Caucus.

I went to the Republican caucus last night.  My first thought as we approached the building was:  Wow.  So there really are some Republicans in South Minneapolis.  It was packed.  I exaggerate a lot.  This is not exaggeration.  The radio this morning announced that caucus sites were unexpectedly crowded all over the state, and that some of them ran out of chairs and ballots.   Mark and I snorted simultaneously, "Chairs?!?"  The room we were in was standing room only.   

Minnesota’s Republican caucus is kind of complicated.  It’s a 200-year-old system.  (Here is the best explanation I have found.) I know, I know, the media all reported that Romney won it.  Actually, what Romney won was a straw poll — it means nothing, nothing, for the delegate count.   Minnesota’s delegates to the national convention have not been elected yet.  That comes later, at district and state conventions.

Last night each precinct elected delegate(s) to the district and state conventions.  It’s at those conventions that the national delegates will be picked.

The caucus site I attended — the single packed room — covered several precincts.  When we got there we had to look for someone who was waving over his head the file folder with our ward/precinct number in it.  (It was hard to see with all the Ron Paul signs.  Only Ron Paul people had signs.)  We fought our way through the crowd until we got there, where the file folder guy turned out to be simply the guy who’d arrived first, a youngish professional-looking man.  Five people from our precinct showed up, including me and Mark.  (Some precincts seemed to have maybe five times as many). 

Mark left with the kids after the straw poll.  They were frightened by the crowd, although Milo was happy to get some Ron Paul stickers.  Only Ron Paul people had stickers.  I stayed.

That left four people in my precinct to pick one delegate.  Also we were supposed to elect a precinct chair, vice chair, secretary, and treasurer.  We sort of looked at each other until one man, an elderly African-American, said, "Oh, come on.  Like this.  I nominate him–" he pointed to the guy with the file folder — "to be chair.  Do you –" he pointed at me "–second the nomination?"

After that it went pretty quickly.   We elected File Folder Man to be delegate to the district convention.  I would have done it except we’re busy that weekend.  File Folder Man says he’ll vote for McCain, and that was okay by me and Mark.   A little after we had that all figured out, another voter showed up, a 21-year-old woman with a Canada tee shirt and black-painted fingernails.  She was a Romney supporter.  We said, "We already voted, but if you want to be the delegate for Romney, tell us and we’ll discuss."  She shrugged and said she really liked Romney but she didn’t want to be the delegate.  So that was settled.  "Wow," she said, looking around.  "I didn’t know there were any Republicans around here."

"It’s not that, it’s that there are a lot of Ron Paul supporters here," said a guy with a sign and some stickers. 

He was partly right.  When the site chair, a young black-haired woman, stood up and announced the straw poll results, it turned out that Ron Paul won it with about a third of the vote.  (The Paul supporters seemed to be concentrated in two or three precincts.)  Still, 2/3 of the people there voted for Romney, McCain, or Huckabee (also 2 write-ins for Barack Obama and one for Condoleeza Rice!) — it’s not just the Ron Paul people.  (And more people came too late to be counted in the straw poll.)  The organizers were astonished at the numbers who showed up.  In past elections as few as six individuals had shown up at the caucus site all together.

The whole thing was kind of crazy and kind of fun.  I was amused that in my precinct, we were four people just sort of dividing up the jobs, while another precinct had maybe thirty people and they were passing resolutions, doing shows-of-hands, all very earnest and well-organized.  Ha!  We still have the same number of delegates as them!

Having caucused, now, I think it’s kind of a shame that states are moving to the primary system.  Yeah, it’s simpler, it’s fair, it’s easy to understand, more people can participate… but it’s also a lot more impersonal.  The caucus was a rare chance for me to meet people in my neighborhood in person, to talk to them about local and national issues.  I left feeling less disconnected, less alienated, even less cynical (!) about the political process.  No system is perfect, of course, and there’s flaws to the "caucus/convention" system.  But I can’t help but think it would be a loss to the country if it disappeared.