MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. Later in the broadcast, negotiating personal and professional relationships when a person's religious beliefs are front and center, but first, as most Americans return to work and school on this 3rd day of January, a race that won't culminate until after Halloween officially begins today.

MR. KOJO NNAMDI2012 is, of course, a presidential election year and the first round of the nominating process takes place today in Iowa. In a multi-step process, residents there will meet in caucuses to choose delegates who will later choose other delegates to represent Iowa at the state and the national party nominating conventions. Winning Iowa doesn't guarantee a candidate the keys to the White House, but the caucuses do give us the first test of, well, we're not quite sure exactly what, but maybe a candidate's staying power in the long slog to his or her party's nomination.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIWAMU 88.5's own Matt Laslo is in Iowa and he gives us his perspective on the mood there. He joins us by phone from Des Moines. Matt Laslo, thank you for joining us.

MR. MATT LASLOThanks for having me.

NNAMDIMatt the general election is still ten months away, but Iowans are starting the nominating process today. What seems to be their biggest concerns as they choose which candidates to support?

LASLOWell, actually, it's funny here with Republican voters. I've talked to some older reporters and campaign analysts and they say it's a strange voting mood, especially with conservative voters, but their main concern right now is ousting the sitting president, President Barack Obama, and that's something a lot of times in the past you haven't really seen in Iowa and in other places. In the past, you'd have voters really wanting to come out, get behind one candidate that they're really excited about.

LASLOBut I was at a Rick Perry event last week and some people said, you know, Rick Perry is my guy, but I don't think he can beat President Obama in debates so they said they're going to vote for Mitt Romney.

NNAMDIWell, again, because the priority seems to be to get rid of a sitting president, they seem to have so many choices that there seems to be a degree of uncertainty that characterizes the electorate there because apparently people aren't sure exactly who they want to oust the incumbent president.

LASLOAnd a lot of it comes down to the campaign structure, the ability or the perceived ability of the candidates to raise money and a lot of people are saying that's Mitt Romney. But in Iowa, the voting base here tends to be very conservative, much more conservative, obviously, than New Hampshire, but even (word?) and these other big deciding primaries. So right now, it seems that Mitt Romney jumped to the top of the polls and basically tied with Ron Paul here, shows that this conservative voter base is really gunning for the White House and is being a little bit more calculating than they have in the past.

NNAMDIWe Washingtonians think that we sit at the nation's power center, but today, all eyes are on Des Moines. Allow me to remind some of our listeners why this became significant in the first place. The Iowa caucuses became nationally significant in 1972 when Gary Hart was running South Dakota Senator George McGovern's anti-war presidential campaign. They were looking for a way to get some media attention before the important New Hampshire primary.

NNAMDIThey thought that the vote at the Iowa caucuses would do that and it worked. McGovern campaigned in Iowa and finished close behind the frontrunner, then Maine Senator Edmund Muskie. A handful of national, political reporters, including Johnny Apple of The New York Times, wrote about McGovern's close second-place finish and that gave McGovern the big media boost he wanted and the trend or the tendency goes on today.

NNAMDIMatt, we Washingtonians, as I was saying, think this is big, but Des Moines is big today, much bigger than Washington right now. What strikes you most about the way Iowans are approaching their role as the first state in the country to vet these candidates?

LASLOWell, and it's actually interesting if you remember back in 2008, Mike Huckabee won the state and then after that, his campaign kind of fizzled out. And right now, a lot of analysts, because Iowa gets so much money, but now there's all these reporters visiting from out-of-state, campaigns have their huge entourages here so Iowa loves being the first in the nation caucuses. But there's a little bit of fear if, say, a candidate like Rick Santorum, who is more socially conservative and is not polling well nationally, if he wins the state and it's a repeat of a Huckabee win, people worry that Iowa and the status of the first caucus in the nation could really lose some of the power in the focus that they should have as being the first caucus in the nation.

NNAMDIAnd for those who are campaigning there -- and by the way, we're talking with Matt Laslo, WAMU News reporter. He joins us by telephone from Des Moines, Iowa. For those who are campaigning there, it's my understanding that Iowa is all about the personal. What are your impressions from the interactions you've had with the candidates or with their supporters there about this personal aspect of it?

LASLOWell, Rick Santorum has probably done the best. He slowly and methodically, over the past year, travelled to all 99 counties in the state and so he's really had a lot of time to (unintelligible) events. He'll sit there and he'll take a question from everyone in the audience who has a question so he gets in a lot of face time and is pretty exhaustive on policy when he's talking with Iowans. And if you compare that with, say, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, she has some analysts -- they kind of frantically at the end of this race decided to hit all 99 counties so people are saying she shows up late to events. She rushes in, speaks for 10 or 15 minutes after people have waited there for more than an hour and then she runs off so that's annoying a lot of voters I'm talking to.

NNAMDIAnd you'll be talking to a lot more, I guess, during the course of the day. What happens at 7 o'clock tonight, Matt Laslo?

LASLOSeven o'clock tonight we'll have a bunch of -- so there's about 800 different places that voters will go. They'll all gather in there and at the beginning of the caucus, everyone will stand in these rooms. At the beginning of the caucus, each candidate will have a surrogate who is allowed to speak for five minutes, make their last-minute pitch to voters. And honestly, Kojo, inside these talks, at least from the people I'm talking to, their minds still aren't made up. So that last five-minute speech by a surrogate could be a deciding factor in a lot of these races. So it will be interesting to see.

NNAMDIYeah I remember covering caucuses in Mississippi many years ago, but in the 1980s. They do tend to be a fascinating sight to see, especially if you haven't seen them before. And it's my understanding that the votes get counted in front of everybody, correct?

LASLOYes. And they will and probably some of the tallies will start coming in about an hour later. The Democratic caucus, the way it is set up here, there's a lot more arm-twisting, there can be multiple, multiple ballots. The Republican one, it's less arm-wringing so for us who love old-school style politics, we don't get our fix, so to speak.

NNAMDIAnd WAMU News coverage on the Iowa caucuses will begin at 9 o'clock tonight. Matt Laslo is going to be a part of that. Matt, thank you so much for joining us. Good luck to you today.

LASLOThank you. Thanks for having me.

NNAMDIMatt Laslo is a WAMU 88.5 news reporter. He joined us by telephone from Des Moines, Iowa. As we said, coverage here at WAMU 88.5 begins at 9:00 p.m. tonight on the Iowa caucuses so make sure you join us for that. Right now, we're going to take a short break and when we come back, looking at when a person's religious beliefs are front and center in their workplace or in the public sphere. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.