PHOTOS: Al Jazeera America Presents "CAUCUS"

For the past 40 years, the race for the American Presidency has begun in the state of Iowa, where Presidential hopefuls spend months traveling the state's 99 counties hoping to win its “first-in-the-nation” vote and prove themselves a viable candidate Bonfire Films America

CAUCUS re-introduces viewers to the remarkable and unorthodox GOP field with special focus on former Senator Rick Santorum - the working-class, social conservative warrior with no money and little operational support - as he tries to win the 2012 Iowa Caucus the old-fashioned way, by going town-to-town, meeting voters one-on-one, campaigning in a pick-up truck. Bonfire Films America

Representative Michele Bachmann - the charismatic Congresswoman and self-proclaimed Tea Party leader, who was born in Iowa and forms an instant connection with the religious and fiscal conservatives who still live there. Bonfire Films America

Each of the 8 candidates fight to stay relevant in a contest where nearly every candidate would lead the race at some point - the Governor of Texas, the former U.S. House Speaker, a former pizza chain CEO and the presumed national frontrunner, Mitt Romney. Bonfire Films America

CAUCUS follows the candidates through state fairs and town hall meetings, as each tries to rise to the top of the Republican field. But when an ordinary day can be upended by a confrontational heckler, an unexpected questioner or a spouse who goes off-message, the difficulty and challenges of a presidential bid are made clear. Bonfire Films America

CAUCUS is both a postmortem on the 2012 campaign, and a glimpse at the challenges that the Republican party finds themselves still facing more than a year later. Bonfire Films America