Jesus NOT this nonsense again. Let me tell you that the media: the local Television stations, and the Newspapers in WA State told us for the YEAR before the caucus that ONLY the caucus would determine the Democratic delegates. You would have to be pretty freaking old not to have heard about this and understood that the Primary ballot would count only for the Republicans (@ 49%.) Thus the discrepancy between the caucus and the ballot totals probably reflect the fact that the great majority of Democrats understood that the primary vote was meaningless, and didn’t cast a vote for the democratic nominee on it. A note came in the ballot asking those who couldn’t make the caucus to contact the WDP, since I didn’t need to do so I didn’t, but I believe that some sort of absentee petition was available to make a choice for the nominee. In any event, the caucus was held on a Saturday, and my caucus was lively with local families, Seniors, and tons of folks I never would have interacted with if I hadn’t caucused. As I recall also, unlike FL which has some tax initiatives that undoubtedly accounted more for the voter turn-out than any great love of Hillary Clinton, there were no burning issues on the ballot this year which probably meant less voters cast a ballot, and prehaps those who did cast the ballot were confused. I can assure you if there was any malfeasence with the Caucus the Clinton bulldogs would have been on it like white on rice. Not to mention, as I have said, but you clearly don’t want to hear it; Wa State and Oregon are near demographic duplicates; Obama won their PRIMARY handily.

I’m an old, cranky, southern white guy, but I feel like MLK:
“Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last!”

I have attended caucuses with aging New Deal Democrats on cold Iowa nights, and voted in every primary I have been eligible for. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

The primary has the advantage of the Australian ballot, convenience and mass participation (and one hopes buy-in of their party’s eventual nominee)

The caucuses I have attended have ranged from strangely intimate gatherings of the party faithful, to small, jovial zoos. In every case, I and others have left energized and more committed to working for our party, with renewed enthusiasm for the process. It is hard not to walk away from a caucus with the feeling that this is what democracy is all about.

Caucuses are a great organization-building tool. The list of attendees is priceless. The party in every caucus state has a good sense who its strongest adherents are. That translates to more efficient fund-raising, more effective get-out-the vote efforts, and more support from top to bottom of the ticket.

Caucuses remain one of the few antidotes to the too prevalent effect of large sums of money in politics. In a caucus state, motivated volunteers can be an important counter to the cancerous effects of large sums of money. A handful of early caucuses can give second and third tier candidates a reasonable shot at becoming a major candidate. Without that, we become even greater victims of the well-funded machines, whose purchase of media in the large primary markets can reduce voting to an exersize in name identification.

Finally, despite our moves toward institutionalizing them, parties are not an arm of government. They are an organization of like-minded people pursuing a common goal. We are all free to form our own new parties at any time. Ergo, governmental principles like “one-man, one vote” need not be adhered to.

Caucuses strike me as a much more democratic way than the creation of superdelegates to give the committed party faithful a say in who their nominee will be.

Surely there is a place for both primaries and caucuses in our system.

My apologies for the rant.

The difference today is that, aside from one failed campaign to retain the Governorship of Arkansas, the Clintons have never truly had their wills thwarted. Sure they have had to defend themselves and have been accused of a remarkably long laundry list scandal, but they were in the White House.

In the last months we have seen the Clintons with their wills thwarted. I have always read that they REALLY don’t like that, but I never dreamed it would go this far. Eight year old children on a playground will tell you it is unfair to give a candidate votes when the other candidate was, legitimately leaving his name off of the ballot. There was NO chance for people to vote for Obama. Come on…

The popular vote argument which dismisses caucus votes and is adamant that Clinton get all of her Michigan votes is an argument that would make P. T. Barnum blush. Mrs. Clinton’s remarks about having the votes of “hard working white people” were remarks unheard since the era of George Wallace and Lester Maddox.

Mrs. Clinton lacks her husband’s ability to temporarily suspend the disbelief of the public. Thankfully Mr. and Mrs. Average are able to witness the true colors of the Clintons.

Caucus biase against the elders, the working class specially those hand-to-mouth, the housewives with children, the new emigrants, the minority, and individuals. These people cannot be ignored in general election.

cheers!

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/hq/iowa/caucus/

Of course, that doesn’t make Bill Clinton wrong. It makes him look self-serving, but it doesn’t make him wrong. And that’s the best de-brief here…that there are two points which are equally true.

One is that the Clintons are reliably self-serving in all political positions they take and in all rhetorical arguments they make. Anyone who hasn’t noticed this is blind, deaf, and hasn’t been paying attention. Right?

The other is that caucuses are a fundamentally less democratic way of alloting delegates for the nominating convention than via a primary. Caucuses are artifacts whose time should have passed, if we really care about democratically choosing candidates for the Presidency.

But they’re great for party insiders. Let’s not forget that the parties themselves are not part of the government. Each state has its own idiosyncratic relationship with each of its state parties. Changing from caucuses to primaries would likely involve parties ceding more control to their states. That makes it unlikely to happen unless the initiative comes from the given state and the state then strong arms in a primary. That would probably take some sort of popular outcry. Pretty unlikely, given that 90+% of the people do their best ti ignore this stuff. We’re largely stuck with what we have, due to collective inertia.

Yes, Bill Clinton has a right to complain about the caucus system. It should be banned. Secret ballots run by a governmental institution, not Obamaniacs, should decide the nomination, not intimindation of Clinton’s older voters by younger Obama supporters. It stinks to high heaven and has not place in a Democracy.

You don’t get to ask the referees to throw out all field goals at the end of the fottball game, just because they are easier to score than touchdowns. You also don’t get to declare yourself the winner if you are behind on points but ahead on yardage. In other words, if you don’t want to play the game, don’t put on the pads. Or was it, if you can’t take the heat…

How very sad…”

I disagree. Not “How very sad..” but rather “How very joyful..