Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Arizona is a step closer to grab “first in the nation” status as a caucus state.

Well, not first, because the DNC still seems to be wedded to the quaint notion that voters in New Hampshire and Iowa are naturally more qualified to all but hand pick the Party’s nominees. Well, no one ever says that, but they do say that voters there are more familiar with the process and so forth. Hey, park a presidential candidate in Delaware or Idaho and let him visit every county party’s fish fry and pancake flip, I bet they will be pretty familiar too.

But I digress.

One of the things that the DNC wants out of Arizona is real caucus, rather than the pseudo-primary process that the party followed from 1972 through the 2000 election. Previously, a “caucus state” could include those states without state run primaries. So, our “caucus” was nothing of the kind, instead it was just a really understaffed primary election with Xeroxed ballots.

What the DNC asked for after Arizona first petitioned for this was a real Iowa-style caucus, where voters actually meet for a few hours on an evening and vote for their choice. The Arizona Democratic Party has now come up with a plan to staff such an event, and will be presenting it to the DNC tommorrow.

I’m not sure if such a thing is going to be the organizing bonanza some are touting. We were told that an early primary in 2004 would do something like this, but the best organized campaigns whose candidates made numerous appearances (Wesley Clark, Howard Dean) won silver and bronze, while the winning candidate (John Kerry) did a “fly over” campaign. I realize this had a lot to do with larger dynamics in the race, but it does seem to put a lie to the premise that “early means attention,” and also means that candidates that blow off a state (as long as it isn’t one of the dynamic duo) don’t necessarily get punished.

However, the level of organization for such a caucus would be much higher and more intense than is necessary for a primary, so maybe this would result in more attention from the candidates. Given how much pressure there is from politicos in New Hampshire and Iowa on candidates to nearly exclusively campaign in their states, and the inability of the national political media to pay attention to any other states in that stage of the primaries, I don’t hold out much hope.

Robbie Sherwood and Chip Scutari have a rather comprehensive article on the caucus story. I don’t know why they interviewed a Republican operative, who has no dog in this fight, and just took it as chance to take a shot at Gov. Janet Napolitano. Sherwood also talked to Matt Salmon about the Republican primary, but it left out an important point. The Republican primary doesn’t choose delegates, not a one. For example, the 1996 primary was won by Steve Forbes, but the delegation was stocked with Bob Dole supporters and scant Forbes supporters. The 2000 primary was won by John McCain, but was still led by supporters of George W. Bush. The fact that neither one of these Arizona Primary winners was nominated may also be a big reason why no one interviewed seemed to have thought much about the Republican primary.

The big problem I had with their article was the misreading of the history of our caucus and our process here:

Arizona normally holds a presidential preference primary for both parties, where voters go to the polls to cast ballots. But Arizona Democrats did experiment with the more freewheeling caucus approach, where voters gather publicly to debate and choose a candidate, in 1996 when Clinton won.

Only one Democratic presidential primary has been held, and only two have been held for the Republicans, who skipped the last contest and have traditionally made their selection at a closed convention. I don’t think this adds up to “normally.” But aside from that, the process in 1996 was not a “free wheeling caucus,” but yet another “Firehouse Primary,” where the party printed ballots and voters would vote and walk out. The process being considered here is one that calls for far more participation from regular voters, and will be the most “free-wheeling” we have ever had.