Iowa's only the first step in picking nominee

By Eun-Kyung Kim, Associated Press, 01/24/00

WASHINGTON -- Consider it the first step toward choosing the people who get to whoop it up in funny hats at the national political conventions.

IOWA CAUCUS RESULTS
Republican
97% of precincts reporting
Bush 41%
Forbes 30%
Keyes 14%
Bauer 9%
McCain 5%
Hatch 1%
Democrats
98% of precincts reporting
Gore 63%
Bradley 35%
Percentages will not necessarily add to 100.

MORE COVERAGE
FROM THE GLOBE
Bush, Gore wrap up Iowa
The votes tell the contentment
Lesson of Iowa: Counterattack quickly
Candidates have one goal remaining: closing the deal
Tight-three way race in New Hampshire envisioned
Gore plays it cool and girds for battle
Hatch to announce he's quitting race
Small-town USA sees big time turnout at polls
On the road in N.H., McCain dismisses Iowa
Sharing quarters, but ever so briefly

EARLIER NEWS
Gore, Bush easy winners of Iowa caucuses
Voters say Bush best choice on moral values, can win in November
Democrats: Iowa picks fighter Gore over Bradley's fresh start
Republicans: Bush aims to use caucus victory to set up showdown with McCain
Fiery Keyes gets strong caucus support
Down-home politics shape Iowa
Iowa's only the first step in picking nominee
With a final flury, candidates focus on turnout
Former president waits nervously as son competes in Iowa caucuses
After Iowa: On to New Hampshire

ABOUT THE CAUCUSES
How Iowa caucuses work
Why they are important

ABOUT IOWA
Population: 2.85 million.
Registered voters: 1.8 million -- 36 percent unaffiliated, 32 percent Republican, 31 percent Democrat.
Percentage of voters attending GOP caucuses in 1996: 17 percent.
Race: 97 percent white. 2 percent black. 1 percent Asian. 2 percent Hispanic origin.
Median age: 36.3.
Median household income: $33,877.
Poverty rate: 9.4 percent.
Unemployment rate: 2.7 percent.
Abortions: 9.8 per 1,000 women in 1995, compared with the national average of 22.9 per 1,000.
1996 vote: 50 percent Clinton; 40 percent Dole; 9 percent Perot.
Average life span: 77 years, compared with the U.S. average of 75.
Housing: Just over 72 percent of Iowans own their own homes, national average 66.3 percent.
Crime rate: 3,816 victims per 100,000 people in 1997, vs. national average of 4,923.
Tax burden: On a per-person basis, Iowa paid $4,530 in federal taxes in 1997 and got back $4,661 in federal spending.

The Iowa caucuses trigger a process of selecting thousands of delegates to the conventions. But the number of delegates selected in Iowa will make a very small dent in the total needed to win a party's nomination.

Iowa Republicans will eventually send 25 delegates to the GOP national convention; the party will have 2,066 when it selects its nominee in August.

Iowa Democrats will send 56 delegates to their party's national convention -- out of 4,337.

"Iowa's delegates are next to nothing," said Dennis Goldford, chairman of the politics and international relations department at Drake University.

Goldford said the caucuses serve more as a pulse-taking component, updating the vital signs of various campaigns, than as a delegate selection tool. They help winnow a crowded field of candidates before moving on to the next step -- the nation's first presidential preference primary, which occurs eight days later in New Hampshire.

In order to clinch the nomination, a Republican presidential candidate will need to win 1,034 delegates. A Democratic hopeful will need 2,169. Because of a front-loaded election calendar, a nominee for both parties should be known by the end of March.