pudge's Journal: Delegation

I went to the Republican precinct caucus tonight in Washington. Only three people showed up in my precinct, and one was the daughter of the other guy, there for research for a homeschool project. Because of the low turnout expected, a few dozen precincts all met in the same room, and most precincts had no one show up at all.

My precinct gets three delegates (and three alternates) the county convention in April. Of the approximately 1,500 delegates to the district caucuses (presuming all the precincts send the maximum number of delegates, I presume), 129 will be chosen to go to the state convention. There, the party nominee will likely be chosen (WA has been having issues with primaries this year; it's unclear how the nominee will be selected right now), and the 11 delegates to the national election will be chosen.

The delegates to the district caucuses are also delegates to the county convention, which happens on the same day and adopts the county platform. At the state convention, the state platform is adopted.

At 8 p.m., the woman leading the night explained most of this to us. We filled out questionnaires (mostly regarding the party platform) and waited until 8:30 p.m., when we could begin electing delegates. At 8:31 p.m., I wrote down my name, and asked the other eligible candidate if we wanted to be a delegate too. He declined.

And thusly I elected myself to the county convention and legislative district caucuses.

I also nominated myself as a candidate for delegate to the state convention. I don't expect to be selected, but on the other hand, if the other precincts are like the ones I saw tonight, it is quite likely that it will be closer to 150 than 1500 actual delegates who show up at the county level.

Politics

[nandorman]

Great. My Brother in politics. Congratulations?

Re:Politics

[pudge]

Eh, it's just participation. In Massachusetts, I was a member of the Republican Town Committee (elected on the same ballot as the Presidential Primary) and later selected in much the same way to be a delegate to the state convention (we had more delegates than available people), though I didn't go because of prior committments; and I was acting chair of the town Finance Committee (appointed). None of it is really being "in politics" except that I am participating in the process, whereas most people don't.

Congrats!

[FroMan]

I'm proud of you. With terribley stiff competition too, some other guy and his daughter. :-)

Delegate this year, pudge for president in '08.

Heck, I'd probably vote pudge for President in 4 years.

Democratic Caucuses

[cascadefx]

I heard that the democratic caucuses were pretty well attended.

I wonder if the Republican caucus turnout is local to your area or endemic?

Interesting...

Re:Democratic Caucuses

[pudge]

It's because by far the greatest draw for the caucuses is the selection of candidates, and there was only one, so it was not an issue. I imagine it is a nationwide problem, wherever there are caucuses, and only one candidate.

Re:Democratic Caucuses

[cascadefx]

That's what I figured. An incumbent year and all that.

Still interesting that Democratic caucuses were well attended. A number of sources (look at local papers on the web) point to numbers being generally higher.

Do I think that will make a difference? No. I think Bush is still going to win. It is so hard to unseat an incumbent in a "normal" year. If it happens now, it would be one for the history books (I guess it will be for the history books either way).