My "I told you so" rant about who gets to run for office under a Party banner...
The first Democratic (technically, "DFL" as I lived in Minnesota) Party precinct caucus I attended, I wasn't actually old enough to vote yet. My stepfather took me, as part of a school project.
He was a delegate, so he also took me to the District Convention. He chose not to run for one of the State Convention delegate slots, so I had to follow that on Public Radio.
Every precinct caucus I attended after that, (and I attended them all, until I moved away from Minnesota in 1997) there were at least ten and in some cases as many as 35-40 people in attendance. Everyone attending had taken the time and effort to be there and many of them had studied issues, were already backing candidates, etc. Some were delegates or officers in the District party, many were just neighbors. In the cities and suburbs there were many precincts to each district, the rural areas had fewer, but often had greater attendance at their caucuses. So somewhere between a few hundred and a couple of thousand people in each District participated in precinct caucuses. There was no requirement for Party membership or participation, anyone could attend either the DFL or IR caucus, just because they wanted to participate.
Minnesota at the time had about 67 legislative Districts, so you could average that at about 67,000 people participating at the Precinct level, sending their Delegates to their District conventions. District Conventions elected and sent about 1200 delegates to the State Convention, in addition to that, another couple of dozen Party officers have delegate votes.
The State Convention is where what used to be known as "smoke-filled rooms" were presumed. You know, 'secret' meetings of 'Party elites' who 'put the fix in' for a particular candidate. It was so undemocratic!
'Scuse me while I belly-laugh for a few minutes.
Having been there, I can tell you, the DFL was NEVER organized enough to have "an" elite that could put fixes in. Sure, there were groups that had more power, interest, passion, money, etc. and weighed more heavily in the process. Sometimes that resulted in candidate choices that seemed poor or unpopular, and when those candidates lost, the derision and rage against the "fixers" could be scathing.
But here's the thing: Not once in the nearly thirty years I observed and participated in that process, did it EVER result in a manifestly incompetent, unqualified, mentally ill, extremist, or intellectually-challenged candidate getting the Party nomination.
Yes, it produced some duds. Okay, many duds. Some bought-and-paid-for assholes, some ideologues with fixations I profoundly disagreed with, some time-servers and place-holders. There were plenty I despised.
But two things about this process: First, it also produced many I respected and admired. Sometimes popular will DID prevail. This was the process that brought Paul Wellstone to the Senate, and I worked for him at every step of the process, and we thought it was a long shot, but pulled it out. "Conventional Wisdom" said he was the wrong candidate to oppose Rudy Boschwitz, we needed someone more centrist, more experienced as a politician, who knew the levers and buttons better. But Paul won and did amazing things for us.
Second thing: Even the 'nonconformists', the duds and the ideologues generally stuck with their caucus in the state legislature, and eventually voted as the caucus required. Owing their seat to the Party process (not just to popular votes) they recognized Party discipline and when push came to shove they were generally in the vote count as needed. They might subcaucus with their fellow-believers, they might dicker and work the system behind the scenes, but when the gavel fell, they voted the platform and the Party line.
Now, y'all may still think this a "bad thing". But all you have to do is look at the stark terror of "being Primaried" that has resulted in so many GOPpie candidates that are manifestly incompetent, unqualified, mentally ill, irrationally extremist, or intellectually-challenged.
There is a case to be made that if we are going to have a government that is, de facto (and at some levels effectively de jure) based on two major political Parties, those Parties have a responsibility to offer the voters candidates who have some competence and qualifications. And thus, those Parties should exercise some process that allows both citizens who are not Party members, and Party membership, to have a say in selecting those candidates, creating a platform, etc.
The system I participated in back in Minnesota did that. Yes, it demanded that people do more than just show up and check boxes after listening to electioneering for weeks or months.
Maybe that is "undemocratic".
But the more "democratic" process of allowing Oligarchs to directly influence voters through vast expenditures on propaganda in that electioneering period, astroturfing and otherwise manipulating voters unwilling or unable to actually participate in a real process has taken representative democracy itself to the brink of extinction.
If not the caucus system, we need to find a way to restore a Party process that both allows open participation AND provides experienced, invested people who know the process, the jobs, and the qualifications needed to responsibly and constitutionally exercise an oath of elected office to ensure some kind of minimum quality in candidates.
Primaries got us here. Primaries allow raw tribalism masquerading as "populism" to co-opt an entire system, especially when backed by moneyed self-interest.
FUCK PRIMARIES
(And yes, I do vote in every single one. It's what we have, and I'll participate. I'm just saying we can, and should, do better.)
irritatedly,
Bright
