ES MOINES - Jane Bejarno is such a fan of Vice President Al Gore that she came out in the cold yesterday to hear him talk about health care. But despite her avid support for Gore, Bejarno, like 75 percent of Iowa's registered voters, does not plan to vote in Monday's caucuses. The long meeting is not worthwhile, she says, and she figures Gore will win anyway.
Former senator Bill Bradley, however, faces an even tougher electorate. On paper, he should be doing well here because the state's biggest bloc of voters are independents, whom he is counting on in New Hampshire and elsewhere. But even though independents can re-register on caucus day, very few participate because the caucuses are so geared to party members. Bradley's political director expects fewer than 2,000 people to re-register as Democrats out of 100,000 voters, vastly underrepresenting the state's independents.
This, as much as anything else occurring in the final, frantic days of campaigning, is the story of the Iowa caucuses. It is often noted that the Iowa contest occurs in a mostly white, rural state that is unrepresentative of America. But what is most surprising is that caucus-goers aren't even representative of Iowa - and that could determine who wins the presidential contests in this state Monday.
''Most of the independents are probably not going to participate,'' said former Iowa governor Terry Branstad, a Republican who is backing George W. Bush and strongly defends the caucus system. ''So, unlike New Hampshire, it is more ideological. On the Democratic side, there are the unions, and on the Republican side there is the influence of the Christian Coalition and anti-abortion Catholics.''
The bottom line is that Iowans vote in small numbers, with participation dominated by the extremes of each party, and without the balancing effect of independents. This filtering of the voter pool helps explain why Bradley, trailing in the polls, complained earlier this week that Iowa ''is a state that rewards entrenched power,'' which was gleefully interpreted by the Gore campaign as a criticism of the state's vaunted caucus system. It also helps explain why Senator John McCain of Arizona, who also is counting on independents, is not campaigning in this state.
Even among Republicans and Democrats, the voters who show up at the caucuses are not representative of the party membership. Among Republicans, male voters are expected to significantly outnumber women, even though more Republican women are registered to vote. A disproportionate number of Democrats are likely to be union members. Social conservatives who are fervently antiabortion are likely to once again vote heavily, throwing an air of unpredictability into the GOP race.
The lack of participation by independents in Iowa is the opposite of what is occurring in New Hampshire - and that goes a long way toward explaining the seesaw campaign results that often occur in the two contests.
Independents are the largest voting bloc in New Hampshire, making up 37 percent of the electorate, and are likely to determine the outcome of both races.
But, with far less notice, Iowa independents this year also became the first-caucus state's largest voting bloc, with 658,000 voters, compared with 582,000 Republicans and 562,000 Democrats.
But while the independents can switch their registration at any time and vote in the caucuses, there is relatively little courting of the independents in this state because the caucuses are so geared to party activists.
John and Doris Brock of Des Moines, who are both registered as independents, seem typical of that group. They said yesterday they hadn't decided whether to vote, partly because of the effort required to switch their registration just before the caucuses.
McCain often says he hasn't campaigned in Iowa because he was willing to attack tax breaks for ethanol, the corn-based gasoline additive. But that is not the only reason. While agriculture and ethanol are important in this state, that is not nearly as true as it was two decades ago.
The most important reason for McCain's decision to bypass this state may be that he is opposed by most of the party establishment and can't count on independent voters in Iowa. Branstad said McCain ''missed an opportunity'' by not campaigning in this state and seeking the independent vote.
Similarly, all those independents would seem to be a bright spot for Bradley. But Bradley, who has poured the maximum $2.2 million into this state, has had no choice but to spend most of his time courting the party base. Bradley political director Pete D'alessandro said in an interview that the former New Jersey senator has made efforts to court independents, but that it is unrealistic to expect a large number to participate.
''The caucus is so different from a primary,'' D'alessandro said. ''For independents, if you are going into a meeting of Democrats, there is always going to be a moment before they walk into the church basement when they say, `I'll vote for him in the general election,' or `I don't want to stand up before my neighbors.'''
Despite all the hoopla about the way Iowans pay more attention to the presidential contest than people in most other states, the voter turn in Iowa is among the most dismal in the nation. In a best-case scenario, about 25 percent of voters in each party will participate in the caucuses, far less than the more than 70 percent expected to vote in the New Hampshire primary.
Moreover, the people who do attend the caucuses are in many ways not a representative demographic slice of Iowa, according to surveys by the University of Northern Iowa, which has conducted exhaustive research on the subject.
In the off-year Republican organizational caucuses of 1998, for example, men outnumbered women 2 to 1. In 1996, the last presidential election year, men outnumbered women 54 percent to 46 percent.
While Bush is expected to win the caucuses, it is always possible that one of the social conservatives in the race will run strongly, as has happened in the past. That is because Republican caucus-goers are among the nation's strongest abortion opponents and advocates of school prayer. Republican candidates Gary Bauer and Alan Keyes are both counting on that group for a strong showing, while Steve Forbes has reengineered his flat tax-based campaign to win over social conservatives.
Democrats, while more evenly balanced between men and women, are a decidedly more liberal and unionized group than the general party membership.
Iowa officials, who are used to attacks on the caucus system, insist that it is a unique and useful way to narrow the presidential field.
''The people that do attend the Iowa caucus have now had the opportunity to listen and talk to the candidates in some cases for four years,'' said Chet Culver, secretary of state.
''They are really experts. These are people that feel passionately about the process and the candidates.''
But that passion does not always translate into voting in the caucuses. Bejarno, asked why she came to hear Gore speak yesterday but doesn't plan to vote on Monday night, said she receives frequent calls from the Gore campaign ''telling us to be sure to go to the caucus. I always tell them we aren't going to the caucus, but will vote for him'' - assuming Gore makes it to the general election.
