The biggest lesson of this election is that good candidates bring out voters.  The lesson shouldn't be that caucuses suck, but that we need to put forward the type of politicians that can get people out to vote.

The article did state that the voters turned away were allowed to cast provisional ballots that would be counted if both candidates agreed to that modification of the rules.

OK, two things:

1)  Just because they suck (and they aren't as good as primary), doesn't mean we should rhetorically discount their results.  In Wyoming and a number of states, that's the only way the D voters could choose a candidate.  When I hear a Clinton supporter saying "well, caucuses are unfair and they mean nothing"... well, sorry, to those voters, they did mean something.  To deny that is to disenfranchise voters via rhetoric.

2)  I agree with the "caucuses are worse than primaries".  But let me ask you a question:  should it be the state's responsibility to fund what is, after all, a party's selection process?  Forgive me, but in order to have a primary in a lot of states, it costs money that the state has to allocate.  I think a primary is terrific -- but in some states and some areas asking voters to fund the D party and R parties mechanisms for a candidate isn't something we should expect.

OK, flame away.

This is the best argument around for a re-vote in FL and MI.

I agree that there are good arguments against caucuses and obviously, with these kind of crowds, they don't really make a lot of sense on the surface.

But there are also arguments in favor of caucuses and I'm not so sure that all the biased Clinton supporters will see things the same way once this primary is over and well behind us. The arguments in favor are very simple:

It is one thing to get a lot of people out in a primary, that's fine but it's not everything. What you actually want is to have as many people as possible seriously committed to a candidate and to the Party. That means people who will GOTV, who will donate money, who will advocate their candidate to their friends, and so on. The motivated bunch, not just the passive voters. These people are worth much more to the party than ordinary voters and can make a huge difference in the general election. And that's why they have a special role to play in caucuses, where they make up the large majority of participants.

Ignore that at your own peril.

If there's no evidence that Clinton supporters tend to be more tardy than Obama supporters, then excluding late comers has no impact on the outcome.

People have to get to a primary before the polls close, too, so this is not an issue regarding caucuses versus primaries.

Not today's caucus!

It's really amazing to watch our mainstream media bend over backwards pimping for Hillary.  She managed just a handful of delegates in the big, delegate-rich state of Ohio on Tuesday, but Obama offset most of that with his win in Texas.  Then the next day California certified its primary, and Obama ended up with a net of 8 more.  Later that same day, 3 more superdelegates declared for Obama.  And now it looks like Obama will net 3 more in Wyoming (2 + the add-on in May).  But to read the papers and watch the bobbleheads on TV, you'd think Hillary was on a rampage and bound for victory.

What has happened is that Obama's 12 straight primary victories created a dynamic where the bar has been set so low for Hillary that anything that resembles a win for her, no matter how slender, is heralded as major news.  It's also interesting to note that when this race began she had all the advantages and was the presumed nominee;  but that has been turned around 180 degrees, and now she is perceived to be the scrappy challenger battling from behind.

The worm turns...

A move should be made to get rid of the awarding of delegates through caucuses in the convention going forward.

Maybe he can get a job as a lobbyist working for Daschle.

If only Daschle had been this forceful with the Republicans, maybe he would not look like a loser!

I think after Tuesday, a lot of the pundits will be making the case that Obama has a bigger delegate lead than he did a week earlier and - hopefully - the news coverage will recognize that.

It is interesting to see folks on here defending caucuses since caucuses are the paramount form of the organized party elite. It was exclusive caucuses that precipitated changes in the Democratic rules in the 1960s, you know the smoke filled rooms?

Why are they more democratic now? Because your preferred candidate wins them? This just goes to show that the commitment to democratic 'values' or better representation is empty words.

People just want their preferred candidate to win, no matter the costs.

I am quite sure that if Clinton was winning caucuses that the Clintonista opinion of caucuses would be totally positive.  I feel that if Obama was in second place that he wouldn't suck either.  A primary in Wyoming would have yielded the same result.  With the Clintonistas the rules suck, the states that don't matter suck, the math sucks, the eroding superdelegate lead sucks, it just all sucks sucks, sucks.  Reality sucks when you are losing.  Get used to it.  A deep apology and contrition from Clinton might allow her the Demo VP slot, unless she would rather run on McCain's ticket.

The doors are closed according to the schedule in the rules. Is someone saying they rules were broken or is this just idle complaining?

Very soon Clinton will be telling us that the voters suck, democracy sucks, the progressive wing of the party sucks, everything in this growing nightmare of a poorly run campaign sucks.  It seems that everything sucks except for McCain.  Even the honesty of promising in the debates to support the Democratic nominee seems to suck, totally.

Also, I was just talking to someone about the possible redo in MI and how it may be a "caucus" acting like a primary.

Even tho I do not like mail in or early voting, I have ALWAYS believed that people should have the ability to do a true absentee ballot.

If they are going to be away or are elderly and have trouble getting out, then they should be able to vote by absentee ballots.

Progressive Blue

Well, enjoy this today because according to the NY Times, this is the LAST CAUCUS for the Dems this year.

Is anyone here arguing that excluding late-comers advantages Obama?

If so, why?  Do Clinton people have a problem getting places on time?

"they had to turn people away..."

This is really incendiary. Why the hell are people OK with this? An election isn't a concert. It's not a 1/2 price sale at Costco. It's not "one free cone day" at Baskin-Robbin. There should be no such thing as turning people away when it comes to an election of any kind.

Now there are all sorts of smart people who will argue that in fact as a matter of law no explicit right to vote exists, and much less so in the circumstance of a preference poll undertaken as a  service/function of a mere local political party. However, I'm sure that if asked, 99.99% of all Americans or even unregistered adults, who affirm the idea of a "right to vote" and even most constitutional and historical scholars would  concur that THE CONSTITUTION (and much moreso, the whole developmental arc of American political history) implies such a right.

A single vote has ample moral value. Lots of votes have, together, profound moral value. Lots of votes turned away is a profound moral outrage. Caucuses are a profound moral outrage insofar as they pretend to be anything like a vehicle for regular people to give voice to their poltiical views. They are exclusive and have little worth beyond being a really expensive focus group. They are the tool of the aristocracy, not the tool of the common person.

We should hold national primaries.

As I posted on the earlier thread where you posted the same message, MAHER is being a pig in this episode. If you want to win against Hillary, beat her on the issues. Hating her because she's too emotional or cuckholding or "an old hag" (maher's words later in the episode) is BS.
We should not tolerate it.

Oh right, sexism is fine as long as it advantages your candidate.

Wow.  What an insult to all the people working their asses off to get Obama elected.  

or jerome, you could leave Todd Beeton's posts as they are, without begging for your candidate to steal this thing.

Like I said before, I am very happy that Texas held both primary and caucus, if not anything else, but solely as an in-your-face and clear-as-day example to show how caucus does not always (probably often does not) represent the will of the people.  I am not saying that the caucuses in those so-called red states should be disregarded simply because they are caucuses, but I think most if not all people would agree that primary is a more democratic forum.  And I think Clinton's victory in the primary is more convincing than Obama's victory in the caucus; unfortunately the delegate allocation does not represent the will of the Texas people. I personally think all states should conduct primaries not caucus in the future, but the problem is that we are in the mess now.  

In ancient Greece they had direct democracy - much like caucuses.  Caucuses are true participatory democracy.  They require a commitment of time and energy which just voting does not.  This year the caucuses were a tremendous party building activity from which the Democratic Party could build a ruling majority.  If this continues we could win states we only dreamt of winning before. It seems to me that the Clinton argument is that we just want a bare majority - doesn't make any sense to me.  

Caucuses suck, the electoral college sucks, the media sucks, the outsized influence money buys lobbyists and special interests suck, lots of things suck about our electoral system but you plan your campaign for the election rules you are handed in the primary and in the general.

These rules were not designed to favor Obama or Edwards or Dodd or any candidate. They all knew the lay of the land going into this, made their choices and chose the strategy they thought would be most effective. They all had the same information up front. If they got out foxed and out organized it was not because of a system that favored one candidate it's because they had the wrong strategy and made the wrong choices.

TX has both, which while widely mocked, I think is pretty much the best of both worlds.

Roughly 2/3 of the delegates are handed out based upon the breadth of support for each candidate (Primaries) and 1/3 are handed out based upon the depth of support for each candidate (Caucuses).  Both types of support are important to the success of a candidate in  the General Election.

Stop spamming.

earn a delegate than Obama. In my world, that results in a Hillary nomination if she, as seems likely, wins the popular vote. I'll take people-powered over process-powered anyday. Are you paying attention to this superdelegates?!

Gee, I wonder why Crist would do that...

Good for him!  He can outspend Clinton again by 3:1 or 4:1.  

This argument that Hillary can't get her supporters out on Saturdays to vote her her is simply ridiculous ... really . . . ridiculous .... well, beyond ridiculous.

Maybe . . . just maybe . . . Obama actually has more supporters than Clinton. But I'm sure that can't be the case. Must be the "precess" (you n, the rules are all against Hillary.)

I'll let you Clinton supporters in on a little secret. Maybe Obama is leading in delegates, total votes etc. because people really DO what him to be president.

Did you guys consider that?

Are caucuses rather than primaries ever used to select candidates for State or local offices?

I think this site ought to be re-named "Operation Hope."  Compared to 'MYDD,' it would more accurately reflect some of the creative math and desperately hopeful posts that we see here in the comments section.  I gotta hand it to you guys, you're experts at making lemonade out of lemons.

Your next assignment:  Figure out how Hillary is going to survive the five-week interval between her next defeat (MS) and the Pennsylvania primary.
She will need to manufacture some good news to keep the superdelegates from pulling the trigger, and I anxiously await the spin coming from her campaign.

Best of luck....

"Look, caucuses make sense for states that are not used to mattering in the process"

Oh don't worry, Wyoming doesn't matter, it is an Obama state.

Hillary is behind in the popular vote.

And to finish the thought, she's behind even though Obama is getting no credit for Iowa, Nevada, Washington and Maine, because those states don't tally the caucus votes.  

So - yes, it's true, she had to get more votes for each delegate, net.  But, also net, the reason she's way behind in delegates is that she's also behind in the popular vote.

That is all.

OK - one more thing - please, dear god, do not try to count Michigan or Florida.  If there's one thing I am hoping for, as an Obama supporter, it's that we actually get a primary contest in those states so we can put that canard to rest once and for all.  Please check the turnout for the beauty contests that were held in those states - they had the lowest turnout percentages of the entire primary - even though the Republican contests were going to award some delegates.  Democratic voters stayed home.

Let's do these again when everyone's paying attention.  If anyone would like to make a wager on whether HRC comes out of those two contests with a 600,000+ vote margin - as her supporters are claiming now, because they credit Obama with none of the "uncommitted" votes - I'll be more than happy to take the action.  

It will be a wonderful day when that particular soap bubble bursts.

You would think with 35 years of experience she would have figured out how the nominee for the democratic party was elected.  She even got to see it twice up close and personal.  

Maybe you should be more worried that your candidate can't figure out a process after 35 years of going through it.

Just a thought.

Oh and as a side note, John McCain has the experience to know how the nomination process on his side works.

This has been an extraordinary Democratic campaign. In state after state, primaries and caucuses both have been deluged by high turnout of motivated voters. And in state after state, the election officials have been wildly unprepared. Tens of thousands of voters have been left in the rain and snow and night, never getting to vote.

The answer is vote-by-mail. If there is a much greater than expected turnout, it just takes a few more hours to count the ballots, but nobody is disenfranchised. And it's cheaper.

People get turned away during primaries as well, don't you know?

And I assume you know that the number of delegates awarded to individual states are based on a number of factors, none of which are related to the number of people in the state.

Since we're trying to get someone elected President, the electorial college is the determining factor, isn't it. Well, CA got 6.7 delegates per EC voter while WY only got 4.0 delegates. Doesn't that seem to be a little unfair for the one vote, one person rule doesn't it? Same outcome if you use population.

Look, we have the system we have. If one candidate did a better job at laying out a strategy to get the nomination, shouldn't that be a plus and not a minus?

How about this:

Do away with super-delegates; do away with open (season) primaries; do away with caucuses.

Then we'd have a much higher voting turnout and the parties could actualy pick their own candidates (what a novelty) -- instead of the machiavellian wishy washy crossovers.  and we'd have a real choice in the general election, because the candidates would not be trying to attact the wishy washy uncommited voters of the middle.

Saying the popular vote should be important is great, but we don't have a real popular vote. Nobody knows how many people voted in Iowa or Washington -- they don't record it. The numbers you see are precinct level delegates. In some states the records are kept, but in many they don't bother once the precinct delegates are chosen and certified.

I think the Texas example should be sufficient to bring to light the bias caucuses introduce in Obama's favor.

The ironic thing is that the Texas primacaucus was engineered in 1992 to give Bill Clinton an advantage during the nomination race.

The entire caucus system is designed to give party insiders like Hillary Clinton an advantage. Obama was clever enough to nullify that advantage. If the system were different, his strategy would have been different.

System is further reformed  so that popular vote is better reflected and strong democratic states are not penalized for being winnable in the general.

Democratic states already get assigned a number of greater than proportional to their population. To take an example, Washington has a population of 6,395,000 and 78 pledged delegates. Indiana has a virtually identical population (6,345,000) but only 72 delegates.

Fact is, if delegates were apportioned by population, Obama would have a bigger lead.

Why would you troll rate this comment?  unfair and uncalled for.  UPRATE

Jerome, dude, give it a rest, already. You are SO biased. If you suggest that the SD's base their votes on the popular vote, then you of course are ignoring states with Caucuses, and as they are currently, for better or worse, part of our system, you just can't do that. Did Bill Clinton's campaign criticize caucuses when he ran for office? Or is this a tactic for Hillary because she has weaknesses in her campaign and does not do as well as Obama in caucus states?

And why does NPR's website say that Obama is currently ahead in the popular vote as well as the pledged delegate total?

quote: "Sen. Barack Obama remains ahead in the number of pledged delegates: He has won 1,360 to Sen. Hillary Clinton's 1,220. He also leads in the popular vote, winning 51 percent of all votes cast so far, versus 49 percent for Clinton."

oh god, thank you todd!!!!!  i'd worried for a while that you'd gone over to the caucus-loving, bullying, harassing, arm-twisting, and caucus rule-flouting side.  i love how so many obama supporters are all too happy to disenfranchise people as long as that means they win.  ugh.

Right...

This is all heading one way. And after the fiasco of untold numbers of voters being turned away in WY today, the bloom is completely off the caucus rose.

Say hello to your first Democratic female nominee for president ever, and say goodbye to the glass ceiling, permanently.

She still has an uphill battle in front of her. You're living in an alternate reality if you think that she's going to win for sure.

Second, say goodbye to the glass ceiling? So sexism will cease to exist if Clinton is elected? What, are you going to round up all of the sexists and gas them or something? Burn all of the books that perpetuate misogynist stereotypes?

The only thing that "sucks" here is the way these caucuses were organized. The folks who planned them had fair warning that turnout would be extremely high.

How that translates into an indictment of the caucus system in general, I have no idea.

Caucuses violate a basic precept of good government: The secret ballot. Unions are trying to end the secret ballot so they can nudge workers into supporting corrupt Unions.

So Why does Obama have more popular votes than Mrs. Clinton, unless you really think she should get those from MI?  Oh, I see.  Its how many popular votes per delegate that's important.  Well, this is certainly a novel way of looking at things.

Iowa (+1), red state

How short your memory is. Iowa voted Democratic in 2000, 1996, 1992, and 1988. Historically, California is far more of a "red state" than Iowa. California voted for a Republican in nearly every election between 1952 and 1992. Perhaps we should disregard Hillary Clinton's primary win in this historically "red state."

The "Math Club"? I.e. the rest of the world who are following who is winning the nomination pursuant to the rules currently in place?

Jerome,

It must be pretty hard for you to accept that Hillary has no chance to be ahead in the "math count" and that puts your candidate at a big disadvantage.  Your frustration would be better served in accepting Obama as the eventual Democratic nominee.

Because "Chess Club" of superdelegates knows that to overturn the pledged delegate winner is the only way the Democrats can lose this fall.

I don't see how anyone can think that wouldn't happen.