Caucus, Caucus, Caucus

Know how you say a word over and over again and it starts to sound weird? Try it with "caucus," a word that's in the news a lot these days. The all-important Iowa Caucus is coming up on January 14th, and PC World gets the scoop about what's happening from Reuters:

At a high-tech forum sponsored by MTV and MySpace, some 200 Coe College students peppered Barack Obama with questions about Iraq, gay marriage and immigration, rewarding him with ear-shattering whoops when his answers meet their approval.

Why are Obama and other candidates spending a lot of time talking to young people? Ed Tibbetts explains it all in the Sioux City Journal:

Iowa is expected to be close. And with the winner possibly being the candidate with 35,000 to 40,000 votes, adding a couple thousand people to your column could provide a valuable margin.

Check out the numbers that campaign staffers are crunching:

In Iowa's two most recent federal elections, youth turnout was up. In 2004, 62 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted, up from 47 percent four years earlier. In fact, state figures show that a third of the new voters in Iowa in 2004 were people 18 to 24. Last year, turnout in that same age group jumped from 23 percent to 27 percent.

Wouldn't it be great if headlines on January 15th were all about how young people made the difference? C'mon, Iowa, ROCK THE CAUCUS!