This doesn't make sense, I thought we were blaming the sexist media today (except for Fox)

except for American Samoa, who voted for Hillary.

Caucuses shouldn't count.

I'm not sure I get the disabilities angle.  Is there any evidence that a significant numbers of disabled persons could not attend caucuses but could primaries?  At least in my experience, admittedly limited to Texas, caucus sites have always been schools or churches or community centers or other public buildings that are handicapped accessible.

There is really no requirement that there be voting at all to choose a nominee. They can do it however they want.  The party probably couldn't go back to choosing a nominee without voting without a big uproar now. But they don't have to do it any particular way.  The states decide whether to have a caucus or a primary and there are pluses and minuses with each. I think the system is OK like it is. Maybe in 2012 it'll go the way you want and you'll think the system is fine.

...but I think we do need some mechanism within our nominating system to measure the things caucuses measure.  Caucuses more than primaries require (a) extensive organization, (b) a great deal of depth of support, and (c) the ability to coordinate and activate large numbers of people to a specific place, time, and activity.

All three of these factors can be crucial to the success of a presidential candidate.

Moreover, I think there's something very positive about caucuses, about the tradition of the town meeting where everyone stands and states their preference, and honest deliberation occurs.  Maybe it's the romantic in me, but the utter messiness and chaos of the caucus is a synecdoche of sorts for the messiness and chaos of representative democracy.

I'd like for there to be more primaries, but I think there needs to be something within our system that measures the things caucuses measure.

Yeah, the caucuses are evil, so says the author of the memo: In caucuses, the focus is on party-building and encouraging community residents to discuss political issues, the candidates & party platform and on building consensus around selecting a candidate to address community needs. A voter who supports a minority candidate [one with less than 15% support] can realign with another candidate. In a primary, there is no second choice. Further, caucus-goers can stay involved in the political process by working through the county and state conventions and possibly attend the national convention. So, on the positive side, caucuses can be grassroots democracy at its best.

One problem with the memo is that it throws out the baby with the bathwater.  If the author has problems with accessibility for disabled persons, the person can advocate for reform to ensure access for disabled persons.  

Note that even when looking at just the primaries, Obama is ahead in the popular vote if you don't count FL and MI.  Clinton is ahead in the primary popular vote only if you include Florida and Michigan and give Obama only 75% of the uncommitted vote, which would amount to about 35% of the vote in Michigan compared to 55% for Clinton.  Do you really believe that Hillary would have won Michigan by 20 points in a fair contest?   In all likelihood, the race would have been about even, which would mean Obama would still retain the popular vote lead even if you counted Florida.
 

Political scientists have done more detailed analyses of whether having a primary or caucus will affect the outcome of an election, and the conventional wisdom (before this election started) was that this doesn't have any impact.  Turnout in caucus elections is smaller, no question, but the people who show up are generally a cross section of whatever voter opinion within an electorate happens to be within a state.

And while one can challenge that conclusion, one should do so within reasonable parameters.  Eg., Obama won 16 out of 17 caucus states because his support tends to be concentrated in those parts of the country which use the caucus system.  There isn't a single caucus Obama won one can point to where he didn't win a neighboring state which was similar and used the primary system (eg. he won MN but also WI, WA but also OR, etc.).

Fine by me if the Dems decide to move to a system which only allows primaries, but this argument that Clinton lost because of caucuses is silly (it looked better just after Super Tuesday, when people didn't really have a bead on what was going on, but after 50 odd races we have a pretty good sense of who voted for which candidate and why).

Anyone can look back and this race and pick out aspects which "unfairly" benefitted the other candidate (I'll mention a huge one for Obama--the calander--it's easy to forget that 1/2 of this race was finished after four weeks, we never got to really see the "clash of the titans" in CA, a state which, had the election been held later, I think Obama could have won handily).  Since Obama has been beating Clinton by 5-10 points since Super Tuesday in national polls, one could make a good argument that she was only competitive for this long because she benefitted early from name recognition (and was able to lock in those results).

But so what?  It's an argument.  Just suggesting it's really easy to cherrypick in this way.

Lastly, will anyone grant the Republicans at least a little grudging respect for the extent to which they don't really play these games?  It's a typical Democratic neurosis to be obsessed with what might have happened had the rules been different (whereas the Republican reaction to the whole MI and FL thing, for example, has generally been this: why do the Democrats play these games of creating rules which they know they might not later want to enforce?  they're the law and order folks, we're the "I don't need your stinkin' rules" people).

All of which might set up one of the truly amusing changes which might come out of this race: a move away from proportional representation to a winner-take-all system (it's a myth, btw, that the Republicans have this for most of their states, or that if Clinton were competing according to the GOP's rules she would have won months ago, but the perception that Clinton would have had it in the bag with a winner-take-all system might persuade the Dems to adopt this rule, which would totally undo the reforms enacted during the 1970s, and create a situation where getting a one-vote victory in CA might hand a candidate the nomination).

Just saying there is no set of rules which won't create reasons for people to complain later (c'mon, that's obvious).

They're a great way for grassroots campaigns to compete with machine politicians.

I think that a lot of people share your angst about caucuses. I certainly do. I have felt for a long time that caucuses are interesting exercises, but no way to elect a President.

The report you cite certainly puts in stark relief the stats: it's a little more complicated than Hillary won more primaries, Obama won more caucuses. It pointed out two things:

1. The caucuses were relatively lightly-attended affairs (compared to primaries) and since the entirety of Obama's pledged delegate margin comes from there it is a skewed result. That is certainly true in my mind when Clinton won the primaries overall, in which nearly 34 million people participated and Obama won the caucuses in which 2 million people participated, and Obama wins.

2. As we are all no doubt aware, the Idaho, Washington, Nebraska, and Texas primaries in which many, many more people participated were much closer run things than the caucuses. If the delegates had been apportioned from the more-participated-in primaries, Obama would not be in as good a shape.

We all know that Obama is going to be the nominee, and that is based almost entirely on his performance in these caucuses.

Try this stat on for size: Obama had a 140 delegate margin over Clinton in the caucuses. His current pledged delegate margin is the lowest it has been since February- 115 delegates. That's a pretty overwhelming figure. It is also one that is very hard to take for Clinton supporters.

But, though I certainly decry the unfairness of the caucus system, and beleive that at least in TX, NE, ID, and WA the huge Obama margins were not fair representations of the preferences of voters, there is a flip side that is equally tragic:

Hillary Clinton's people should have had a caucus strategy.

It seems that discussion of facts and issues of importance to democracy, as an institution, is not favorable subject matter these days on this site.  So you've taken a lot of flak for talking like an adult about something important.

I'm sorry for that.

Unfortunately, you will have to revisit this topic in December or January.  Right now, very few people are capable of thinking about things like this.  I can tell you that I have been involved in efforts for electoral reform well before this primary began, and these observations are salient, important, and spot-on.

For those who are so caught up in primary fervor that you cannot stop and think about what is being presented to you, I suggest that you are playing precisely the role these politicians wish for you to play - to be sufficiently distracted by your (short-lived but intense) emotions that you can't recognize when they are taking a little bit more of the country away from you.

Thanks for posting this report. The analysis on caucuses gives one pause regarding full and fair voting access. Primaries are easier for all people to attend. I would think that full access to voting would be something to strive for. We don't hold caucuses in the general election, why for the primaries? I've never lived in a caucus state (only VA, CA, and FL) so my question is on the uninformed side.

Why does Peurto Rico get more delegates than 27 States in the primary, when P.R. doesn't even vote for President in the fall?

Do people in Primary States ever get together with other Democrats in their Precinct to talk politics like people in Caucus States do?

(Crickets)

The DNC set this schedule up, in fact Clinton Person Number One, former DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe.

If anyone should have understood the semantics of winning on both primary and caucus level was Hillary Clinton.

She chose to listen to the worst strategist alive, Mark Penn, who totally did not understand the Democratic proportional system, to start.

For Clinton to just believe that she would give the finger to the caucuses and rely only on big states is on her.  That was her strategy.  

The 11 in a row cost her the nomination, period.  You know it and I know it.

Forget about whining about caucuses now.  Remember, states have the choice to run primaries or caucuses.  The DNC does not run ANY OF THESE, they don't have the money, this is paid for by individual states.

Some state offices have more money than others, thus the caucus system.

This is a hard lesson for many to understand going forward.  For big states they have the money to run primaries, they cost in the MILLIONS to operate.  Smaller states, DO NOT, thus the caucus.

Candidates going forward from now on, better engage and understand the caucus system, period.  I don't see the DNC making any state run a state run primary when they don't have the money on the books to do so.  It is up to the candidate to garner votes via primary or caucus, not the other way around.

Don't like what happened?  For your next candidate, make sure they fuckin' have the money to run the table through all 50 states and not just SOME.  But more importantly understand how caucuses WORK.

Highest 10 states (8 Hillary wins, 2 Obama):

Texas (22800 voters/delegate)
Florida (19000 voters/delegate)
Indiana (17400 voters/delegate)
Ohio (15800 voters/delegate)
Wisconsin (15000 voters/delegate)
Pennsylvania (14600 voters/delegate)
North Carolina (14000 voters/delegate)
Kentucky (13700 voters/delegate)
Massachusetts (13500 voters/delegate)
California (13400 voters/delegate)

Lowest 10 states (10 Obama wins):

Alaska (680 voters/delegate)
Wyoming (725 voters/delegate)
Kansas (1150 voters/delegate)
Idaho (1160 voters/delegate)
North Dakota (1460 voters/delegate)
Nebraska (1600 voters/delegate)
Hawaii (1850 voters/delegate)
Maine (1900 voters/delegate)
Colorado (2200 voters/delegate)
Minnesota (3000 voters/delegate)

I like this part in mentioned above statistical report:

"in 37 Primaries (not even counting yesterday PR primaries) together 34,553,605 people voted.
Clinton got + 502,941 votes and she got + 67 delegates.
in 13 Caucuses + TX caucuses 1,057,137 people voted, Obama got + 299,768 votes Obama + 205 delegates."

Without caucuses result will be (not even counting PR) devastating for Obama.
He abused flaws in nomination process and hijacked the it. It will be no caucuses in November.
With exception of Hawaii, Maine and may be Washington, Minnesota and Colorado, all other caucus states are deeply RED and McCain will win them.
So Obama used red states to become a blue nominee to be beaten in red states.
Good job Dr. Dean!

Uh, I think the accessibility question is certainly valid, but bringing it up at this point is going to result in more partisan bickering rather than any progress toward changing the system.

Obama supporters are justifiably defensive if you're bringing up arguments that arbitrarily challenge the results of contests that are the backbone of their candidate's support.

The only relevant statistic to the supposed point of the diary (the accessibility question) would be a number showing how many people would have gone to caucus but for their disabilities.

All the numbers you throw in make it really seem like you're trying to make a pretty weak argument that caucuses are somehow less legitimate than primaries.  And you fail.

I just found this in the report:

Since the DNC stripped Florida and Michigan of their delegates, results from these primaries have purposely been omitted from most discussion till now. No Democratic candidate campaigned or ran political ads in either state. However, since both states conducted a legitimate Primary election and posted certified results and since the states have a combined 44 electoral votes and nearly 20 million eligible voters that cast a cumulative 2,345,000 votes [twice the number of all caucus votes and roughly 7% of total votes] readers may want to consider the voter preferences expressed in order to assess candidate electability for the General Election.

Pretty much the standard Clinton talking point oversimplification of the Florida Michigan situation.  There is simply no way you can read this without immediately knowing exactly which candidate the author supports.  Honestly, the fact that this person has a disability seems like less of a determining factor in her putting together this report than the fact that's she's a Clinton supporter.

Wake me up when an objective report on such matters comes out and this primary season is over.  Until then it is obviously more partisan wrangling rather than an actual look at the caucus question.

that somehow Bill & Hillary Clinton, the best tag-team in the history of the United States, with their combined 75+ years of political experience were beaten by an inexperienced and naive first-term Senator whose only resume highlight is that he gave a speech in 2002.

It's a good thing Ms. Clinton is not going up against John McCain with all of his experience and commander-in-chiefedness.