Mr. Richard bender. ,e grew up in new york city Iowa State University in 1967. In 1970, he joined the staff of the Iowa Democratic party where, in addition to campaign activities, he was an architect of the modern democratic conference. He became a special assistant in 1975 and was on senator tom harkins staff until 2013. He was the senior legislative onistant who focused appropriations, taxes, economic development, and infrastructure. Inoughout his years congress, he remained involved in the iowa caucus system and helped many of the various efforts to replace iowa from its first in the nation physician. Anybody deserves the name of being the midwife of the Iowa Caucuses, it is probably richard bender. Richard i will has always had caucuses, going back to statehood. 1972, the National Convention delegate was selected by party leaders. Caucusesending the were not doing the attending in order to promote a particular candidate. , awas more of a social event place where people active in the party could receive the recognition they deserve as a delegate to the county convention. Usually you had 10,000 or 20,000 people show up. In 1968, with the vietnam war growing, about 70,000 people for the showed up. Caucus and the professors home where they expected maybe 10 people and includingshowed up getting that in in the out window. Know, clearly the mayber folks probably had 1, but the story was both sides claimed victory in the Iowa Caucuses. And no one cared and no one actually had a count ever. If you could have had a count, in about three or four weeks. If you managed to call them all up once you had their names. There were two things that happened. One in 1968 and one in 1970, that yielded by pure accident to the system. 1968, the state convention was the last item of his this by thed on a vote therman of the convention, platform was agreed to in the convention was over. Upset. Were pretty the second thing that happened that70, in des moines, was two groups might call the new brickactually the gym faction of reality, those that hated gym brick and those that hated norman matthews. [laughter] folks hadm brick about three more delegates at the county convention than the side. People were offering three of the 400 and some delegates neglected to the state convention. They did not think that was quite fair. People who are upset and angry do not show up to walk to work on election day. It made it a party problem. In 1970, we have finally taken the position of by the new guy, the socalled antiwar folks, and we were now empowered to do something about reform. There was a meeting of new democrats in marshalltown, and a lot of ideas were batted around. Those ideas to cliff, who formed the committee, which mostded bob fulton and uh importantly [indiscernible] as the chair with [indiscernible] on the central committee. They try to figure out what they should do. Basically dealing with those two difficulties. The recommendation that was accepted was that the convention would all be appointed from below. Caucus attenders would elect the committees of the county and so forth, but that meant you had to create a Congressional District convention, which we didnt used to have. You couldnt have 99 people selecting a fair share of the numbers in a committee. You would have 500 people. You also had to mail the proposals to the delegates. Dated six weeks in between. That was one of the elements. We had a very early in the process. The second thing was the idea of proportional representation. My memory is that the guy who ,as a guy named ray morgan it have broad support. Had been a strong pusher for that idea in a national commission. You know, but the original proposal that went to that committee of four when i presented it, it was that people should divide into groups and divide by anything. Candidate, by whatever they wanted. They could divide on decisive issues. You did not want divisive issues. You did not want within little factual groups dividing everything up. The idea was just make them divide by candidate. Hughes, who had been all for it at the National Level, was thinking of running for president. Was ifstand the remark to have toants me get 85 in every blank blank Congressional District to have united delegation . When i called for cliff larson, the chairman of the party, he indicated his views. Cliff promised that he would not propose it, but he also wouldnt kill it. He would just let the kid do it. So, i walked into the meeting and i kind of sense that people from the Senators Office may have made a few calls. People have said wait a minute, you know, do we want our party to be known by all of whoe kids on the campuses show up in such shoot numbers . Is that what we want . I said we will only report the county delegates, but we will all be however many show up, it just will make any difference. Vote with aone that vote to spare. Know,e system that we now which essentially at the caucus level has been unchanged since then, was born. You know, you know, its, its , so, its like , nobody you know, the importance of the changes that occurred to them, thats what they would do. No one had any clue of how significant iowa would become. In 1972, as in 68, there was a level of activity mainly all by iowans, with a few visits by the national candidates. Not very many. And we we moved towards the caucuses. I went to my own caucus and then i walked over to where they were going to do the count at the state headquarters and i borrowed a memory calculator because i wanted to do a lot of calculations fast. I was the only one doing the calculations. We had 10 or 12 press people show up. These press people included one guy who, as you mentioned before , was johnny apple. You know, he wrote a story about you know, this guy named mcgovern. He didnt win, but he came in much better than expected. That got picked up, as was just mentioned, by some of the National News shows. Wow, all of a sudden we were being paid attention to. The jimmy carter did see that. He came in. And really put work in. No one had ever for the kind of effort that jimmy carter put into the state. So, with his victory you had established a lot in the caucuses. Were i remember that it may have been later, but i think that there were 12 or 10 reporter showing up and i was by 10 people from japanese tv. Point first of all, uncommitted one in 72 and 76. The sun is people hadnt necessarily decided, but they really, the whole idea of the game at the caucus level was not understood. Thinking ill well, im going to hold my fire because we really want to see in 70appens in in at the county and district conventions. They didnt get that the whole game was caucus night. You know, now tv is really big. Of dollars will be spent there on tv, i expect. Unfortunately not by the candidate committees in many cases. But it still iowa is still a place, just like it was in 1976, where a candidate going around and meeting people, answering questions, is still very, very important. If the candidate doesnt do that, they will lose big time in iowa. Hampshire are the only places where that occurs. Its all driven at the media level. Not by field organizations, for the most part. This is this reality creates a total different responsibility the candidate, a totally different impact on the national race. Iowa is notson, really a replaceable situation. Also, iowa is an incredibly clean place, you know . Whenlike the truth is hamm jordan and governor carter came in 1975 to talk to party leaders, which included myself, we will not we were not really suzy asked about the governor from georgia frankly he was a little more conservative than was our he didnt agree with our analysis but the important thing is that the party always treated him and everyone fairly. They charge a lot more now, but i think we charged three dollars for the list of delegates to the state convention, which one are copy cost. [laughter] you were ino wonder debt when i went to the party. [laughter] mr. Bender absolutely. Completely bare. A story, theres a rumor that iowa,rkin, senator from the leader of the iowa democrat, very well respected, still living, incoming iowa, small town of a few hundred people. Hes with dean. Everyone knows it. Dean really does poorly. The reality is no one thought thats a negative on tom harkin. People felt no compulsion because somebody important said well, this is the guy. They didnt feel the responsibility or the need to be there. They did what was right from their personal perspective. Field staff came in. They have their list of their number ones. Toldeople whom they say or about this candidate or that candidate. Its it doesnt its totally normal to see mary talking to joan and all of a sudden the number ones disappear. Completely the norm. Undamental to the caucus its that interaction. People go to enjoy that interaction and the ability to show people into their group from some other group. I want to mention one other rule. We had this 15 rule came out because the delegates to the Congressional District conventions, there were like seven delegates. Three tickets for iowa. We are only counting the county delegates. So, in most places you have zero. Because you have zero in most places, the reports going to 1 for you know bender. Well, after the obituary story, who is covering him . Nobody. You are done completely. I think the republicans would just love, love, love to have that 15 rule. Also means that the people for the candidate with only 8 , they get to go to their second choice. That improves the result. You dont have all of this little scatter that might aggregate to a significant number. It is aggregated right there at the caucus level. With that i will let someone else talk for a bit. Thank you,on richard. That was interesting and fascinating. As you were describing the way that it worked, you were talking about the Democratic Caucus . Mr. Bender thats completely right. Mr. Covington odd as it might seem, we now get to hear from the first and over only republican of the day. Woolson. He was the Campaign Manager for mike huckabee. He was the advisor for tim valentis president ial campaign in 2011 and was also the Iowa Communications director for three other republican campaigns. U. S. Senator Chuck Grassley in 2010, doug gross for governor in in 2000. 2 and bidens 1988joe president ial bid. Im sure that he will have some interesting insights, having experience both sides of the process w. Help me welcome eric woolson. [applause] ms. Murray mr. Woolson thank you so much. I was terribly worried all week, knowing that i would be a. Richard, jeannie. I kept thinking about mark twain mouthter to keep your shut and have people think you are an idiot than to open your mouth and have people know that you are an idiot. [laughter] i have been on edge knowing that there is so much Institutional Knowledge appear and so much experience from folks who have been through this process. There can see, rich was through the nuts and bolts of the process. Im not sure that i can remember what i had for breakfast today. We will keep our fingers crossed. Its just so fascinating to hear tims remarks and to know that what he did 40 years ago really sets the Gold Standard. I just came off Governor Walkers campaign. The plus side is a dont have to drive the winnebago. The downside is your im, not a lot to do tomorrow afternoon either. Or monday. [laughter] tuesday, the office is going to be kind of quiet. Wednesday is not looking much better at this point. Set thed, tim really Gold Standard and we do do things differently with the republican campaigns. But there is that fundamental idea of iowans talking to iowans. Thats what the caucuses are all about. You know, my early background, the first 20 years of my career i spent as a journalist. Probably the most important 12 years were at the courier. I got to see them awful lot of republican candidates, and awful lot of Democratic Candidates over the years. One of the things that really strikes me about the caucuses is the impact that the bush family has had on our process. I remember in 1979 i was a freelance reporter at the time. I remember that there were a. Ouple of guys that came in they worked for the bush campaign. Ambassadorupport for bush. And think how much has that has changed over the years. As tim said, you got steve forbes there with this magnificent tent. It had the french doors you forgot to mention that. All the money that they spent on the process, up to 2011. Plentyith the governor at that point. The bachmann campaign spent a little over 2 Million Building a building on the site. So, just amazing how this process has changed. I think that one of the things that has been this constant has been iowans talking to iowans. One of the things i was working about worried about so much in the 2000 campaign is whether the caucuses would change because of the george w. Bush influence of running his campaign very much like an incumbent campaign. Like a president ial campaign. He had obviously seen how his father had done the events. Exceptional advance people with a lot of money. A lot of money makes a big difference. That 1999 early 2000s , we would hold two or three events per day and that was about it. Be 300, 400, 500, 600 people there. It was a very different process than what i had seen when covering candidates as a political reporter where you are out on the road with gary hart for three days. Hes speaking to nine or 15 people in cedar rapids and building that slowly. To the point where he has a 1984. Successful night in in 2008, when i managed governor huckabee, i guess it is kind of be careful what you wish for. We were back to nine people, 15 people. I remember the governor huckabee would often say to me where are all the people . Where is everybody . I would tell him that this is the traditional process, this is how it works. An opportunity for us as iowans to look people in the eye and if we are not happy with this really to go back and get that followup question that is so rare here. Another thing, the young folks who are covering the race is here that work for those iowa media outlets, telling us how fortunate and blessed we are to have this opportunity that so many other states really dont , i think you this year kind of bringing it full circle here, this year we have gone to the the straw poll and the value of it. It became such a big event on its own. National media, folks in other states really had that concern that iowa was getting two bites at the apple. Donty of us say that we choose a president ial candidates, but we do help to we know them down. That thats what we do. But there is that feeling that with the straw poll, when governor plenty dropped out in particular, the idea was that we were starting to lose quality candidates so early in the process, we wanted to see things go differently. As an organizer i was always very happy to have that straw poll. Gave me the opportunity when i was a Campaign Manager when i had someone in Council Bluffs saying i would bring 15 people i havey brought three someone saying i will bring 10 people and they bring 50, well, that helps me start to figure out as a Campaign Manager where i need to put my resources. Ive always liked it for that reason. But i do appreciate the idea that we have stepped back. I dont know what its future will be, but stepping back this time round is taking some of the pressure off the caucuses. There is always that push to get rid of iowa as a caucus state. Another move that our state party has made that is a positive is the idea of going to the proportional representation theof the caucuses to county conventions, onto the district in the state. We hadthat issue where senator santorum, governor romney virtually tied on caucus night and then ron paul ends up with 22 of the delegates. I think that weve made some reforms. As a party were pointed in the right direction. Here overng to happen the next 80 days is anybodys guess, but stay tuned and we will see where it goes. [applause] thank you very much. One little side note on george bush having so much money in 2000, the reason he did was that she was the first candidate to turn down public money. So, every other candidate was operating with a limit of 34 million for the whole campaign. He had more than that in january and round up of 130 million. He was rolling in the dough. Mr. Woolson absolutely. And when we travel the state we were on a gulfstream for, which beat the heck out of my ford contour. [laughter] mr. Covington fantastic. Our third strategist right now is jeannie murray. Having served as an iowa representative and on the boswell chief of staff on capitol hill, the executive director of the eye with democratic already and a Campaign Manager. Additional additionally she has worked in key roles on a variety of federal and local campaigns. Today she served as the iowa state director for howard dean during his campaign 2004. She got here in a big hurry, so lets welcome her as she arrived in time. Thank you. [applause] mr. Bender i wanted to thank ms. Murray i wanted to thank the Hoover Library in the Iowa Public Library center, its always reminiscent of one of the most painful moments in my career. You googledago if my name the screen speech would stop coming up. Folks into note a few the crowd, i grew up down the road and its really great to see senator jones here, others i missed ensure that ive missed ensure, but they were Strong Political mentors of mine. Additionally i was a little upset to note that our panel is prior to davids panel. I wanted to have the opportunity to rebut whatever he was going to say. But then i realized that we are both in different roles now. I always used to say that david in his column, it was the law or rule of physics according to david. Had a good column from him, next time you would have an equally negative one. Want to talk about sorry, im a technology person, so my notes are on my phone. I wanted to talk personally about my experience on the caucuses and talk about how that has bigger implications for what we see nationally and what has happened since the last time i was on a caucus. My first as a staff member was 1996, working for clinto