The Republican caucus for the precinct my hotel was located in was at an old folks home in downtown Des Moines. If Gary Bauer was going to do well anywhere in Iowa, I figured he should do well in old folks homes, so I walked over to witness Gary's triumph. When I arrived, I was seized by the desire to take part in the caucus, but unfortunately you have to be a registered voter and a registered Republican to participate. I walked up to the old man sitting at the desk and explained that I'd only just arrived in Des Moines, but I wanted to vote anyway. Apparently this wasn't a problem: He handed me a form to fill out.

You must be a citizen of the United States. Check. At least 17 and a half years old. Check. Never been convicted of a felony. Check. Not currently judged "mentally incompetent" by a court. Check. Must be a resident of Iowa. Hmm ... That one was slightly problematic. I was, at the moment, residing in Iowa in a dump of a hotel. But you know what? In the five days I'd spent throwing up in my hotel room, and the two days I'd spent at the Bauer 2000 headquarters making phone calls and licking doorknobs, I'd fallen in love with Iowa. In fact, at the moment I was filling out that voter registration form, I could honestly say I would never want to leave Iowa. I'll send for the boyfriend and baby later in the week. I signed. I was an Iowan now.

Before we could vote, some "candidates' representatives" stood and addressed the 70 or so people now gathered in the dining room. Half the voters were actual old folks in various stages of decrepitude, the others were young, downtown-dwelling professionals. A young woman spoke first for Bush. She had originally been a Lamar Alexander supporter, but after he dropped out, she looked at the remaining candidates and, in her words,"settled for" George W. Wow, talk about passion. A little weasel in a bad suit spoke for Forbes, an old man spoke for Keyes and a young activist -- quite possibly a Democrat -- spoke for McCain.

Strangely, no one spoke for my man, Gary Bauer.

Then we voted. And as it turns out, I needn't have registered to vote, as the precinct captain just walked through the room passing out slips of paper with the candidates' names listed on them. He didn't even bother checking to see if any of us had registered. "We're on the honor system here," he said, "so no voting unless you've registered to vote and you're a Republican."

Whoa! Not that many people take part in the caucuses to begin with, so small shifts in numbers can mean Big Mo' for a candidate. Someone with a lot of money, like, oh, Steve Forbes, might be tempted hire a bunch of little weasels to go to caucuses and vote for him. This process, I realized, could easily be corrupted by people of bad will or dirty tricksters from out of state.

Staring at my slip of paper, I balked. I couldn't decide what to do. I had been a Bauer man all weekend, but last night I attended a Keyes rally -- just to see what all the fuss was about -- and I was really moved by the things he had to say. Keyes is so persuasive a speaker that I left the Val Air Ballroom in West Des Moines convinced that he was the hard-right candidate who could do the most harm to the Republican Party.

You see, when I vote in Republican primaries or caucuses -- and I almost always do -- I vote for the person who can most damage the Republican Party in the upcoming general election. I tend to vote hard right -- I was a Buchanan man in '96 -- because the better the hard right does in the primary campaign, the more pandering the mainstream Republican candidate has to do on the hard right's pet issues. Witness George W. Bush's increasingly hard-line statements on abortion this week in Iowa. The pandering may excite hard-right voters, but it alienates those precious middle-of-the-road voters you need to get your ass into the White House.

So, looking over my ballot, it wasn't hard deciding who would do the most harm to Ol' George W., and it wasn't Bauer or McCain or even Forbes. It was firebrand Alan Keyes, the man whose passion and ability to whip up a crowd was the only real story in Iowa this week.

Keyes was surging! And I wanted to be part of that surge, a surge that would be bad for the Republican Party, and bad for George W. in November. With apologies to Andy, I marked my ballot for Keyes and handed it to the precinct captain.

When the results of our caucus were finally read, I was shocked by the outcome. Bush came in first with 28 votes, and he was followed by Forbes with 22, McCain with 9, Keyes with 5 and Hatch with 3. And Bauer? How did Gary do?

He got one lousy vote. And it wasn't even mine.

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