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To give us a taste of how exciting this can be in action, Culver had the audience vote on their favorite pets. Debra Salowitz, who gave the pro-cat speech right before the woman in the Christmas sweater gave the bird speech, combatively announced, "If you have a bird problem, cats can take care of that." This was the point when the sign-language guy finally gave up.
Next, everyone walked to corners of the room to back their favorite pets. The cat and fish people had less than 15% of the vote, thus sending everyone into the exciting realignment period. During this time, the bird supporters grabbed the cookie tray--a staple of Iowa caucus sites--and approached the Undecideds, who accused them of bribery. The Christmas-sweater woman's main tactic was to stand near the Undecideds and loudly chant "Birds! Birds! Birds!" A staunch dog supporter grabbed Culver's microphone to talk about how his dog had once been at the Governor's mansion.
Each candidate was awarded a number of delegates corresponding to the percentage of people standing in its corner. Out of the seven allotted in this fake precinct obsessed with pet hierarchy, four went to the dogs, three went to Uncommitted, and none went to the birds since so many of them got confused during realignment that they strayed from their corner. While much was learned about how caucuses work, more was learned about the intelligence of people who own birds.
The caucus seems as if it were constructed to keep away everyone but hard-core party activists and the pitifully lonely, but it can actually lead to an informed decision. And while three hours seems like a lot to give up for democracy, it's shorter than that last Lord of the Rings movie. The lack of a secret ballot does make some people nervous, but having to declare your political opinion in public probably keeps people from voting for things they should be ashamed of, such as liking cats. Plus there's something nice about getting together with your neighbors to eat cookies and talk about politics. Once every four years seems about right for that.