Switching Caucuses to Primaries -- Someone Hears

Someone out there is hearing the call for electoral primaries instead of caucuses. The Strib notes that two Minnesota legislators called for just such a change.

Sens. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, and Linda Scheid, DFL-Brooklyn Park, . . . announce[d] their plan to decouple the presidential contest from the caucus system by the next presidential election cycle. Their bill would allow voters to participate in a primary similar to a general election without requiring them to be involved in the caucus process now run by political parties.

When asked for comment on the proposal, the state's two party chairs were split:

On Wednesday, DFL chairman Brian Melendez tentatively endorsed the new push for a primary. "It's definitely worth talking about," he said. "The e-mails I've gotten since last night from people I don't know run strongly in favor of the primary."

He said he has sent a letter to the party's district chairpersons telling them that "switching to a presidential primary -- while keeping the caucuses for other races and for party governance -- is worth talking about."

As for the logistical headaches that plagued Tuesday's caucuses, "We reached our limit last night," Melendez said. "The caucus system is going to have a very hard time coping with numbers like that. We can handle 80,000, and we could have handled 100,000, but we couldn't handle 200,000."

GOP chairman Ron Carey said he and other party leaders adamantly oppose "any change from our caucus system."

If a presidential primary becomes law, "they can put it on the calender if they want ... but it will remain a beauty contest for us," he said.

Party bylaws dictate that the GOP's presidential preference be expressed exclusively through the process that ends with the party's state convention, he said.

Carey also said he believes that splitting a primary from the caucuses would have the unintended consequence of ensuring that "the only people who show up for the caucuses would be the true insiders and geeks."

Carey is out of touch -- even the comments to the story feature Republicans complaining about the caucus system. Here's one, from someone who signed in as jimpolitel:

We need to have a primary. I attended my GOP caucus as I have since 1984 and the same people always move on as delegates because they are known by the insiders. I felt sorry for the young Ron Paul supporters who were out of their element as this was their first caucus and the regulars were ramming things through and not being supportive to the new attendees. While Ron Carey says he doesn't support a primary, it does not mean Republicans do not support a primary. One other note, if you are a sitting congressman, please don't run for delegate, you already have an at-large seat at the conventions and you're taking away an opportunity for someone new to get involved.

Edit: The Strib music writer Chris Riemenschneider writes up his first caucus experience -- clearly, from his tone, not a fun night.

Vote Today!

Find out where your local precinct caucus will be held by using the MN Secretary of State's Precinct Caucus Finder. Then go vote. I'm already on the record for wanting to change our caucus system to a primary, but no matter what the system is, you don't have a voice if you don't participate. Find out more about the candidates from the League of Women Voters' Vote 411 website.

Minnesota Should Dump the Caucuses and Go to a Voter Primary System

I was going to write up a big thing about how the caucus system in Minnesota is ineffective and needs to be changed, but this guy beat me to it. A quick review of info shows that Minnesota expects to break all records for caucus participation, and yet of Minnesota's 3,114,268 registered voters (as of Feb. 1, 2008), only about 4% (125,000) will participate in the caucus process. That compares to about 39% of South Carolina voters participating in its primary. Even in Michigan, where Democratic participation in its primary was down (likely because the Democratic Party stripped the state of its delegates because it moved it's primary up too far on the calendar), approximately 20.3% of the state's registered voters voted in the primary. You'll see numbers bigger than that in most states in tomorrow's Super Tuesday primaries.

Decision 2008: Obama and Edwards Coming to Minnesota

The Strib reports that John Edwards will be in Minnesota on Tuesday (presumably tomorrow, Jan. 29), and Barack Obama will come to Minnesota next Saturday, Feb. 3, two days before our state's precinct caucuses on Tuesday, Feb. 5. If you need help finding out where your precinct caucus will be held, use the MN Secretary of State's handy precinct caucus finder tool. And get out and caucus!