Caucuses are an elitist, anti-Democratic practice that should have ended long ago.
Last edited Mon Jun 22, 2015, 04:50 PM - Edit history (3)
They are the remnants of the old "smoke filled rooms" and should be replaced by primaries everywhere.
Some states have caucuses and some have primaries. Some appear to have both -- but the primary is really a "beauty contest" that allocates NO VOTES.
This is what we have in the State of Washington -- a primary that ultimately means nothing. So I went to a caucus. Once.
What a joke. The whole thing went on for several HOURS, and consisted of seemingly endless votes on minor and major platform issues. Fine -- if that's what you had come for. But if you came to give your vote to a Presidential nominee, then you still had to sit through hours of discussion on other issues. Some of which -- arcane party matters -- You Couldn't Care Less About.
There was a lot of consulting on rules. No one seemed to know them, so a lot of time was spent trying to figure them out. It seemed that most of the people running the show were first-timers, so it felt very slap-dash and haphazard. I'd say at least a quarter of the time I spent there was in waiting time -- waiting for someone to figure out some answer to something.
So we finally came to the Presidential vote -- after 3 or 4 hours of this fun -- and my guy actually won. A bunch of us had voted for him. Oh yeah -- there's no secret ballot in a caucus -- everyone knows who everyone votes for because you have to group together. And you can change your vote when you see your guy is losing. One woman, I'll call her "Fickle", moved over to our group because her group only had 3 people in it.
I thought that would be the end of that -- but I was wrong. Our winning votes wouldn't count unless we chose one of us to go for a day- long caucus in Olympia, a two or three hour drive -- on some date weeks or months in the future. And none of us "winners" wanted to commit to yet another caucus -- a day long caucus -- and who knows what after that!
Except for Fickle. She was happy to be our delegate. And we had no other choice, so we chose Fickle, the supporter of another candidate, to go represent us in Olympia. Because she was the only one who wanted to. And I have no idea who she actually voted for when she got there.
Now, in 2015, we have a primary, too, but it doesn't count for anything. The actual delegates are still chosen by the caucus system, cleverly designed to screen out all but the most heavily involved political types. So the winner of the popular vote -- the primary -- which would better reflect the popular vote in the general election -- doesn't count. Only the winner of the caucuses.
I don't know if I'll finally go back to the caucuses this year. All I know for sure is that the results won't be representative of the average WA voter, and of which candidate that voter would prefer in the general. The results will represent the views of the most avid political people -- those who are willing to spend hours and even days in caucuses across the state. And they won't include the views of anyone who has to work during those hours, or is homebound, or not in town that day, or in the military overseas.
Caucuses suck. They're unfair to busy people (i.e., those with jobs) who would like to take part in the electoral process but don't have the time for caucusing. And they're unfair to the voters of the state because the outcome doesn't reflect the preferences of a representative group of people.
Just the die-hards with a lot of time on their hands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_primary
History
There is no provision for the role of political parties in the United States Constitution. Before 1820, Democratic-Republican members of Congress would nominate a single candidate from their party. That system collapsed in 1824, and since 1832 the preferred mechanism for nomination has been a national convention.[21]
Delegates to the national convention were usually selected at state conventions whose own delegates were chosen by district conventions. Sometimes they were dominated by intrigue between political bosses who controlled delegates; the national convention was far from democratic or transparent. Progressive Era reformers looked to the primary election as a way to measure popular opinion of candidates, as opposed to the opinion of the bosses. In 1910, Oregon became the first state to establish a presidential preference primary, which requires delegates to the National Convention to support the winner of the primary at the convention. By 1912, twelve states either selected delegates in primaries, used a preferential primary, or both. By 1920 there were 20 states with primaries, but some went back, and from 1936 to 1968, 12 states used them. (Ware p 248)
The primary received its first major test in the 1912 election pitting incumbent President William Howard Taft against challengers Theodore Roosevelt and Robert La Follette. Roosevelt proved the most popular candidate, but as most primaries were non-binding "preference" shows and held in only fourteen of the-then forty-eight states, the Republican nomination went to Taft, who controlled the convention.
Seeking to boost voter turnout, New Hampshire simplified its ballot access laws in 1949. In the ensuing "beauty contest" of 1952, Republican Dwight Eisenhower demonstrated his broad voter appeal by out-polling the favored Robert A. Taft, "Mr. Republican." Also, Democrat Estes Kefauver defeated incumbent President Harry S. Truman, leading the latter to decide not to run for another term.[22] The first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary has since become a widely-observed test of candidates' viability.
The impetus for national adoption of the binding primary election was the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention. Vice President Hubert Humphrey secured the nomination despite primary victories and other shows of support for Senator Eugene McCarthy, running against Humphrey on a strong anti-Vietnam War platform. After this, a Democratic National Committee-commissioned panel led by Senator George McGovern – the McGovern–Fraser Commission – recommended that states adopt new rules to assure wider participation. A large number of states, faced with the need to conform to more detailed rules for the selection of national delegates, chose a presidential primary as an easier way to come into compliance with the new national Democratic Party rules. The result was that many more future delegates would be selected by a state presidential primary. The Republicans also adopted many more state presidential primaries.
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The purpose of the caucus, after all, is to identify delegates to the county, then state, then national convention.
Choosing a "winner" isn't really the point.
I've caucused for a candidate who didn't receive enough support to have a delegate, so the groups supporting the other candidates had a chance to persuade us to move over to their candidate, or we could remain uncommitted. It's actually a cool thing to hear other members of my community elucidate why they support their candidate - lots of positive energy and enthusiasm.
We're choosing from among Democrats, and every D is exponentially better than any R. 
CAUCUS, a face-to-face meeting of party members in any community or members of a legislative body for the purpose of discussing and promoting the affairs of their particular political party.
That does indeed, sound elitist. Or sounds like something that sounds like elitist. 
