What dean really said about the Iowa caucuses

[Alex146]

From http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=132


Dean: On a Saturday, is it easy for me to go cast a ballot and spend 15 minutes doing it, or do I have to sit in a caucus for 8 hours?

Guest: This is a good thing, though.

Dean: I don't think so. I don't have the time to do it. It doesn't get people involved. It drives people out of the process, and leaves the people who are left in the process -- the professional people who get paid to be there.

Guest: Let the people in the neighborhoods convince you, say...

Dean: They can't convince me. I've got my kid's soccer game. I've got my second job. I've got all these other reasons that I can't do these things.

Guest: If that's the case, the 15 minutes you're going to devote to politics in your year is a pretty perfunctory involvement in politics.

Dean: Not necessarily. I read the papers, maybe I watch television. I form my opinions, I get to go exercise my opinion. But I can't stand there and listen to everyone else's opinion for eight hours about how to fix the world.
Compare this to the way it is reported on television:

NBC Voice Over: Dean even suggested the caucuses were a waste of time for ordinary people
Dean: “I can’t stand there and listen to everyone else's opinion for eight hours about how to fix the world.”

[wtmusic]

1. Typical

How many times have I heard the misquote 'waste of time' in conjunction with that interview?

NBC is a waste of time.

[dflprincess]

2. We were discussing Dean's attitude to caucuses at our

MN DU gathering this evening.

At last Dean and the DLC and DNC probably agree on something. Hacks don't like caucuses because they make it easier for grassroots movements to make inroads into the party. I would bet that Wellstone would never have gotton the party endorsement the first time he ran for Senate if Minnesota wasn't a caucus state. Caucuses also make it easier for people who are more issue oriented to participate and be heard than do primaries.

True, it takes more time to caucus than to vote. I doubt that there Rarely does a precinct caucus run more than 2 or 3 hours - and then only in very active areas, the last few times mine has barely run much more than an hour.

[SharonAnn]

3. Not here, the local caucuses are run by the "old guard" and they

pretty much control who gets selected. We do caucuses for local elections but the Republicans do primaries. No one else bothers to turn out in this county so we only get candidates "approved" by the old guard. And since our candidates get no attention in the primaries (they're not on the ballot, only Republicans are) our candidates are pretty unknown.

And, the old guard is pretty open about it. They say they want to be sure that the candidates are "real" Democrats.

So, we're pushing for primaries to get the citizens involved, get visibility for the Democratic candidates, and maybe even get some "unapproved" Democrats on the ballot.

[hedda_foil]

4. SharonAnn ...

What state do you live in?

[Walt Starr]

5. That would be a Tennessee flag avatar below her name

;)

[dflprincess]

6. Here the only reason the Old Guard can run a caucus

is because it's often only the Old Guard that shows up at them. However, we do have rules requiring proportional representation so that if people show up supporting a candidate not supported by the Old Guard, they still get delegates to the (state) Senate District convention and eventually the State Convention where the endorsements are made. For example, if a precinct has 20 delegate slots for the next convention and half the people at the caucus support the hack candidate and the other half supports another candidate, both sides can get no more than 10 delegates. (this is not always 50/50 - you can have delegates split up between any number of candidates.) If there are enough people present that have not committed to a candidate they may also pick up some delegates. How well organized a candidate is and how well they motivate their supporters to get out to the caucuses can make a big difference.

Minnesota also has a primary. The party endorsement does not keep another candidate from challenging the endorsed candidate in the primary. The endorsed candidate does have the full resources of the party behind them and, theoretically, people holding any kind of party office and other endorsed candidates are not suppose to actively work against the endorsed candidate. In 2000 Mark Dayton chose to skip the endorsement process and ran against the party candidate in the primary. It was one of the few times many of us who have been around a long time were happy to see the endorsed candidate lose the race. (And then we turned around and endorsed Mark at the next State Central Committee meeting).