DES MOINES Iowa
Stepping into a polling booth and pulling a lever or pushing a button is too easy for Iowans.
Instead, the state’s leadoff presidential caucuses are more of an event, complete with labyrinthine twists and turns that begin a year or more in advance of the chilly winter night when Democrats and Republicans gather separately in their precincts to vote.
Two Iowa professors are helping make sense out of the caucus process that often puzzles voters, candidates and political operatives.
As political science professor Steffen Schmidt puts it: “The Iowa caucuses are really kind of like a novel, there’s so much going on.”
Schmidt, who teaches at Iowa State University in Ames, is offering an online course about this winter’s caucuses that has enrolled students and adults. That online course is open to college students and those not enrolled in the university.
At the University of Iowa in Iowa City, professor David Redlawsk also is teaching courses and a seminar that focus on the caucuses. Among those courses will be an intensive three-week course that starts Dec. 26, just as interest in the caucuses will likely be peaking. That course is also open to students and non-students.
