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Today's Must Read
It's amazing how seriously people can take a little thing like a presidential caucus.
Everyone has been all over the Washington Republican Party's back over this caucus result thing. But as the party's spokesman laid out to me yesterday, Chairman Luke Esser owed it to the party faithful to announce results Saturday, because no one likes to go to bed with things unresolved.
OK, so it seems that at least four counties had transmitted the wrong information to the party on Saturday. They were supposed to be counting the stated preference of the elected precinct delegates, and they'd counted the sign-in sheets, which reflected the preference for all their caucus attendees -- two measures that seem to have little to do with one another. Oops. As the party spokesman stressed to me yesterday, it's their first time reporting results on the same day, so perhaps mistakes were inevitable.
But never fear! The party has fixed that mistake (at least partially, one of those counties hasn't provided the correct information yet) and John McCain is still in the lead. With 96% percent reporting, he's up 25.6% to Mike Huckabee's 23.3%.
Now maybe the media and Mike Huckabee's lawyers will get off the state GOP's back. The main thing to realize, they want everyone to know, is how little Saturday's caucus bears any relation to the final slate of delegates Washington State will send to the national Republican Convention this summer. From The Seattle Times:
Due to the way Republicans select their delegates, the results could bear little resemblance to the presidential preferences of the 40 Washington state delegates ultimately sent to the GOP national convention in September."Nobody won or lost anything on Saturday," said Vance, now a public affairs consultant and McCain supporter. "But every other state had been able to report a 'winner,' so there was expected there would be a 'winner' in Washington state."
So the "winner" of the "caucus" (according to the party's "count") was McCain. Probably. So enough with the fuss already.
Josh
Zachary
I live in Washington and the republicans are corrupt as hell here. It is funny that you guys have a quote from Chris vance. He was the old lackey that used to run the party and he was they guy who came up with the "estimate the votes" idea during the Gregiore and Rossi election battle. Also the republican secretary of state, Sam Reed, who is budy buddy with Esser as well as the Attorney General of the state declared the caucus discriminatory (http://nwnews.com/editions/2008/080114/features2.htm). That is why the republicans are distributing their delegates 50/50 with the primary and caucus. My gut says something smells and that there is a deliberate motive to get rid of the caucus. The republicans have been attacking elections here for years and this is just another example of how they respect the voters here. Maybe its due to the lack of actual influence the republicans in the state are having.
February 12, 2008 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are probably right since you have first hand knowledge and a history in WA. My question to you and the voter's of Washington is this, "Does the way the Republican's in WA held the Caucus reflect the voter's of Washington?" IF it doesn't then the Repub's of WA should write to their congressmen and women to speak of their grievances. It seems we are hearing a lot from these RNCC officials but nothing from the voter's that participated in the process.
Also I believe these sort of top-down tactics are part and parcel of what GWB initiated in Texas with Rove. These practices are meant to undermine the structure of things giving credence to many conservatives that all politicians are corrupt and that government doesn't work. It is faux libertarianism in the guise of fiscal conservatism but actually closer to oligarchic and fascistic rule. One ring to rule them all!
February 12, 2008 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
>soapbox<I'm not usually this picky, but you're driving me crazy with your apostrophes. Not every word that ends in "s" requires an apostrophe! (You made that mistake 5 times in your first paragraph.) Unless you're talking about something that belongs to the voters or Republicans, don't use the possessive form.>/soapbox<
February 12, 2008 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
And then I mess up my own writing with using > where I meant to use < and vice-versa. That'll teach me... (probably not) :)
I sure wish there was a preview function...
February 12, 2008 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry about the '!
I usually write from a passionate perspective which leaves my spelling and grammar with a lot to be desired!
Any comments?
February 12, 2008 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I shouldn't be throwing stones anyway.
I do think that it'd be nice if Republicans in WA boycotted the general election out of distaste over this. Of course, I should be careful what I wish for, since many Republicans are hoping similar things in FL and MI.
February 12, 2008 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
One other thing I wanted to add was that in some instances, the republicans did not have public venues to conduct the caucuses. I had a conversation with a good friend and he had to go to someone's home. He felt somewhat uncomfortable but he felt compelled to go and support Huckabee. He said it was too confusing and afterwards he felt that it was a waste of time. I on the other hand met with my neighborhood in a local elementary school, which was more than comfortable.
February 12, 2008 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
One other thing I wanted to add was that in some instances, the republicans did not have public venues to conduct the caucuses. I had a conversation with a good friend and he had to go to someone's home. He felt somewhat uncomfortable but he felt compelled to go and support Huckabee. He said it was too confusing and afterwards he felt that it was a waste of time. I on the other hand met with my neighborhood in a local elementary school, which was more than comfortable.
February 12, 2008 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
One other thing I wanted to add was that in some instances, the republicans did not have public venues to conduct the caucuses. I had a conversation with a good friend and he had to go to someone's home. He felt somewhat uncomfortable but he felt compelled to go and support Huckabee. He said it was too confusing and afterwards he felt that it was a waste of time. I on the other hand met with my neighborhood in a local elementary school, which was more than comfortable.
February 12, 2008 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
It shows something about the GOP attitude, doesn't it? "We know how it's going to turn out and our guy wins if we stop here, so we're stopping here." That's how Bush "won" Florida. Remember how the Washington GOP wanted every ballot questioned (and if at all possible, thrown out) in the last governor election? These are the same individuals!
I suspect though that what happened in individual caucuses was just the informality of the process, which we learned last week here in Minnesota can clash with the expectations of those new to the process, especially if they think it's a primary. We (Democrats anyway) have a rule against caucuses in homes, and reading pmbunfoi's post I guess I see why. I just think we got lucky our presidential vote, though binding, didn't have big problems even though every caucus pretty much made up a procedure on the spot. We did however take a PR black eye over long lines in the cold and blank ballots. I come down squarely against binding balloting in a caucus. Looks like Esser is learning that lesson even more.
February 12, 2008 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Sorry about the '!
I usually write from a passionate perspective which leaves my spelling and grammar with a lot to be desired!
Any comments?"
One. If passion prevents you from distinguishing one usage from another, simply use NO apostrophes. You'll be correct more often than not.
February 12, 2008 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Delighted with dialogue on apostrophes (Republicans are irrelevant) As a former editor, apostrophe misuse drives me "Banana's!"
February 12, 2008 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Something that should be clarified about the Republican versus Democratic caucus is this point: When the Republicans get together to elect their delegates, they do not even have to correlate their candidate choices with the delegates' commitment to a candidate. Rather than there being clear rules about delegate allotment and selection, the Republicans do not have any formal rules for how each precinct conducts the caucus. It's up to each precinct's Republicans to decide how it will go and how the delegates will be committed.
But wait--there's more. IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER because when they get to the national convention, all of the delegates from the caucuses will be officially UNPLEDGED!
It's utterly crazy, and no Congress members can fix it. This is the way the Republicans WANT it to be, apparently. So those Republicans who want their caucus to mean something had better tell their Party leaders.
And if they want a good model to follow, the Democratic one works really well. Funny how the "disorganized" Democrats run a clear, clean, uncomplicated caucus. Must be all that disagreement.
February 12, 2008 10:09 PM | Reply | Permalink