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A Day at the Caucuses

by R.W. Bradford

Democracy without elections, tolerance through exclusion, and casual duplicity weave together to form the rich and beautiful tapestry of American democracy.

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In the state of Washington, any registered voter can participate in major party caucuses, have his presidential preference recorded for posterity, and elect delegates to the county convention. The county convention elects delegates to the state convention, which in turn elects delegates to the national convention, where the party's nominee is crowned in a major television event.

As the February caucus approached, I toyed with the idea of going to the Democratic event. I'd attended two Republican presidential preference caucuses in the past, and thought it might be fun. Besides, I could stand up for Howard Dean, a sure loser if ever there was one, and thus run no risk of helping elect America's next tyrant. And if, by some miracle, Dean's campaign was resuscitated and he were elected president — well, worse things have happened. Dean has been the most articulate opponent of the Iraq war and promised a balanced budget. What the hell.

In 1988, when I went to my first Republican caucus, I stood up for Pat Robertson. I'd first encountered Robertson on a televangelism program a decade and a half earlier, and had seen the Rt. Rev. cure a home viewer of hemorrhoids. I was under the impression that hemorrhoids were not one of the major problems facing the nation that year, but I figured if Robertson could cure the piles, he might be able to get the economy moving.

Okay, so my purpose was entirely mischievous, but I had an evening free, so off I went. I met with about 20 other local citizens in a room in the community center, and dutifully stood up for Pat. We debated the resolutions the county party leaders had sent us to ratify, and voted them all down. They were palpably idiotic, and the local Republicans succumbed to the logic of my insightful criticism of them. Robertson carried the county and carried the state, thanks in some very small part to my support.

I attended the GOP caucus again in 1996, this time not as a prank. Steve Forbes was running for the presidency with a campaign centered on massive tax reductions. He actually seemed sensible, at least in the context of politicians. Remember, this was before he decided the only way he could capture the nomination was to remake himself as a member of the religious right.

Anyway, come 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2004 I dragged my sorry carcass out of bed and hauled myself to the local state park, where the Democrats had rented part of a multi-purpose building for the occasion. I parked my motorcycle and got in line to enter the building. I was one of about 700 people there, about twice as many as could fit in the space, so half the precincts had to meet outside in the cold. I found my precinct and went toward its caucus station, an outdoor table covered with campaign literature, with a chair in the center that had a sheet of paper taped to it labeled with my precinct number. As I walked toward the table, a gray-haired woman with a Clark-for-President sweatshirt approached me and said rather accusingly, "Why are you here? Aren't you a Libertarian?" "Not today," I said. "I like your beard," she replied, and went over to the table to take charge. I signed in and indicated my preference for Dr. Dean, then wandered around the outdoor caucuses and back into the building, trying to see how the votes were going. It was pretty chaotic, but everyone seemed to be having fun.

Most precincts were neck-and-neck between Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean. The rule was that for a candidate to be awarded any delegates to the county convention, he had to get 15% of the vote. It looked to me like Kerry might get a few delegates, but all the others would go to the anti-war duo.

Back outside at my precinct, I watched the votes tallied up by the gray-haired lady who liked my beard and a woman wearing a Kerry button. They finished the tally, and the lady in the Clark sweatshirt announced the results to the assembled multitude:

Kucinich	51
Dean	48
Kerry	23
Clark	20
Edwards	7
Uncommitted	5
Hillary Clinton	1
Sharpton	0

She explained that to get any delegates to the county convention, a candidate had to have at least 24 votes, and encouraged those who signed in as uncommitted or Edwards supporters (Edwards was sure to lose, she explained) to change their votes to Clark and Kerry. And it would also be a good idea for some of the Dean and Kucinich delegates to change their votes too, just to make sure that Kerry and Clark got support from our precinct. This seemed odd to me, since I figured that Kucinich and Dean supporters would just as soon have it end with no vote changes, giving each camp four delegates to the state convention.

There followed a strange array of people who climbed up on the table and made short speeches on behalf of their candidates. My favorite was the Clark lady (the one who liked my beard). She explained, "There are three anti-war candidates — Dean, Clark, and Kucinich. Let's make sure we have delegates for all three, in case something happens to Kucinich and Dean." Odd again: not only was a double homicide of Kucinich and Dean far too much to hope for, but the pamphlets for Clark had detailed his "Iraq Success Strategy" in three simple steps:

Work with Allies to Help with Security & Reconstruction
Use Linguists & Intelligence Experts Against Insurgents
Ongoing Transfer of Authority to Iraqis

These three policies were all ones that the hated Bush advocates, and, indeed, are part of American policy in Iraq. Dean and Kucinich pamphlets, in contrast, were openly critical of the war. Kerry's slick pamphlets didn't mention the war at all.

I may not have found this politicking very convincing, but enough people changed their votes (including three Kucinich voters and one Dean voter) to bring the Clark and Kerry tallies up to the number that enabled each, by the caucus rules, to have one county convention delegate and Kucinich and Dean each to lose one delegate. We were then told to meet with other people of the same presidential preference and select our delegates. I joined the Dean supporters.

A very sincere woman announced that she wanted to be a national delegate and it would help her case if she were elected. A similarly sincere man wearing a cowboy hat explained that he also wanted to be a delegate to the national convention, and promised that if elected, he would take Amtrak to the convention in Boston. He added that he had run unsuccessfully for the non-partisan office of port commissioner. Then he saw a young person — a 20-something guy — and announced that youth was important, so this guy should be the third delegate. Then he said we needed three alternates, and three volunteers raised their hands. The guy in the cowboy hat said he'd tell the bosses of our decision. The election was completed without the formality of voting.

I sallied over to the table that was serving as precinct central. The Clark lady who liked my beard and the Kerry lady were trying to figure out how to apportion the delegates. The rules were pretty clear: each candidate who gets at least 15 percent of the total vote got a proportional number of delegates. Doing the simple math, Dean and Kucinich each got 2.6 delegates and Kerry and Clark got 1.3 each. Rounding off, this meant that the two anti-war candidates each got three delegates and Kerry and Clark each got one. But the Clark lady and the Kerry lady, who seemed to be in charge, were saying, "That's not fair. Kerry and Clark should each get 1.5 delegates and Dean and Kucinich 2.5 each." This struck me as more than a little bit odd, since the rules had no provision for partial delegates, but I didn't want to get in an argument, so I wandered back into the building again.

There, a middle-aged man looked at me and hollered, "What are you doing here? Are right-wing nuts trying to take over the Democratic Party?" I didn't recognize him, but I recognized the name on his name tag. I had met him in 1981, when I had gone to his shoe repair business to get the heels on my boots replaced, only to be quoted a price that was higher than the price I had paid for the boots. He was an "activist" and had subsequently been elected county commissioner (a small-town big shot, in the immortal words of Anytime Annie), and managed to be re-elected a time or two. Two decades ago, I had been involved in an attempt to reduce county taxes; perhaps he remembered me from this experience, and believed that the desire to reduce taxes was prima facie evidence of right-wing nutism.

I noticed that he, like me, was wearing a Dean button, and I was vaguely surprised that he was attacking a fellow Dean supporter. But I could see nothing to be gained by responding to him, and, having done my bit for democracy, I continued though the throng to the parking lot, mounted my motorcycle, and returned home.

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