People are still gurgling over t
he number of people who attended the precinct caucuses of the two most major political parties in our state Tuesday night. Despite the fact that they have histories of pulling these events off smoothly, neither the DFL nor the Republican parties found themselves properly prepared for the massive numbers who came.
If people found the right location and a place to park, they then found themselves facing rooms too small, signup lines too long, and ballots too few.
Almost anybody can go to a caucus, assuming that he/she has the evening free and a way to get to it. That is one of the wonderful things about the system. But if one does not feel that he/she is or could be a part of a party, a good conscience should deter him/her from participating. I am writing this from a somewhat ignorant perspective since I was not at a caucus. I do have a civic conscience and a desire to contribute to a better Minnesota, but because I do not have a party, I had no place to go.
If the people attending the caucuses were legitimately attending their party’s caucus because they had an affinity with it and were looking forward to helping build it up, then indeed this attendance was great. But comments I have seen in various online places, heard on the radio, and heard from people I have spoken with would seem to indicate that many people were not there for this purpose.
Some of the complaints that have been raised were that people were asked to sign their name, making their party choice a matter of public record; that there was no absentee voting; that people voted and left before the actual work of the caucus was done [or even hardly begun], even that some people complained that people around them were talking politics while they were trying to vote. And a lot of them had no idea that the caucus is a two-year event, not a four-year one.
To be fair to some of these people, the parties helped bring it upon themselves. To increase attendance they took steps to change the caucus to an ersatz Presidential primary and allowed the date to be moved up to Super Tuesday. And some of these new caucus goers will indeed stay around and help their newly-chosen party.
But since caucuses and Presidential primaries are really different things and the state and the parties were attempting to do both at one time, some inefficiencies had to happen. To be most successful, caucuses need people at a worker level while primaries only require an interest level. While both need numbers to be most credible, caucuses require that neighbors be able to meet and talk to each other and need to be at a specific time. An election usually takes place during 13 hours on the same day and provides for absentee ballots.
So now many are suggesting that we need a separate, real, full-fledged Presidential primary. Before we discuss this, let’s stop a minute to think what these two separate events are.
Precinct caucuses. Precinct caucuses are the basic organizing element of a political party in Minnesota. Parties hope that people will attend and attend in numbers more or less representative of their voting constituencies. Even if some of the party leaders decided that they did not want some people coming, state law and others in the party keep the door open pretty well.
Precinct caucuses elect the most local party officers, choose delegates to larger conventions, and begin the process of discussing issues in which the party may wish to make a statement. The sign-in list provides material to help recruit people to do many party chores. The delegates chosen at the higher convention then organize the party at that level, endorse candidates if it is relevant and they decide to do so, choose officers and make constitutional changes. They also choose delegates to congressional district and state conventions, and continue the issues process. Congressional district and state conventions do similar things. In presidential election years, the congressional district and state conventions choose delegates to the national conventions. [1]
Although I no longer have a political party, I am aware of most of this from personal experience, having caucused every time for thirty years, and convened and chaired precinct caucuses numerous times. I also served as a Senate District treasurer and on the Fourth Congressional District and state Central Committees of the DFL.
A lot of time these caucuses/conventions/meetings can become boring, especially when working on details or when the wrong haranguer continues to drone and they may seem of interest to only a certain type of person. But the system is quite open to all who feel that this is their party and they want to participate.
Our present caucus/convention system is also the only way we have in our state for those who identify with a party to endorse candidates for public office. This is important as a “truth in labeling” matter since we do not have party registration and anybody can vote in any party’s primary. The possibility [really likelihood] that this will happen keeps pundits going every election cycle. Tim Pawlenty or Al Quie can vote in a DFL primary. Larry Pogemiller or Chris Coleman can vote in a GOP primary. James Janos can vote in either also. While I doubt that any of these has done such mischief, the option is there for them. And there is no way that anybody else can know.
The endorsements provided by the caucus/convention system also [I know it seems strange] make democracy more democratic. It can take a small fortune and/or a lot of name recognition to run for public office, especially in larger constituencies. The system is vulnerable if people don’t play along, but this is the system which gave us Wendell Anderson, Bruce Vento, and Tim Pawlenty.
And with the primary elections not happening until September, endorsements earlier can allow a party and its candidates to organize its business and focus its efforts earlier.
Presidential primaries. In the old days, presidential candidates were chosen by mostly obese, white men smoking cigars in back rooms. Or at least, that’s the image they try to give us. This is the system that nominated people like Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, JFK, Dick Nixon, and Hubert Humphrey.
There have been a few presidential primaries since the early twentieth century, but most delegates were chosen by state parties in ways they saw fit. [To go back to American Government 101, there are no national parties only associations of state parties which operate independently and differently.] These gave candidates a chance to show the pols how electable they were. In 1968 the Democrats nominated Hubert Humphrey [the real one, not “Skippy,” the guy who later was our attorney general] even though he had not entered any of the primaries, while the majority of the primaries had been won by for the anti-war candidates, Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. [2]
Humphrey then narrowly lost to Tricky Dick and a lot of people around the country started pushing for presidential primaries in their states, thinking that the rule of the "bosses" had to be ended. More have been added each cycle since. People in Iowa [3] who had seen the importance that New Hampshire seemed to have with its early primary, decided to use the caucus/convention system as an ersatz primary and make it early. People in other states have seen all the attention that Iowa and New Hampshire have received and the boost to the local economies provided and have decided to be in an early position too. Iowa and New Hampshire have moved their operations even earlier to keep their position. Over time we have evolved to where we are now with a lot of that evolution coming this time around.
I am not convinced that the system we have now is better. I suspect that when there has become time for retrospective, that there may be a lot to support the old system of a few primaries and trusting the political wisdom of the professionals to give us the most presidential candidates, but that is really off topic of this already too long post. Although most of them will deny it, Democrats have reverted back a bit to the old days with the creation of “Super Delegates” who are elected officials and party leaders who have convention votes but are not further responsible for their votes.
So what Minnesota needs to decide is whether a separate, presidential primary is a good idea. If I were in a party and wanted it to be effective I think I would support the idea, since it would allow the caucus to be a caucus.
But this system, chaotic as it is, allows only people who are willing to be publicly identified with a party to participate in its choices. There is a lot to be said for that.
1. Candidates have always known how to use the system. I remember being at a McCarthy caucus training in the back room of a bar off of Snelling Avenue prior to the 1968 caucuses where we were told the basics and even advised on tactics for the most likely tactics the Johnson people were thought likely to use.
And the Johnson people used some. They challenged everybody they thought went to college as being not a true resident, but we managed to make the first one they considered a Murray High grad who lived in a house his mother owned and they dropped the rest. Clearer construction of the law and the lowering of the voting age now make this kind of challenge a lot less likely.
2. 1968 was an unusual year. President Johnson did not quit the race until March 31 when some primaries were already over and others were too soon to register for. Senator Kennedy died on June 6 after Sirhan Sirhan killed him and many of the politicos [including anti-war types] did not consider McCarthy a governing type of person. George McGovern allowed his fellow Kennedy supporters to put his name in nomination, but he had not run in any primaries either. We may get presumptive nominees early this year, but if one of them dies before the convention, this year will seem undemocratic also.
There were also problems that year because some of the delegations were chosen in less than open ways and operated under different rules. Traditionally, the Georgia delegation was appointed half by the state chairman and half by the governor and the choices were made before the beginning of the year. As part of the Civil Rights movement of the era, other Democrats sent a delegation led by Julian Bond, a new legislator who had finally been seated the year before after the activist Warren Court determined that the good old white boys in the Georgia could no longer refuse to seat him. [The convention seated both the Lester Maddox and the Bond-led delegations, letting them split the Georgia vote.] Several delegations, including Illinois and those of several southern states, were obliged to vote as a block by an internal unit rule rules.
As a result of all of these problems the Democratic Party established a commission led by Senator George McGovern to suggest new rules and procedures. [McGovern later decided to run for the 1972 nomination and Rep. Don Fraser took his place as commission chairperson.] Democrats have been fiddling with the rules since.
3. Iowa’s caucus/convention system differs from ours in some significant respects. Iowa has voter registration by party and the parties do not endorse candidates before their June primary. And precinct chairpersons are chosen by the party members at that June primary.
[CCM would like your comments on your caucus if you went to one. Feel free to leave a comment.]
Posts
