Chuck, you can't have it both ways-- either caucuses are essential because they
allow regular people to have power and influence, or we shouldn't worry about
people who are left out because they can always vote in a primary.
The fact is that caucuses are tremendously consequential-- the parties demand
that politicians pledge their fealty to the caucus result (in a truly Stalinist
bit of theater, where everyone pledges they'll abide, until they miraculously
change their mind and decide not to). If you don't pledge to abide, you pretty
much destroy your chance of being endorsed. While it's true that some
candidates win primaries despite not being endorsed (Dayton for a recent
example, though just barely), you can't deny that the party endorsement is
important to one's chances of being elected.
So it matters that most voters are disenfranchised by the caucus system. And
it's not necessarily because they don't care-- it's for ALL SORTS of reasons,
from the lack of childcare, to the impossibility of providing translation to
all those who might need it, to the amount of time required for those who work
on the weekends, or who have things they need to do on their day off, to, not
to mention, active duty military members or those who are out of town.... and
so on down the line.
By the way, not to be too clever, but Chuck-- you always talk about people who
go to fundraisers being the only ones benefited by primaries. I'd point out
that, at every fundraiser I've been to, anyone can go. Whether you've donated
nothing, or $5, or $5,000. But that's not the important point.
Chuck's and David's version of caucuses is some sort of utopian fantasy, at
least in my experience of caucuses. First off, at the SD67 convention I
recently attended, sure, most of the governor candidates SPOKE, but they did
NOT speak to people individually-- they spoke for a couple of minutes from the
podium and then dashed off to their next convention. Maybe when they're in
Highland Park they hang out a bit more, I don't know. But on the East Side of
St. Paul, if you ducked out to the bathroom for a minute, you missed your
golden opportunity, the whole reason we HAVE to have caucuses where 8% at most
of voters get to participate, to "interact" (by listening to a speech, like you
could do on TV or at one of the many forums put on around the state) with the
candidates for governor. Woo-hoo.
While I can recognize the good aspects of the caucus system, it always blows my
mind that its most passionate supporters seem incapable of even acknowledging
the bad sides of it.
And it's not coincidental, to my mind, that almost all the people of color I
know think caucuses should be gotten rid of ASAP. But I'm sure that's because
they're the kind of fat cats that would benefit from primaries, or something...