CNN 2012-01-05

Hello and a very happy New Year,I'm Carl Azuz,welcoming you to the first CNN Student news program of 2012,hope you all had great holidays and you're ready to dive back into the headlines.First up,today marks the first major political event on the US presidential campaign trail this year,it's the Iowa caucuses 2.President Obama is likely the democratic nominee 3 but which republican will ultimately run against him,that's what's gonna be decided 4 by these primaries and caucuses.The republican candidates have been campaigning for months.Now the voters will start to weigh in.Some states hold primaries,that's where each voter casts a single private ballot 5.Other states have public meeting called caucuses.In Iowa,candidates or their representatives can make speeches at these caucuses to try to rally some last minute support.Then voters pick which candidates they prefer.Sometimes they write it down on a piece of paper,other times it's a show of hands.Three other states are holding primaries in January starting with New Hampshire next week.South Carolina and Florida are later on in the month.Iowa gets to go first with its caucuses today.The question you might be asiking is how much influence does the Hawkeye state has on the race for the White House.Jessica is gonna look back at the impact of Iowa's caucuses on some past presidential campaigns.In Iowa,a win can thrust a candidate into the national spotlight,thank you Iowa while a loss can kill a campaign's momentum,just ask_.I wanna congratulate the other candidates or Howard Dean,and then we're going to Washington DC to take back the White House.But in terms of picking a winner,whether it's the President or a party's nominee,the record for Iowa caucuses is mixed.On the republican side,Ronald Reagan lost here in 1980,so did George.H.W.Bush in 1988.Eventua republican nominee Bob in 1996 and President George.W.Bush in 2000 both claimed victories in the state.You may remember just 8 years later Mike won the caucuses.I love Iowa a whole lot.But John McCain went on to become the GOP nominee.For the democrates,the original Iowa upset went to Jimmy Carter in 1976 when the litte known Georgia governor made a suprisingly strong finish here lauching his political rise to the White House.we need to reorganize completely the executive branch of government.In 1984_went from Iowa caucus 1 winner to democratic party nominee.In 1988,Iowa democrats 6 chose_over eventual 7 nominee Michael.And four years later Bill Clinton was humbled 8 with less than 3 percent of the caucus vote.Native son senator Tom won that year.Democratic nominee John Kerry won the caucuses in 2004.Thank you Iowa for making me the comeback Kerry.And more recently,senator Barack Obama staged a caucus upset that catapulted him to the front of the pack,recall that senator Hillary Clinton was considered all but a_until then.Hi,this is Mechele Bachmann calling.What the Iowa caucuses're good at is winnowing 9 down the field,the old saying is there're only three tickets out of Iowa.It's who comes in second,who comes in third as well as who comes in first and if somebody else does surprisingly well,it could well launch their campaign,it's happened before.Political upstarts have a chance here because caucus goers really do as they saykick the tires.What I wanna know is that if you get republican house and republican senator in 2 years,will you fulfill 10 all those promises.The answer isyes.And Iowans take this work seriously which is why the media and the country follows what happens here so closely