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The following podcast contains explicit language.

Music The following podcast contains explicit language. Hello and welcome to a special Slate Political Gab Fest for Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016,

the Is it Groundhog Day or is it the day after Iowa caucus's edition?

I am David Plotz of Atlas Obscura.

I'm in Washington, D.C.

Jamel Bowie, Slate's chief political correspondent, joins us from Iowa.

We'll talk to Jamal in one second.

And chairman of the Slate Group, Jacob Weisberg, is in New York.

And of course, yesterday was the Iowa caucus. There's tons of news about it. And we're going to talk about all of it.

Let's start, though, with you, Jamal. Where are you in Iowa? And what did you witness last night? Did you witness scenes of carnage and appellant?

Well, I am currently in a hotel outside Des Moines, and last night I went to a caucus location at Drake University,

and I saw a auditorium full of students, shouting very loudly and very sadly for the canons, including

surprisingly like a handful of O'Malley kids.

And by a handful, I mean like legitimately like 15 O'Malley kids, which might, who might actually,

you know, make up O'Malley's entire base in Iowa.

It was, I mean, I've never, I've never seen a caucus before.

So it was interesting just watching how arcane it is.

And it makes you wonder why, I mean, the only reason why Iowa Democrats have to, are still

doing it this way, it must be because of some sort of misguided connection to tradition.

Because it really makes no sense.

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