The Iowa caucus is tomorrow. I feel a little bad because I can’t recite Obama’s healthcare plan from memory, and because I can’t tell you how Biden plans to actually implement his plan for Iraq. Despite my ignorance, however, I do feel better informed than your average American, if only because I’ve watched 80% of the televised debates, read the campaign articles in TIME in each week, and kept an eye on the daily newspaper reports (most of which cover the knucklehead stuff like fundraising and campaign gaffes). I wouldn’t consider myself capable of making a persuasive argument for or against any candidate — which probably means I wouldn’t be a strong caucuser — but I do think I’m capable of making an informed choice.

The Wikipedia entry on the caucus process explains it this way:

Participants indicate their support for a particular candidate by standing in a designated area of the caucus site (forming a “preference group”). An area may also be designated for undecided participants. Then, for roughly 30 minutes, participants try to convince their neighbors to support their candidates….After 30 minutes, the electioneering is temporarily halted and the supporters for each candidate are counted. At this point, the caucus officials determine which candidates are “viable”…Once viability is determined, participants have roughly another 30 minutes to “realign”: the supporters of inviable candidates may find a viable candidate to support, join together with supporters of another inviable candidate to secure a delegate for one of the two, or choose to abstain. This “realignment” is a crucial distinction of caucuses in that (unlike a primary) being a voter’s “second candidate of choice” can help a candidate.

That realignment period seems pretty crucial. It’s how people who would rather cast a vote for, say, Kucinich actually wind up voting for, say, Obama. Personally, I am a huge fan of the ability to have more than one preference during voting (I even wrote about it once) because it means each individual has more opportunity to have his or her voice be heard. If progressives like me were to cast a vote for Kucinich in a regular election, and he lost, then we have no say over who our representative will be. But if we can cast one ideal vote, and then another vote based on real-world viability (in the sense that the caucus process demonstrates), then we’d have a greater opportunity to achieve actual representation in our elected officials.

So, with all that being said, if I were to caucus tomorrow, my process would probably look like this.

I’d start by standing in the designated area for Kucinich. I have my reservations about him, but they only attain to his leadership ability, as in: does this person whose ideas I agree with have the necessary skills to turn those ideas into reality? Unfortunately, I seriously doubt it. But at the same time, a fount of power flows through the White House. It is not an infinite power, and the President of the United States is not an all-knowing, all-achieving supreme leader; but there is, nonetheless, power in the Oval Office. Imagine the good that power alone could do when channeled through the gracious heart and earnest hands of Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

Take this policy test to see which candidate you most agree with.

Now if Kucinich did not achieve the 15% viability threshold at the caucus meeting I attended, my second choice would be Sen. Obama. While I made this choice on my own, it is comforting to know that Kucinich has urged his supporters to back Obama on the second round, provided he doesn’t make it that far himself. I’d do it for the reason Kucinich mentions in his press release: both Kucinich and Obama have one thing in common: change.

Edwards is just another politician, as is Richardson, Biden, and Dodd. All of them play the game, and they play it well, but none represents the fundamental change that is necessary for this country to pull itself up from the muck our last few Presidents have dropped us in. I’m not talking about Iraq, or sex scandals, but about cynicism. The cynicism that grew out of Nixon’s contempt for the electorate, Reagan’s and Bush I’s contempt for the law, Clinton’s contempt for the truth, and Bush II’s contempt for common decency. A President Edwards, Richardson, Biden, or Dodd would do little to overturn this country’s contempt for politics and politicians. At most, they would do less harm than their Republican counterparts.

Sen. Clinton, for her part, is the absolute paragon of “politics as usual.” Where Edwards, Richardson, Biden, and Dodd come off as career politicians, Clinton represents the complete continuation of partisan anger, middle-of-the-road vision, and the slow, steady decline of what should be possible in a democracy, namely, the opportunity to completely revolutionize the power structure every two and four years. In short, the number one reason I refuse to support Sen. Clinton is because the thought of two families leading this country for twenty-four years is deplorable. I will not be party to a coronation.

But I wouldn’t just be voting against the other candidates. I would be voting for Obama. Here’s what I like about him:

• His age: He is eight years younger than the next youngest candidate (Edwards) and fourteen years younger than Sen. Clinton (see the entire age range of the candidates). Why does his age matter? Sen. Clinton was born in 1947. Her formative years included the 1950’s and the 1960’s, and she is motivated (in large part) by the trials and tribulations of those hectic days. Sen. Obama was born in 1961. He was eight years old and living in Indonesia when Woodstock happened. A vote for Obama, in my opinion, represents a vote for a post-boomer politics.

  As a sidenote, it’s been suggested that Obama is actually a member of the baby boom generation, which some people think lasted until 1964, but as the Wikipedia entry on Baby Boomer makes clear, there is some disagreement about the classification: “While 1946-1964 reflect the post-WWII demographic boom in births, there is a growing consensus among generational experts that two distinct cultural generations occupy these years…It can be argued that the defining event of early Baby Boomers was the Vietnam War and the protest over the draft, which ended in 1973. Since anyone born after 1955 was not subject to the draft, this argues for the..years including 1946 to 1955 as defining the baby boomers.”

• His lack of hatred: If there’s one thing Obama projects, it is respect and good will. He does not possess the rancor of Edwards or the victimization complex of Sen. Clinton. His record demonstrates a talent for working with those on the other side of aisle. I think it’s this respect and good will toward Republicans that makes him the strongest candidate in the national election. He doesn’t leave anyone out.

The reason he would not be my first choice at the caucus is because where Obama wants to get done what can be done, Kucinich wants to get done what should be done. We dreamers stick together.

But when there’s no dreamers to choose from, I’ll take the next best thing: Hope.