For those of you who didn’t participate in yesterday’s record-breaking political caucus, you missed something. Something bad. I hear a lot about how great it is that so many people participated. “Isn’t it wonderful that so many people came out and contributed the democratic process?”No.
It was a pain in the ass. Like most things, the more people that participate in something the more fucked up and convoluted it becomes and the lower the bar for the common denominator is set. So much that it becomes a useless endeavor. At my caucus, we didn’t even address resolutions or sub-caucus for delegates. There was no time. People were registering and waiting in lines until 8:00pm. So we essentially got off to a start an hour late for a two hour process. Not to mention the collective wisdom of a bunch of people who don’t really know what they hell they’re doing. So in the end, people voted for a candidate. It was essentially a straw poll since it didn’t necessarily relate the number of delegates going for a given candidate. In other words, it was a sham.
If you’ve never done this before, it works differently for each party and can vary from precinct to precinct. But in a nutshell here’s the process as it’s supposed to work:
6:30–7:00: Doors open to registration
7:00–7:30: Rules of caucus read and precinct captains and other party officials elected. New rules for caucus established and voted on if requested.
7:30–8:30: Sub-caucus selection. Voters disperse into groups by issues and candidates and nominate delegates to represent this caucus in the DFL convention. Determination of viability for delegates is made based on a percentage formula of total participants relative to the number of total delegates allowed for a given caucus (determined by precinct).
8:30–9:30: Party resolutions and platforms debated.
This is a very over-simplified version. Within the delegate selection and sub-caucus process there are a host of rules. Only three members may speak for or against a given issue, no member can speak more than 1 minute on each unless allowed by a vote or if all others wishing to speak on the issue had their chance. Motions are “moved”, seconded” and spoken for or against then voted on. It’s all very… democratic. I’m not doing the complexity of the process justice. On the other hand, when working with a smaller group it’s actually quite engaging and fun... if you’re into that sot of thing. Regardless, it’s supposed to be an empowering engaging process whereby you interact with your neighbors, weigh the issues and set the agenda for your party.
None of that shit happened yesterday. Here’s how mine went:
6:30–7:30: Search for parking spot and walk.
7:30–8:30: Wait in line to register and cast straw poll ballot for president.
8:30–9:00: Debate whether there is time to actually select delegates by sub-caucus and decide who they should be. We decide not and delegates just sign up with no debate or selection process.
9:00–9:15: Debate whether or not there is time to discuss and debate resolutions.
9:15–9:30: We decide not and just send the resolutions on in without even reading or discussing them
9:30–11:00: Sit at home and try to get the icky taste of disenfranchisement out of your mouth.
The end result of all this extra democracy scurrying about is that more people got to experience it less. As a wise man should have once said: “If we sacrifice the quality of the democratic experience at the expense of increased participation, we shall have neither.”
Whoever that guy might have been who should have said that… I agree.
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