jeff stein, i would love to start with you and pick up on something judy and guinn were talking about earlier which is this thing we call the caucus, it is still a mystery to many americans and people are in your state are par taking right now, give us a little snapshot, where did it come from? why do you do it that way? >> well, it is an outgrowth of an effort by the democratic party after the turmoil of the 1968 campaign to get more citizens involved, and so iowa decided as part of its delegate process to start at the most basic level, the precinct level, select delegates there, and move on to the county convention, a smaller move on to the district convention then the state convention and ultimately we get our delegation that goes and votes for a nominee. in order for all of those steps to fall into place, you nee neea certain amount of time so they simply back timed to 1972 from the convention and lo and we hold, b below and behold iowa ws the first in the nation so truly it was first by accident, but in for the democrats ten, the republicans nine caucuses since, it has been just

and with us from iowa tonight: jeff stein, vice chair of the board of trustees for the state historical society of iowa. michael, i want to pick up on something that judy and gwen reminded us of. there's a democratic caucus tonight. there's an incumbent president, a democrat. what is the incumbent normally what happens with the incumbent? they normally stay out of the action or fight for relevancy? >> well, probably the best example of a president actually gaining relevance was richard nixon running for re-election in 1972. that was the first time there was a serious iowa caucus in which george mcgovern did very well and of course new hampshire. but this stuff was almost wiped off the air waves by richard nixon making the first visit of an american president to china. so in the evening you think that people would be noticing iowa and new hampshire, mcgovern doing very well. instead there was an hour special each evening on most of the networks for a week, you know, richard nixon at the great wall, the great hall of the people. people were not thinking very much about domestic politics,