This past Monday the Iowa Caucus was held and I had the privilege to attend a viewing party hosted by the College Democrats and the College Republicans. The Colgate University twitter account handed over the handle to these two student groups to let them live-tweet the #ColgateCaucus event, and I was invited to act as the resident expert on all things Twitter.
I like to consider myself relatively politically knowledgeable and active in our country's political process, but I quickly realized that I had a lot to learn from my more politically learned peers. Here's what I learned watching the Iowa Caucus with the College Democrats and College Republicans.
1. The Iowa Caucus means everything.
I'm honestly still not entirely sure what the Iowa Caucus even is, but I've been told that it is a strong indicator for campaign momentum and is helpful in projecting future results. This impact can be seen in the fact that candidates Martin O'Malley, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum (who I honestly forgot was even running) suspended their campaigns based on caucus results.
2. The Iowa Caucus means nothing.
The Iowa Caucus results are not an entirely reliable tool in predicting the outcomes of any campaigns.
3. Everyone thinks Donald Trumps is a joke.
Democrats and Republicans alike revel in the straight up weird things that leave Trump's mouth.
4. The closeness of the race between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton puts everyone on the edges of their seats.
The race for the Democratic Party nomination lacks nothing in drama. Hillary and Bernie were separated by two delegates by the end of the caucus. It's still looking like anyone's game.
5. The Republican polling results continue to surprise even the most informed voters.
Ben Carson over Jeb Bush? Would not have put my money on that one.
6. Every candidate can be subject to ridicule from both parties.
7. You can't guess someone's political affiliations just by looking at them.
Contrary to popular belief, Democrats are not actually donkeys and Republicans are not actually elephants.
8. It is almost impossible to follow traditional media coverage and social media coverage of the Iowa Caucus in real-time.
I live primarily in the digital world and trying to follow more than just my Twitter timeline had me feeling many types of ways. Specifically #overwhelmed.
9. Pringles and pizza go great with politics.
Or with anything, really.
10. Ain't nobody got time for pointless punditry.
If there wasn't a candidate on screen, the TV was muted. No one wanted to hear anything from the pundits and analysts covering the caucus; everyone wanted results.11. Candidate speeches are truly bizarre.
Watching the candidates respond to the caucus results I realized I had never actually watched a candidate's speech from start to finish and typically refer exclusively to BuzzFeed gif-sets for the recap. They all said some weird stuff from the Evangelical appeals to a higher power and Hillary Clinton's assertion that she had definitively won the caucus that was deemed a "virtual tie."
12. Comedy can bring both parties together.
13. It's possible to disagree on politics and still have productive conversations.
College Democrats and College Republicans await Iowa Caucus results at the #ColgateCaucus event held in Persson Hall.
At the end of the day, we all just want to live in the best possible version of our great country. That's a goal that we can all respect.
