Fair is Fair
Mar 5th, 2008 at 6:45 am by Susie
Lambert, who lives in a caucus state, says (and I agree):
So, if Hillary wins the popular vote, and Obama wins the caucuses, that would prove exactly one thing:
The anti-democratic nature of the caucuses, which disenfranchise the poor, those who have to work, the ill, the elderly, the infirm, those with child-care issues, and those without cars.
Which I certainly hope the super-delegates take into account, which is their right and their role.
It’s human nature to want to rationalize whatever happens to your candidate, but really, the more I’ve read about how caucuses operate, the less I approve. And yes, I’d say the same thing if John Edwards won every last one of them.
I want to agree…but they were FUN! Seeing hundreds of our neighbors (mind you, ours were on a weekend) out, hearing people actually speaking for their candidate (we had a guy speak for Gravel), picking delegates right there, many of whom I’m sure were not party types, and probably hadn’t even thought about being delegates before that moment (and sure, most of them will lose out to party types at the next level — legislative caucus — but by then they’ll have participated at a level they’d never expected to).
Maybe we could identify the worst offences, and fix them: to have them on weekend, allow proxies for people unable to come, have child care available, etc.?
Unfortunately, that’s not the point. When a caucus convenes with the intention to unify like-minded individuals behind a cause in an attempt to demand attention for an important issue is, in essence, a good thing. However, electoral caucuses do the same thing for an election that the Electoral College does. They provide an invisible hand to vote when the people are not “capable” of reaching a decision (supposedly). Well, we all know how that turned out in 2000. Also, during an election when caucuses don’t have the power to cast the vote, as they do in Iowa and Texas, they do often convene to aggressively influence others decision of who to vote for. Albeit, that could be construed as “unifying on an issue,” but the primaries are about the people and the peoples choice for this country. When you allow elitist principles to to fight the cause for you it certainly is not about the people.