Government 101 - Caucusing. So I went and did my civic duty today and participated today in the Nevada Democratic Caucus; it was my first time caucusing. It was alright I guess, coulda been worse, I suppose, but I still think I like the primary process a lot better.
So this is how it went down: They first break the state down into a bunch of precincts, and a week or 2 in advance, they mail you a pamphlet telling you where to go on the official caucus day (mine was at a nearby school). On that day, you show up (mine was at 11am), and have to walk through the crowd of hardcore supporters with signs trying to sway the people who're on the fence.
They started things off with a bit of check-in/registration; that went from 11-12. Then around noon, a guy at the front got on stage and said he was the interim chairman (and his wife was interim secretary), read off a bunch of rules and procedures, read a few letters from bigwig senators and whatnot, and the 1st order of business was to elect an official chairman and a real secretary. He nominated himself and his wife; no one else was nominated, so they were official by default.
Then he asked, "Other than the frontrunners (Clinton & Obama), do any of the other candidates have any supporters in the room?" (There were maybe about 80 voters in the room total.) "Edwards?" About 5 ppl raised their hands. "Anyone else?" There was a bit of a pause, and then another guy in the room raised his hand and said "Kucinich." There was a good bit of laughter in the room. (I was actually kinda glad, because I didn't wanna be the one to raise my hand and get laughed at. -_-)
So then they said that based on the number of delegates our district got to send (8ish), a candidate would need about 10 supporters to get a delegate. And since there weren't enough supporters of Edwards or Kucinich, neither would get any delegates. So they told us that we would have to align ourselves with one of the two major candidates if we wanted our voices to be heard. (I thought that was a little BS, but what could I do?)
So then they said "Ok, all the Clinton supporters come to this side of the room, and all the Obama supporters go sit on that side of the room." The hardcore supporters had already pretty much been sitting that way anyways, so only about 1/4 of us had to get up and shuffle seats- I went to the Obama side. (It ended up being pretty even 50/50 for the two candidates, but I noticed that all but one black person were for Obama, and I think all but one Asian were as well.)
(So since we only had two candidates with any real representation, we didn't have to do multiple rounds of voting and trying to persuade people to change sides.) We just marked our ballot things, turned 'em in, and they counted 'em. Then they announced how many delegates each candidate would receive.
Then among each candidate group, we had to elect delegates to some other voting convention (for the state?). They didn't outright say we had to, but they strongly suggested we get equal gender and ethnic representation. (I found that to be somewhat humorous.) I was a little tempted to volunteer, just out of curiosity, but figured I'd be too tempted to go turncoat and be a traitor to my electors (I mean, not that Obama's a bad choice either). After that, they let us go; it was around 1pm.
*Opinions. So we were discussing the caucuses at work the following Monday, and the more I hear, the shadier this whole caucus thing sounds. Like one guy made a point that even though the Culinary Union officially endorsed Obama, a lot of the members ended up voting for Clinton. And yea, ideally, any election process should be one in which the participants can vote their hearts without fear of repercussions, but I don't think that's EVER possible in the real world. Like with the unions, even if some members DID vote their minds by choosing Clinton, did they think the union bosses weren't watching and making note of who voted how?? And yea, maybe gone are the days where you (and/or your family) can get whacked for not voting how you're told, but gradually, won't the dissidents notice they're getting all the bad shift times, slow getting promotions, etc etc.? A lot of "favors" are done in American politics, and when someone scratches your back, they expect you to scratch back- failure to do so WILL have its repercussions. The whole situation was likened to the old days of "political machines" and Boss Daley in Chicago and whatnot. There was talk that the whole shift from the primary to caucuses in Nevada was part of a power grab by Senator Reid, to consolidate his influence in the state. (Yea, I'm pretty cynical about the whole political process. I re-watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington recently, and I'm not so idealistic as to think most of our politicians are Mr. Smith's.) Yea, so long story short, I liked the electoral process better with primaries, where things are nice and anonymous. =/
So this is how it went down: They first break the state down into a bunch of precincts, and a week or 2 in advance, they mail you a pamphlet telling you where to go on the official caucus day (mine was at a nearby school). On that day, you show up (mine was at 11am), and have to walk through the crowd of hardcore supporters with signs trying to sway the people who're on the fence.
They started things off with a bit of check-in/registration; that went from 11-12. Then around noon, a guy at the front got on stage and said he was the interim chairman (and his wife was interim secretary), read off a bunch of rules and procedures, read a few letters from bigwig senators and whatnot, and the 1st order of business was to elect an official chairman and a real secretary. He nominated himself and his wife; no one else was nominated, so they were official by default.
Then he asked, "Other than the frontrunners (Clinton & Obama), do any of the other candidates have any supporters in the room?" (There were maybe about 80 voters in the room total.) "Edwards?" About 5 ppl raised their hands. "Anyone else?" There was a bit of a pause, and then another guy in the room raised his hand and said "Kucinich." There was a good bit of laughter in the room. (I was actually kinda glad, because I didn't wanna be the one to raise my hand and get laughed at. -_-)
So then they said that based on the number of delegates our district got to send (8ish), a candidate would need about 10 supporters to get a delegate. And since there weren't enough supporters of Edwards or Kucinich, neither would get any delegates. So they told us that we would have to align ourselves with one of the two major candidates if we wanted our voices to be heard. (I thought that was a little BS, but what could I do?)
So then they said "Ok, all the Clinton supporters come to this side of the room, and all the Obama supporters go sit on that side of the room." The hardcore supporters had already pretty much been sitting that way anyways, so only about 1/4 of us had to get up and shuffle seats- I went to the Obama side. (It ended up being pretty even 50/50 for the two candidates, but I noticed that all but one black person were for Obama, and I think all but one Asian were as well.)
(So since we only had two candidates with any real representation, we didn't have to do multiple rounds of voting and trying to persuade people to change sides.) We just marked our ballot things, turned 'em in, and they counted 'em. Then they announced how many delegates each candidate would receive.
Then among each candidate group, we had to elect delegates to some other voting convention (for the state?). They didn't outright say we had to, but they strongly suggested we get equal gender and ethnic representation. (I found that to be somewhat humorous.) I was a little tempted to volunteer, just out of curiosity, but figured I'd be too tempted to go turncoat and be a traitor to my electors (I mean, not that Obama's a bad choice either). After that, they let us go; it was around 1pm.
*Opinions. So we were discussing the caucuses at work the following Monday, and the more I hear, the shadier this whole caucus thing sounds. Like one guy made a point that even though the Culinary Union officially endorsed Obama, a lot of the members ended up voting for Clinton. And yea, ideally, any election process should be one in which the participants can vote their hearts without fear of repercussions, but I don't think that's EVER possible in the real world. Like with the unions, even if some members DID vote their minds by choosing Clinton, did they think the union bosses weren't watching and making note of who voted how?? And yea, maybe gone are the days where you (and/or your family) can get whacked for not voting how you're told, but gradually, won't the dissidents notice they're getting all the bad shift times, slow getting promotions, etc etc.? A lot of "favors" are done in American politics, and when someone scratches your back, they expect you to scratch back- failure to do so WILL have its repercussions. The whole situation was likened to the old days of "political machines" and Boss Daley in Chicago and whatnot. There was talk that the whole shift from the primary to caucuses in Nevada was part of a power grab by Senator Reid, to consolidate his influence in the state. (Yea, I'm pretty cynical about the whole political process. I re-watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington recently, and I'm not so idealistic as to think most of our politicians are Mr. Smith's.) Yea, so long story short, I liked the electoral process better with primaries, where things are nice and anonymous. =/
posted by Dear Daniel at 2:00 PM
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