but this goes something that i think you will enjoy being able to get a little bit of a snapshot in terms of what our caucus is all about. >> how is the local economy doing? >> we have had our challenges, but overall, obviously our ag sector has done very well. we also have a strong insurance

and banking industry in the des moines area. overall, our unemployment is below 6%. we have had challenges in the real-estate industry. i personally work in that business. there has been some ups and downs, but generally you have opportunities that come up because of that. overall, we feel positive about the future and are looking ahead to hopefully a good 20 del. >> what would you say is the number-one issue on people's minds? >> i don't think there is any question that the economy is a big issue. there has been so much uncertainty we have seen over the last several years because of some of the policy that the national level, whether it be issues relating to health care, taxation, energy. you go down the whole litany of issues we have out there, creating an environment of more regulation and oversight. has created an environment where people just do not want to

invest as we would like to see them invest. banks are being hamstrung by oversight and regulation in terms of their ability to do lending. there is a sense that things are not going the way they should go. today we are looking for new direction, and hopefully in 2012 we can elect the new president and move our country back to more pressburg -- to more prosperity and job creation. we went through a tough time at the end of 2008. we need to look for ways to grow this economy, and also ways we can work together. that is the thing that has been upsetting to a lot of people, the fact that we do not see the kind of cooperative environment in terms of our leaders working together, and we do not believe the president has provided the kind of leadership that we think is necessary to get our country moving again.

>> let's move on to the process. how many people are you expecting tonight? >> i would expect we will be in the range of 300-400 people here in our precinct. on our list we have around 900 republicans. if all of those showed up, it would be in the range of 40%-50% of the republicans in our precinct would be showing up. we don't have that many that show up on regular elections. we expect a good turnout this evening. >> we need to explain to people watching that you can become a republican tonight. it can sign up as you walk in the door. explain how that works. >> basically, when you come in, we have signed in. it is hard to say. i would say that over the years, there have been relatively few people that have chosen to come in and it reregister. there are some that do that, but

for the most points -- for the most part, we end up with people who have been republicans. we would hope there would be maybe 20-30 people that would show up at our caucus that would want to believe we have some young people here that have never voted before that are registering and voting for the first time this next november. i expect some of those people come in and reregister from democrat to republican, but i would not expect a huge number of those. there are some that are independent that will want to actually come today and register republican it so they can vote tonight for a particular candidate that they are supporting and want to move their candidacy for. i am sure we will have a number of people like that that will be here tonight that maybe were not registered republican, but at the end of the night, they will be a registered republican.

we are certainly happy to grow our numbers in that way. >> i understand you have been bought with caucuses in the state since 1968. what is it about the iowa caucus that you think works, especially for iowa? >> the thing that i think it is is the fact that we have the opportunity to really get to know candidates. that is what is tremendous about this, the opportunity to talk and interact with them. you cannot win just by putting up a bunch of tv ads. you have to come down here and meet people and be willing to take questions from people. that is pretty exciting. i have pictures over the years that i have taken with various candidates. i think it is great that we have what we would call retail politics. it is unfortunate that in many parts of the country, they don't have the opportunity to meet candidates, because all they are looking at is tv dads.

if you want to win in iowa, you have to be out and meet people and energize people and get them to come here to the caucuses this evening. that takes time and work and effort. it is fund. i got involved in my first caucus in 1966. i think i have been to almost every caucus since then. i think i missed one in 1996, for some reason. we had a scheduling conflict. other than that, i have been at every caucus and have been in charge of my caucus for a number of years. i am currently temporary chair, so i will have to be voted in as permanent chair. that will be the vote of the people here tonight. if they wanted to get rid of me, they could, but i think there is a good chance that most people do not want the job i have this evening. it is enjoyable. >> is it a fact that your wife

is in fact a democrat, and she will be caucusing with her democratic colleagues in another part of town? >> that is correct. that is the reality in my life. we are a mixed family, i guess you would call that, and mixed marriage. she is a wonderful, wonderful woman, and i have great respect for view -- for her and her view and attitudes about things. she has been involved in health care for many years and promotes issues relating to some of the catholic hospitals here in iowa. i have great respect for the work she does. we do not agree on everything, but the basic things that are important in life, we do agree about. family and faith are two of the big things we are together on, 100%. >> the caucus will get underway about 40 minutes from now. the preferential poll is the first item on the agenda. how soon will we know the results from your precinct?

>> one of the things that we will be doing is allowing each of the candidates to give a short talk, representative of these various candidates. i would hope that it would be completed between 7:37:45, and then we will move into the balloting side. we will distribute the ballots at that point for all those who are authorized voters. then we will count the ballots. i would hope it would be in the range of a clot-8:15 that we would have -- of 8:00-815. i cannot give any guarantees. i do have some control on that if i am elected chair. i guess it would be between 8:00 at 8:15. >> we will see you next in your

official role as the caucus gets underway in urbandale. >> i have great respect for c- span, and we thank you very much for coming here to urbandale and grenier facilities and staff here into our community. we are certainly privileged to have you here tonight. >> as we mentioned, the iowa caucuses have a mixed history in the ultimate outcome of the presidential campaign. in 2008 on the democratic side, barack obama 1 with 38% and went on to win the white house. mike huckabee was the winner on the republican side. 20 years ago, dick gephardt was the democratic winner in iowa with 31%. bob dole, who went on to be the nominee, had 37% on the republican side. i would has a population of about 3 million people, generally about 100,000 people take part, depending on how

competitive it is from year to year. one other thing people will be watching tonight is the actual attendance in those 1700 precincts around the state. if you heard that weather is often a factor and i will. not so much tonight. it is clear and cold in iowa, which they think will bring more people out to the polling places, to the caucusus assembly places throughout the state. president obama is not turning his attention away from iowa. we mentioned earlier that there are democratic caucuses, although they are not contested. today, the white house released a new campaign ads discussing in. 2008 iowa caucus whe let's listen to the message the president puts forward in this new ad. >> on this january night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the

senate said we could not do. i will be a president who finally makes health care affordable and available to every single american. i will be a president who ends the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas and bring a middle-class tax cut into the pockets of working americans. i will be a president who are this is the ingenuity of farmers and scientists to free this nation and from the tyranny of oil, once and for all. i will be a president to is the war in iraq and finally brings

our troops home. -- a president who ends the war in iraq. tonight, we are one step closer to that vision of america, because of what you did here in iowa. there are days of disappointment, and sometimes there are nights like this. and night that, years from now, when we have made the changes we believe in, when more families can afford to see a doctor, when our children inherit a planet that is safer, when the world sees america differently, and we are a nation less divided and more united, you will be able to look back and say this was the moment when it all began. [cheers and applause]

>> that is the new message from the obama re-election today. right now you are looking at a live picture from the second caucus that we will be televising live. the center dishy to john jacobson, the precinct leader who is on the screen right now. thanks for being -- let's introduce you to john jacobson. >> it is great to be here. >> let's start with a snapshot of the people you expect to be coming to your caucuses tonight. tell us about your region and the people who live there and what their politics are. >> welcome to trainer, iowa. it is a great community here in southwest iowa. it is not far away from the council bluffs, paul metropolitan area. it retains its small-town independence. it is kind of a bedford falls, if you would. a great community of less than

1000 people. these folks tend to be very interested in the economy, agricultural issues. there are a lot of veterans here who have served their country, so obviously foreign policy is important to them. a lot of the industry around here, we have great hospitals, great health care, a school for the deaf down the road. there are some great children's hospitals in the area. these folks are very much pro- family, pradesh life, very interested in the health of seniors and those who may have some challenges, physical or mental challenges. it is a very compassionate, caring, and conservative community. >> how did they vote in 2008? >> in 2008, mitt romney did very well here, as did mike huckabee, as did fred thompson, as did john mccain. it was fairly reflective of iowa

as a whole four years ago. >> how about in the general election, how did it go? >> the general election four years ago went to the incumbent president, and for years prior to that, it went to president george w. bush over john kerry. i was definitely is a swing state. >> tell me i am -- iowa definitely is a swing state. we will have approximately 150 in our particular caucus. in the other caucus adjacent to the building, probably another four dozen there. i would guess 200 people here from the caucus to not. a tremendous showing for a community of about 1000 people. >> you are a supporter of rick santorum, i understand. >> yes, i support senator santorum. >> you have to be neutral. talk about how you separate your official capacity from your support for the candidate. >> certainly.

tonight, we will start out with a very preset format before the caucus itself. we will have a pledge of allegiance with an invocation. then we will move to a -- another chair, and then we will have time for each candidate to speak. i will step aside from my role as a chair to speak for senator santorum. others who like to speak will do so at that juncture. then we will take a ballot that will be filled out and announce the votes immediately. that will be telephoned immediately to the republican headquarters in des moines. quickly out of the day tonight, we will have some instant results here. it is very exciting. i started this in 1966 as a jr. delegate for ronald reagan,

before it was cool to before ronald reagan. that was the year he ran unsuccessfully against president gerald ford. the mantra against ronald reagan is that he was a great guy but he could not win. you get a win, place, or show out of iowa. you get your ticket punched to new hampshire, south carolina, and maybe beyond. four years ago, as we saw with senator mccain in the fourth place position, he even got his ticket punched. i think it is going to be an exciting evening, the most volatile i have ever seen. >> i was going to ask if you were willing to make a prediction, but it sounds like not. let me just ask you, for people around the country who like politics, the iowa caucus is certainly unique.

what keeps you personally involved in this? >> i think it is a solemn responsibility that we, as iowans, generally feel. if you look at the state of arlen with our large population, large urban and rural areas, a good diversity of demographic and ethnic people, a very educated group. these people take the caucus is very seriously. it is the most efficient way to bet political presidential candidates. they are almost running a local race. the wealthiest people at the caucus tonight will have met with most of the candidates and had a quality conversation with them. it is a due diligence process that iowans take very seriously. that have equip themselves pretty well over the years in this process. allows a candidate who is not a

multi millionaire to still have a shot at the presidency of the united states. >> john jacobson is a banker in his regular life. tonight he has an official job chair. precinct shar we will see you again in about half an hour. >> thank you, and we will see you again. >> the caucus will be televised live on c-span2, our companion we will take you now to urbandale, right outside of des moines. our colleague is talking to some of the people gathering there. >> we are in northwest des moines, about 10 miles outside of the capital city. we want to introduce you to some of the people involved in the process. some traveling from as far as the state of texas, and others are local here. brent weber, you came from

college station, texas, home of texas a&m university. you are a supporter of rick perry. >> i am a volunteer for rick perry. there are probably at least 500 volunteers that have come from all over the country to say that we support rick perry, and we hope others will, too. >> what is your mission tonight? >> my husband is a surrogate speaker for rick perry. we are just happy to have come all this way to support him, and the iowans have just been so gracious and fantastic to us. we are glad to be here. >> the process is very different than texas. >> we are excited to be here. there is an energy on the topic that we don't necessarily have at the primary. it is exciting to see how violence take care of business. >> you live here -- to see how

iowans take care of business. >> i was actually a herman cain supporter first. herman dropped out, and i am going to someone else. newt gingrich is very strong. >> we have been covering caucuses since 1984, but for those sitting in for the first time, give us a sense of what to expect. how do you get undecided people to vote for newt gingrich? >> i am going to speak for three or four minutes. that is all they said i have, but that is enough time. there are people that have not made up their minds yet, and i hope to convince them that they ought to support new gingrich. >> is there anyone here for rick santorum and ron paul to give a speech? >> if they asked me to speak, i will speak from the heart. i am a supporter of rick

santorum. i watched him from the start, from the presidential elector series. i am supporting rick santorum tonight, and if i have to speak, i have to speak. i will tell you he is a man of high principles and great character, and again, all of these candidates, governor kerrey, speaker gingrich, a very tough decision. coming in tonight, i was very undecided until after we had a meal with my mother along with mike two son from iowa state. we are very excited about being here. >> and your sons or for rick perry -- are for rick perry. you were here for years ago. how will tonight be different or will it be different from

previous republican caucuses? >> i think they are all different in away, but four years ago tonight, i was a speaker for mitt romney. i have changed my mind in the meantime. anybody that is running, with one exception, is better than the guy we have in the white house now. in the end, i am going to vote for the nominee, again with one exception, and i will not say who that is. i am not going to vote for obama in any condition. if he is the nominee, i and just not going to vote thank you all for being with us. there is a 17-item list of the caucus to go through the evening tonight. we are about 25 minutes away, here in urbandale. >> the democrats are also caucusing tonight. you'll meet the chair of the iowa democratic party, who spoke

to us about the democratic processes and president obama's involvement in them. >> we are going to be caucusing in all 1774 precinct. 99 counties corner to corner. we have an opportunity, because we have a different thing happening this year. we know who our nominee is, and he is going to beat live streaming and addressed to all are democrats at the beginning of the caucus. we put them together and grouped precincts in locations, so that we can make that technology happen. the president is going to address iowa democrats at 7:15. he is going to ask for their help exactly the same way he did four years ago create january 3rd is kind of an auspicious not for us. after that, that individual precincts will break into individual breakout rooms and conduct the business of the

party, the organizational business of the party. at their heart, the caucuses on both sides of our party operational organizations. that is what they are. if we get together and elect our precinct chairs, we develop the selection process to get to charlotte. it is going to be a great night for democrats. >> how did it come about for the president to participate through this visual link, and how did it all come together? >> we have spent all of 2011 preparing for this night and getting ready for these caucuses. it has been one of our primary goals all year. the technology every four years expands exponentially, what you can do. this was a perfect night to try something like this.

because we are not operating in a preferential -- in selecting a presidential nominee, we had a little more leeway to try something new. we think it is going to work remarkably well. the president wants to talk to i would democrats in their caucus rooms. -- wants to talk to iowa democrats. he can be and all the locations. we have the technology to try it, and that is what we are going to do. >> personally for you, how different is it tonight than four years ago we had a pretty heated battle in the state? >> there is a remarkable -- our task in 2008, that historic night, was to begin the selection that would lead us to having the presidency of the united states, and we succeeded.

there is huge pride and advantage in having the incumbent. what it means is that we do not have the struggle for a nominee. that allows us to focus on organization. that is what tonight is going to be about. we have the privilege of knowing who our nominee is going to be. when he announced in april, we were set to start this process. in the new fourth district, when democrats come out to stand with the president, they will be standing in the important race. when they come out in the first district, they will be standing with the president, and that means there will be standing for state senator, mary jo will wilhoite. this election is about the

reelection of the president, as well as about the retention and expansion of the senate majority. leonard is in an absolutely historic battle for his seat against another incumbent, tom latham. in that same congressional district is this race of bge is standing with the president, and what happens over there as we begin that climb back out of our house of representatives, the state house. these things are all connected, and i would democrats are ready to stand up for all that and get -- iowa democrats are ready to stand up and get organized. >> i would is a battleground state in the fall. >> we are just about as purple as you can be. we have a registration edge of more than 30,000 over the

republican party, but truly, if this is a very evenly split state in the summer in the country, and people here are independent thinkers and they want to listen to the message. they are prepared to do that. >> thanks for spending some time with us tonight. >> thank you. >> the caucus process is important over all in the general election. welcome to our live coverage of the iowa caucuses 2012. we are hoping to involve you in ways we have not been able to in the past. we have a facebook page set up, asking the question, "do iowa caucuses matter?" you can sing your comments to us on twitter. we will meet those in throughout the evening, along with

telephone calls, and all kinds of ways to get your reaction. a little facebook commentary, here is a simple response. i think they matter. all social gatherings matter to some degree. one more comment right below that. let's return to steve sculley, our colleague in urbandale, just about 15 minutes before that caucus gets underway, with more of the attendees. >> the announcements are going on now to make sure the people are in place. still trying to figure out who is going to give the speeches for some of the candidates.

bruceville lives here in urbandale, iowa. let me ask you about this process tonight. for those watching at home, it is different from what happened that the polling booths around the country. >> we have a chance to speak our mind or listen to the speakers, and afterwards, we get to vote on local elections and moved the process forward to the end of the election. this could just a different process. >> this is coming right after christmas and new year's. my question is, how much activity has been going on for the candidates that you are supporting? >> lots of activity with rick santorum. he is having a surge, and it is exciting to be in iowa at a time like this. >> what impact do you think the polls have had?

they are showing rick santorum moving up in the polls. >> we get many calls every day and did not participate. >> why rick santorum? >> he is a good guy, and he has stayed good the whole time. it was really hard. that was part of the reason why it took so long. i would be happy with any of them that we have here tonight. >> how many candidates have you seen here in the greater des moines area on the campaign trail? >> i have seen all but ron paul and michele bachmann. i have had a chance to sit down with new personally and have a conversation, and that really impressed me, what he had to say. i also had a chance to meet mitt romney and ask him a question. it helps you make the decision on who you are going to vote for. >> one interesting thing about

tonight is this is the very beginning of the selection process, but note delegates will be selected until the state convention in june. >> but we are part of that process tonight. we choose people to go to the county convention can and on, so it does matter. we'll be here until the end of the night. >> thank you both for being here with us. >> as steve sculley mentioned, there is lots of organizing going on in that room. we are going to take you to our live coverage of the urbandale gop caucus. reminder, a few like to compare -- if you would like to compare, you can watch on c-span2 and compare how the two events go forward. we are expecting results to

begin coming in somewhere of around 8:30 eastern time. we will fill you in on how the state is polling in its straw poll, which is the first event in all the caucuses around the state. thanks for watching this c-span 2012 iowa caucus coverage. [crowd murmurs] >> i am going to give you a sticker, showing you have checked in with me this evening. thank you.

>> it is going to be on the second line there. i am going to give you a sticker showing you check in with me. thank you. >> evening. if i can just have your id here, real quick? i will have you sign right there. fantastic. thank you very much. right there is where you are going to sign. hard to find the spot. i am going to grab you a sticker

that shows you have checked in with me. >> hello, how are you? [crowd murmurs]

>> it clearly shows i have a republican now. >> id did not make it on this list. i will have to send you to the tables on the other end. >> thank you.

>> they sent me down here because my name was not on the list through >> you will need to fill this out, even if you have that. did you need to register?

>> the county convention puts together accounted platform, but this is just input on the precinct level. we will pick them up and vote yea or nay at the caucus, whether you want to support whatever somebody submits. it will be a yes-no kind of thing. we will get a feel for what people think at that point. if you have any interest or issues that you want, they are right up here at the table. you are welcome to get a cheap and filling out and turn it into the secretary up here. the secretary will be only handling those when we get to that toward the end of the caucus. some of you may be long gone by that point, but this is a way to get those issues before the people. >> "a"is at the far end.

precinct eight of voters? you are registered? if you are already registered, go to the far end.

[crowd murmurs] >> you are right on the top of the list.

>> are you a registered republican? >> yes. >> that table over there is telling people who are not on the list. -- handling people who are not on the list. >> you will probably be right over there. >> how are you doing? >> don't be afraid of these front shares. that is the way it goes in

church, they always sit in the back and the front chairs are open. >> you are like me, i am glad i brought my glasses tonight, or i would not be able to see. >> thanks so much.

>> that allow you to vote. >> i am still looking for somebody that might be willing to speak on behalf of michele bachmann. is there anyone who would be willing to lease -- to speak on behalf of michele bachmann? and governor huntsman. those are the two we are lacking right now.

>> one thing that is very important is if you came in here, you need to make sure you have registered in the back. if you walk in here and sat down and you have not gone to the back, you need to go back and check in, otherwise no registration, no ballot. i assume you want to vote, so make sure you have been to the back.

>> i just realized i have not registered. >> i am sorry about that. it has been a long day. >> you have that section right over there. >> how are you? [crowd murmurs]

[crowd murmurs]