To be a presidential nominee, you must master caucuses and primaries

[babylonsister]

To be a presidential nominee, you must master caucuses and primaries
Submitted by Chad on Tue, 06/03/2008 - 10:46am


Welcome to Super Final Tuesday*. As the great philosopher Kenny Loggins once said, "This is It." * (at least until November)

Montana and South Dakota are in the spotlight for the first time, since, well, uh, a long time. They are two of the many overlooked states in this process.

We are celebrating, well, perhaps, celebrating is not the right word, acknowledging about 40 years of the non-smoke-filled rooms in deciding a president. And this primary season has been the first in a long time where people who are traditionally not into politics are observing the process for the very first time.

And it's fair to say that many would love to change the process. Take power away from Iowa and New Hampshire. Set up regional primaries. Stop moving up the process so candidates are eliminated by January 3.

But one move has been proposed, and it's been almost exclusively from the Hillary Clinton campaign and her supporters: Caucuses are bad; primaries are better.

Some states have had caucuses and others have had primaries. Texas had both.

Barack Obama did do better than Hillary Clinton in the caucuses. But if you think Clinton has a huge advantage in the primaries, take a look at the numbers:


more...

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/election08/200

[JDPriestly]

1. Both caucuses and primaries have drawbacks and advantages.

The problem with primaries is that member of the other party can easily re-register (temporarily) and vote in the primary of the other party. That can skew the vote.

The problem with caucuses is that they exclude voters who cannot attend the caucus at the time it is held. In addition, they do not permit secret voting, which is a necessary element in a representative democracy. Caucuses may involve a lot of of peer pressure.

These are just a few of the problems associated with each of these forms of choosing a candidate. Neither process is perfect.

[LiberalFighter]

2. Closed primaries for party activists only.

It would be necessary to define party activists.

Any person that has ran as a Democratic person that has not switched parties.
Any county, district Democratic Party Central Committee officers both elected and appointed.
Any precinct(ward) committee chairs and vice chairs.
Any poll worker that had not voted in the last 1 (or maybe 2) Republican primaries.
Any person making contributions to Democratic candidates.
Any campaign or election volunteer working for a Democratic candidate or local party.

Refinement of qualifications encouraged.

These primary elections could be held on a Saturday and not tied in with a regular primary election.