Evilhalfling
Adventurer
Can I talk about politics here without, you know mentioning or even caring about a party?
I went to my first (US) caucus ever this Tuesday, it lasted from 6:30-9:00pm and was confusing, not well organized and crowded. It seemed like it was designed to create a lot of little ladders for people with political ambitions. Its like a series of popularity contests where you can bring attention to yourself. Several of the organizers and speakers were either in local office or running for one.
Out of my precinct we chose 8 positions, 2 to organize for that evening (precinct chair and secretary) and 6 to continue to the next event (delegates). Like many things it was 1-2 people who wanted to do it, and 4 others who felt obligated, and were willing to spend another day in meetings/auditoriums. Really it felt like choosing a treasurer for a local club, we just kinda stared at each other till enough people said, "Okay I'll do it." This included me btw.
It was hot and after sitting in a middle school gym for several hours, rational debate was really beyond us, we signed forms and voted quickly, the discussion of issues lasted 2 min in our small group.
Next, at the county convention we choose delegates to state convention, where national delegates are chosen. The feelings of my local precinct could be summed up as "those that did the work organizing should go to the next level."
Another note was that due to the Caucus moving up in the year, had a massive turnout - last time 15,000 attended this year it was 112,000. Voting in a Primary would have been much easier, I think there were too many people for this system to work well.
Side note: my precinct split exactly the same way as the state did. 60/40
Anyone else have experiances or feelings about caucusing?
I went to my first (US) caucus ever this Tuesday, it lasted from 6:30-9:00pm and was confusing, not well organized and crowded. It seemed like it was designed to create a lot of little ladders for people with political ambitions. Its like a series of popularity contests where you can bring attention to yourself. Several of the organizers and speakers were either in local office or running for one.
Out of my precinct we chose 8 positions, 2 to organize for that evening (precinct chair and secretary) and 6 to continue to the next event (delegates). Like many things it was 1-2 people who wanted to do it, and 4 others who felt obligated, and were willing to spend another day in meetings/auditoriums. Really it felt like choosing a treasurer for a local club, we just kinda stared at each other till enough people said, "Okay I'll do it." This included me btw.
It was hot and after sitting in a middle school gym for several hours, rational debate was really beyond us, we signed forms and voted quickly, the discussion of issues lasted 2 min in our small group.
Next, at the county convention we choose delegates to state convention, where national delegates are chosen. The feelings of my local precinct could be summed up as "those that did the work organizing should go to the next level."
Another note was that due to the Caucus moving up in the year, had a massive turnout - last time 15,000 attended this year it was 112,000. Voting in a Primary would have been much easier, I think there were too many people for this system to work well.
Side note: my precinct split exactly the same way as the state did. 60/40
Anyone else have experiances or feelings about caucusing?
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