caucuses, which established his credibility as win over evenuld midwesternly white states like iowa andmade it to the white house. in 2012, we had on the caucuses, mitt romney. very likely to be the republican fact, he did go on to win the republican nomination. but here in iowa he was not guaranteed the vote of iowa caucus goers. tolost the caucuses in 2008 evangelical, an popular with conservatives. a little known governor from arkansas. in 2012, it was rick santorum darkest of dark horses on the national scene. with mitty tied romney for the caucuses in 2012 and actually has counted the historically close vote and it turned out that romney was edged santorum. >> game on. >> people tend to get keyed in because of the caucuses. become -- even if not everyone participates, everyone watches it. fun spectator sport for iowa yans. therefore, they have opinions issues.e weekend long, we're observing the history of des moines. hosted by our des moines cable context teampan visited des moines. learn about des moines all american history tv. >> it was surreal for the time that first 24 hours w