Today’s Herald brings another of Wayne Woodlief’s too-infrequent columns (reg. req’d) on the ins and outs of state politics. I found today’s column especially gratifying, because he raises some of the same issues I raised at the end of my write-up of our chat with Chris Gabrieli – issues that caused several commenters to question my relationship to reality.
Here’s how Woodlief starts his column:
Some Massachusetts Democrats now think the once-unthinkable: That Attorney General Tom Reilly, no longer the formidable front-runner in the gubernatorial race, might not clear the 15 percent barrier at the Democratic State Convention June 2-3, and thus fail even to make the September primary ballot. Yet, with Deval Patrickâs overwhelming victory in the caucuses and millionaire entrepreneur Chris Gabrieliâs late entry as a wild card who can take convention votes from Reilly, it appears possible that a sitting AG with $4 million in campaign cash wonât make the first cut.
Alarmist? Out of touch? Not so fast. Woodlief notes that although about 5,300 delegates are eligible to vote at the convention, some of the less committed delegates might find a beautiful June weekend to be better spent at backyard BBQs and kids’ graduations than in a convention hall in Worcester (in 2002, there was about a 25% no-show rate despite a Governor’s race as hot as this year’s). And the ones least likely to skip out are the Deval Patrick devotees who swept the February caucuses. Woodlief then does the numbers:
If even 20 percent of those eligible donât show up this year, thereâd be about 4,300 actually voting in Worcester June 3. Patrick, a former Clinton administration official, already has âclose to 2,500 committed delegates,â said campaign manager John Walsh. So the closer Patrick gets to 3,000 delegates at the convention – which is 70 percent of 4,300 – the more perilous it becomes for Reilly and Gabrieli. Theyâd both be fighting for 15 percent among about 30 percent remaining.
Woodlief goes on to say that it would be a shame if Reilly didn’t make the cut (a sentiment with which I agree, though for somewhat different reasons than Woodlief gives), and quotes an unnamed Dem who puts Reilly in “the danger zone” despite the Reilly campaign’s assurances that they have the delegates they need. And he then poses the same question that I posed in my much-derided poll at the end of my Gabrieli post:
All of which leaves Patrick in command. If Gabrieli, for instance, seems just shy of the 15 percent going in (a candidate must attain it on the first ballot), Patrick must decide whether to flip enough delegates to Gabrieli to put him in the primary, where heâs likely to cut into Reillyâs base. Or whether to keep hands off, in case Gabrieli, with unlimited resources, seems a bigger primary risk for Patrick.
It’s a bit early to tell whether it’s going to come to that, but if as seasoned a political observer as Woodlief is publicly worrying about it, it’s got to be at least within the realm of possibility (I hadn’t seen anyone else raise the no-show factor, and it changes the math considerably). And although my poll hasn’t exactly been overwhelmed with responses (twelve, as of right now), the easily winning (11-1) answer so far is “no,” Patrick shouldn’t try to make sure that both Reilly and Gabrieli both get on the ballot. I disagree with that sentiment. Patrick’s fine work in the caucuses earned him the right to shoot for the convention’s endorsement, and he should do everything he can to get it. But to keep credible candidates like Reilly and Gabrieli off the ballot would be bad for the party, bad for the voters, and bad for democracy. If it looks like it might happen, Patrick should do whatever he can to avoid it.
Hogwash.
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If Patrick shows up with folks committed to him, he should keep them. They committed to him, and their voters committed to them. To “flip” them would be incredibly insulting to all the folks who came out to a town caucus in order to vote for delegates who would represent their interests.
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If you want to claim that both Reilly and Gabrieli on the primary ballot helps Deval, that’s another story. If Deval sees that coming and decides to “flip” some delegates to Reilly or Gabrieli, he’d better do it awfully quietly, because frankly, that sort of tactical move doesn’t jibe well with the idea of basic democracy — voting for the folks who will represent your interests in a transparent manner.
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P.S. It is interesting, and I personally like thinking about this sort of gamesmanship.
IMHO, the entire caucus/convention process, and the 15% rule in particular, has very little to do with “basic democracy.” (I’m aware that many of you disagree with me on that, but that’s my view.) That’s why I think it would be an extremely bad and basically anti-democratic outcome if, for whatever reason, either Reilly or Gabrieli gets shut out of the ballot because of the 15% rule. Conventions, 15% rules, first ballots, all this inside-baseball stuff is all about “tactical moves,” and a “tactical move” by Patrick to ensure that the people, not the delegates, decide who the Democratic nominee for Governor is going to be, would indeed serve “basic democracy.”
Oooh, I LOVE this inside baseball stuff (seriously, I do…). It’s so far removed from the mainstream of what people think about every day, yet could have SUCH a huge impact on how we in Mass. live the next 4/8/?? years. Can you imagine Reilly not getting on the ballot? Wow.
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I’m fascinated as to how such a “no-show” situation would affect this and, even more significantly, the other races. From the announcements made at my caucus, it seems that the Party is being very strict about who can and cannot vote because they’re requiring everyone to be there at 11 for a roll call. If people aren’t there, supposedly alternates get switched in. And since there appear to be fewer alternates this year (at least there were at my caucus), it seems possible that there could be even fewer voting delegates if the no show number is high.
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If Deval’s voters will be the ones sticking around, how will that affect the LG’s race? Who are Deval’s voters likely to support? Are they more liberal/educated than other delegates? Are they political neophytes who like the outsider? Are they tuned out to the LG’s race and will thus take direction from their whips? I.e. will Deval quietly send out word that he wants certain LG candidates to defintely be on the ballot? If so, who would that be? All of them?
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I would think that this no-show phenomenon would NOT impact Murray as much as the others, as his hometown delegates should stick around. But will that be enough to get him 15% (probably not). Will his political supporters be able to keep their delegates around (maybe).
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What about the people from the Cape? Will they even come if they could have a nice beach day instead?
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Will the Brookline crowd stay to support Deb? Will they even support her given that Silbert is a Brookline native too?
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My experience at past conventions tells me that things will spiral out of control and something we’re not expecting will happen, whether it’s Reilly falling short, an upset in the LG’s race, or something else.
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Should be fun.
Now I could be wrong, but didn’t the state Democratic party change the convention rules for getting on the ballot?
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I know in 2002 Reich and Tolman ( or was it Grossman and Tolman?) delegates joined forces so that on the first ballot one would clear the 15% hurdle and then on the second ballot they would all vote for Tolman so he would clear the 15% hurdle.
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So for this year the party insiders changed the 15% rule to prevent this from ever happening again. So now in 2006 it is one ballot.
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Now I am not sure of the exact motivation but it was clear that having only one chance to get 15% of the delegates ( and thereby getting on the ballot ), is a huge disadvantage for outsiders or fringe candidates and a huge advantage for party insiders.
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Therefore this is quite ironic that the “insider” candidate could be hurt the most.
the “first ballot” 15% rule is new this year. And yes, it is a huge irony that Deval Patrick is the one most likely to benefit from it. The law of unintended consequences strikes again!
Patrick is the insider candidate, not Reilly.
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The people who voted at the state committee meetings to change the 15% rule are the people who are attending those meetings now with Deval Patrick stickers on. Tom Reilly has next to no support from the state committee leadership.
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Four years ago, there were three strong candidates and two marginal candidates in the race for governor. Shannon O’Brien was the candidate of the party activists, Tom Birmingham had labor support (and their large turnout to elect caucus delegates), and Bob Reich had a grassroots turnout at the caucuses composed of a broad spectrum of insiders and newcomers. All three candidates got 15% on the first ballot without any manuvering. Warren Tolman and Steve Grossman were short of 15% and made the deal to swap delegates on the first two ballots to get to the cutoff.
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There was also a lot of confusion in the lieutenant governor and treasurer races, with multiple candidates. In the end, only one candidate failed to get to 15%. More importantly, the delegates left the convention upset at the process, rather than energized about the quality of the candidates.
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Looking back afterwards, the state committee saw that any candidate who could not get to 15% on the first ballot was not really viable for the primary, and decided to change the rule to simplify the convention and keep the delegates happy.
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The 15% on the first ballot rule will not scare off any serious candidate, but it does help reduce the field of marginal candidates who can’t produce an effort to get caucus delegates. And it puts greater power in the hands of the grassroots activists of the party. This is a test that all of the candidates for statewide office have to pass. If they can’t figure out how to get 15% of the delegates, then how will they expect to get a plurality of voters in the primary?
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“Patrick is the insider candidate, not Reilly.”
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Not to sound snarky…but…do reality much? PATRICK is the insider?? Wow.
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I’m not a Dem insider, and none of my delegates were either, they all dislike that game. Most of them were brand-spanking-new to the process at all. Some of them switched from Unenrolled to Dem to run at the caucus. Oh yes. Patrick is the insider’s insider.
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Please.
Deval Patrick may be your candidate, and the candidate of many outsiders (after all, he is at 36% or so in the polls). No one is disputing that.
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But he is also very much the candidate of the Democratic Party establishment. That is an undeniable fact. And it’s been true of the campaign from the beginning, as it has had the early and consistent leadership of many of the best political insiders in the party. At the same time, those insiders have been incredibly welcoming of people like you, which is the real strength of the Patrick campaign (and a lesson that many of them learned from the Reich and Dean campaigns).
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On the other hand, Tom Reilly is the candidate of Democratic officeholders, without a question. I suspect that those are the folks that you’re thinking of when you hear the term “insider” (such as all of those folks up on the Lowell City Council, or some of the legislature). They may be insiders in their own universe, but are rather powerless when it comes to statewide Democratic Party politics, which is what we’re talking about here.
I’m with you, Lynne.
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PatrickA, it might help if you could cite the credentials that give you access to the inner circles of power in the party. And, without necessarily naming names, to explain your statement that “…it [the Patrick campaign] has had the early and consistent leadership of many of the best political insiders in the party. At the same time, those insiders have been incredibly welcoming of people like you…”
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Your mention of the Reich and Dean campaigns is a bit odd. These were not candidates that were exactly supported by “insiders.” Perhaps you could define what you mean by this.
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When I got involved in the Patrick campaign, more than a year ago, it was “Deval who?” even among many party regulars I knew. John Walsh, campaign manager, is not even a State Committe member. I don’t remember being “welcomed by insiders” — the majority of delegates elected in the caucuses around here had never even been to a caucus before. I fail to see the insider connection. Saying it doesn’t make it so.
At some of his is fairly obvious that PatrickA goes to State Committee meetings and is most likely a State Committee member.
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If by “insiders” who support Deval, he means state committee members, his is right–many are big Deval supporters. Note he makes the distinction that Reilly is supported by “elected Democrats”
But John Walsh is defintely a player in Democratic politics and has been for many years.
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I suppose the definition of “insider” varies from person to person, but he comes pretty close.
Deval Patrick has the support of many insiders, that is true. He is not one himself, however. He came in from the outside, with no ties to the state party at all. At the beginning, when he first started running, he didn’t even know what the caucus process was. At the time, all the insiders supported Reilly (or Galvin). He’s won a lot of them over. He may even, in time, win most of them over. You could then say he is “the candidate favored by insiders”. But he still won’t be one himself – not until he wins, and serves a term as Governor, and perhaps not even then (look at how Gore remained such an outsider in the national party despite serving two terms as VP and being the nominee for president).
not Reich and Tolman
It’s interesting that even though I can recite from memory the Democratic turnout from 1998 and 2002, it never occured to me that turnout at the state convention would be less than 100%, give or take a bunch of elected officials who didn’t feel like showing up.
Don’t believe everything you read. The Herald is trying to sell newspapers, and the Patrick supporters are trying to spread gossip to undercut their opponent. This is entertaining speculation to some degree — although I personally don’t share Hoss’ fascination, God bless him; I actually find it more tiresome than interesting — but Reilly will get his 15%. And he should! If by some incredible event that I’d put up there with the Virgin Birth the front runner, an eminently respectable candidate, and the most likely politician to beat Healey based on most polls, is not even included on the primary ballot one would have to seriously question the continued viability of the Massachusetts Democratic Party as presently managed (not that one couldn’t do the same right now, based on a variety of factors but not least their losing record in the Governors race).
I find it a quaint notion that an op-ed column buried deep inside the Herald’s notoriously difficult-to-navigate layout has any likelihood of selling newspapers, and I imagine the Herald’s editors think the same. Here is what the Herald thinks sells newspapers:
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Not much about Wayne Woodlief’s political speculations on the front page, I’m afraid.
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Anyway, the math in Woodlief’s column is perfectly respectable, and has more evidence behind it (esp. Walsh’s delegate count and the 2002 25% no-show rate) than any analysis I’ve yet seen from anyone else on this topic. That said, I agree with you that, at the end of the day, it is unlikely that Reilly will get shut out of the ballot – though you didn’t make a similar prediction about Gabrieli, and I think his getting shut out would be equally unfortunate. I also agree with you that Reilly’s (or Gabrieli’s) getting shut out would be very bad for the party. That’s the point of my post.
Who’s fault is it if they got shut out? I think both will end up making the ballot, but you can hardly blame the party if one doesn’t make it. Everyone is playing by the same rules, and while they are more restrictive than in 2002, the only reason that there’s any question that one of these candidates might not make it is because Gabrieli decided to run for governor only after most of the delegates were chosen. It’s hard to blame the party for that.
But it’s not a sure thing. And it’s easy to blame the party for having poorly thought out, anti-democratic rules. So I blame them for that.
Anyone who has seen my website knows that I’m an active volunteer in the Deval Patrick campaign, but I just wanted to make that clear up front.
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I’m working for Patrick because I think he would be a terrific Governor. I’m not primarily concerned with what’s good for the party or what’s good for democracy, though of course I care about those things. I just want to see Patrick elected on the strength of his message, his values, and his demonstrated ability to provide creative leadership.
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I think it has been pretty obvious since Gabrieli declared he had garnered his 500 sigs that there is an outside chance he and Reilly could split less than 30% of the vote, thereby knocking one or even both of them off of the Primary ballot. I agree with the no-show logic, including the part about the delegates who are least likely to stay away (Patrick supporters, that is).
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If Patrick walks away from the Convention as the sole surviving candidate, that would be great news, as far as I’m concerned. It would allow his campaign to focus on the November election and to make the case to voters that it’s way past time to elect a Democrat.
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If Gabrieli doesn’t make it onto the ballot, I’m not going to shed any tears for a guy who can’t seem to make up his mind about what to do, and can’t (as far as I’m concerned) offer any convincing reasons of why his leadership would be better than Patrick’s. I respect Chris, I know he is genuinely concerned with many of the issues that matter to me, but I just can’t support someone who bypassed the caucuses and is giving every appearance of trying to (yet again) buy his way into office.
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If Reilly doesn’t get his 15%, I will take that as an expression of the will of the party. Tom has followed all the rules and has competed toe-to-toe with Deval for Convention delegates. Whatever you may think about the arcane rules of the caucuses and the convention, you have to admit that Reilly and Patrick have been participants from the get-go.
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The only outcome that would upset me would be if Gabrieli were to get on the Primary ballot and Reilly did not. I think that would be very unfair. More importantly, it would probably be the worst outcome for my candidate.
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So, I don’t know if there will be 1,2, or 3 candidates on the Primary ballot, but if the answer is “2” I hope it will be Patrick v Reilly.
…or has such depth of intensity among their supporters that it would be that big a deal if they didn’t make the ballot. In my recollection, there was much more intense and numerous support for O’Brien, Reich, and Birmingham four years ago (and for Patrick now, of course) than there is for these two. A week after the convention no one would be talking or writing about them if they didn’t make it.
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Now it may be that either Reilly or Gabrielli would be a stronger opponent for Healey than Patrick. But based on Gabrielli’s past electoral history and the trend of Reilly’s polls and maladroitness of his campaign so far, I’d be hard pressed to say why.
I do think Gabrieli might get shut out, which would be a damn shame.
I don’t think that would be all bad. He decided not to run. He let the process happen without him. Then he jumped in at the last moment, and now he’s trying to get that same process to let him in after he spurned it. If he doesn’t succeed, I don’t think it’s bad for the party. And it may even spur some reform of the process (which I might favor).
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In general, I prefer having contested primaries and I think more candidates is better. I also think that when you have 3 or more candidates in an election with significant turnout, lack of IRV makes the results somewhat unnatural, which makes me uncomfortable. So on that count, I’m ambivalent. If it were a special election, I’d say sure, more candidates is better! Let the campaign that turns out the greatest number of voters win. In a state primary, TV and newspapers will be turnout out plenty of voters without regard for which candidate they support, and having 3 candidates means we might have a minority winner when it’s possible one of the other candidates would’ve had a majority. sigh
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I hate not having IRV.
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Anyway, regardless of my ambivalence about that, I think Gabrieli’s decision not to run, and his too-late change of mind, push me over the fence into the “I don’t mind if he doesn’t get 15%” camp.
twice a day. I’ll put my safe money on all three making the ballot. But I have some crazy money that I’ll wager on my previous posting. Hey, if I said this time last year that Patrick would control the fate of the other candidates to make 15%, you all would have laughed at me.
At the risk of wearing out my welcome on this thread, I really must protest the idea of Patrick having anything at all to say about how his delegates vote (other than to continue to ask for their support).
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I, for one, would be deeply offended if he, or anyone in his campaign, asked me to vote for another candidate. I just don’t see it happening.
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This is the very kind of game-playing that Patrick has spoken against so eloquently when he says, “we have talked too much about HOW we are going to win elections and not enough about WHY we should win.”
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Remember, the Convention rules were changed to minimize this kind of game-playing. Anyone not getting 15% on the first ballot is gone. With three candidates, that means there are two critical levels. If Patrick gets more than 85% of the vote on the first ballot, he is the sole candidate of the Party. If there is ANY chance of this (and I’d say the probability is low but not zero), why would he want to undermine that possibility? This is obviously the best possible outcome.
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And, if he can get more than 70% on the first ballot, that means that one or both of his opponents will not be able to get their 15%. How could anyone know, in advance, whether it would be better to have one or two opponents, and if one, which one?
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Remember, Patrick has consistently declared that he will let the voters decide who will be the LG candidate. Why would he feel any differently about his own race?
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I, for one, will be out there spreading the word about his vision of what is possible for our Commonwealth. I trust that that will be enough to make him our next Governor, and I eschew any suggestion that it would benefit him to try to somehow manipulate the results of the Convention (even if that were within his power, which I doubt).
between wanting what’s best for your candidate and wanting what’s best for democracy. Of course, it’s best for your candidate to be the only one on the ballot. But that is bad for democracy. That is why, in general, I find this whole delegate/caucus/convention process to be fundamentally anti-democratic.
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In any event, you write:
Patrick has consistently declared that he will let the voters decide who will be the LG candidate. Why would he feel any differently about his own race?
I don’t think he would – I think he’d feel exactly the same. Which is why I’d think that if it looked as though either Reilly or Gabrieli might not make the ballot, he might ask (of course he cannot force) some of his delegates to consider voting for the other guys on the first ballot – so that the voters, rather than the delegates, can decide.
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Many have said that the 15% rule is designed to ensure that we don’t get wackos on the ballot, and that only credible candidates are listed. Fine. It is simply beyond dispute that Patrick, Reilly, and Gabrieli easily pass that test. Ergo, keeping any of them off because of the 15% rule would serve no salutary purpose; instead, it would serve certain narrow interests of the delegates to the convention, and it would disserve the voters. It would therefore be a bad thing.
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But how far does this go? Don’t Congressional committees report out to the larger body?
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Isn’t it reasonable for a political party to have an internal process for deciding which candidates to put to the broader vote.
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Should we decide everything by referendum?
Of course, not everything can be decided by popular referendum. But it is one thing to say that some internal process may be needed to filter out fringe candidates, and quite another to say that this process is the one we need, and that it is working well. The process we have, in fact, is in danger of causing a serious meltdown in the party.
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If anyone has a substantive reason why Tom Reilly or Chris Gabrieli should be kept off the ballot, I’m all ears (and by “substantive,” I do not mean “he didn’t try hard enough to win the caucuses” – that’s exactly what I’m excluding). But I’ll tell you right now, I do not believe that such a reason exists. They’re both solid candidates and solid Democrats, they’re both polling pretty well, they both have enough money to make credible runs for Governor. Keeping either of them off the ballot because of some inside-baseball procedure that only a tiny fraction of the electorate even knows about, much less has any ability to influence, would be a travesty.
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Here’s a prediction. If the Democratic party shuts out any one (or more) of the three legitimate candidates for Governor at the convention, Kerry Healey will walk into the corner office in a romp. It won’t even be close.
I didn’t find much, if anything, in your comment to support the first couple of paragraphs. But the concluding prediction was most perplexing.
I don’t understand your first sentence, so I’m ignoring it (maybe it has a typo in it?). As for your second, if the convention shuts out a credible candidate like Gabrieli or Reilly, the party will be thrown into internal turmoil. Partisans of the shut-out candidate, as well as folks who might support a candidate who made the ballot but are upset about the process, will be disenchanted and will not work hard for the nominee. It’ll end up a replay of 1998: the party puts forth a credible candidate, but the party machinery isn’t wholeheartedly behind him, and as a result the moderate, reasonably telegenic (actually Healey is more telegenic than Cellucci, and a lot richer) Republican candidate wins fairly easily.
First, in my first sentence, I meant to say that your talk about turmoil and travesty didn’t seem to have much in the way of supporting evidence.
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Second, I was not all that aware of what happened in 1998, but I think your analogy is at least a bit of a stretch. The dynamics in the state have changed so much that I just don’t see any significant similarities.
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I am not being pollyanna-ish about the condition of the state party, but from where I sit (which I admit is not as close as others on this blog) I don’t see either Reilly’s or Gabrielli’s supporters being terribly die hard.
is my opinion – it doesn’t need evidence. The rest is my somewhat-educated guess. I’ll stand by both comments.
Don’t worry about wearing them out, or your welcome: post away!
Let’s be clear about the reason for the changes in the rules – we Dems were raked over the coals 4 years ago because of how disorganized our convention appeared, primarily because of how long it took, and because we never even got to vote for candidates for State Treasurer. The changes are meant to streamline the process, make it quicker, and get us on the 6:00 p.m. news with nominees, and adequately covered in the press for the Sunday papers. There’s no hidden agenda here.
Yellowdogdem is absolutely right. I was honored to serve as a member of the McGovern Dukakis Convention Reform Commission.
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People testified at hearings that were held across the state. As a commissioner I also attended several local Democratic meetings to hear people express their concerns.
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One of the common threads we heard was that “the deal” made the convention process look like backroom politics. Long, thoughtful discussion went into the rules change that calls for 15% on the first ballot, and a second ballot runoff.
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The process was primarily an effort over spring and summer of 2003. This was intentional so that our decisions were made, before there were clear contenders for the Democratic nomination.
Quite a while ago, I wrote that it appeared to me that the Dukakis-McGovern commission’s recommendations had been, in a sense, hijacked, in that the proposals that restricted access were adopted (like the “first ballot only” 15% rule), but the proposals that expanded access (like allowing day-before party registration to participate in the caucuses, instead of the silly 40-day rule) were not. But I could never get my hands on a copy of the report to confirm. Do you have the report, and would you be willing to share it? Feel free to email, if you’d like to discuss off the air.
One of the common threads we heard was that “the deal” made the convention process look like backroom politics.
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Well, it did, in some ways. I don’t think this particular change we’re debating was bad. But the Dukakis-McGovern commission also recommended reducing the size of the convention by cutting down the number of both elected and ex-officio delegates. Instead, the convention size was reduced by just cutting down the number of elected delegates, conveniently doubling the voting strength of ex-officio delegates. That’s the part that most offended people. I’m still angry about it. And I’m especially angry at those party leaders who still try to pass this off as “just following the Dukakis-McGovern commissions’ recommendations” when in fact they went against its recommendation to keep the ex-officio delegates percentage the same. And certainly, doubling the percentage of ex-officio delegates makes the convention seem a lot more “backroom” than it did before, by definition, no? The elected delegates are the representatives of the “front room”, at least.
But the notion that I, as a Patrick delegate, somehow owe the voters of Massachusetts a choice on their primary ballot is ridiculous. Why don’t we all just let everyone who wants to be on the ballot actually BE on the ballot, in that case? Why bother with the charade and expense of a nominating convention? The notion that the voters deserve or are owed a choice on their primary ballots renders a convention moot.
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I am a Patrick delegate and will vote for Patrick on the first ballot. Period.
Good question. It’s the one I’ve been asking for some time, and I don’t yet have a satisfactory answer.
Making the convention high stakes makes the candidates care. It causes them to build organizations to get people to the caucuses. It gets local activist groups involved. Higher turnout at the caucuses builds the party.
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Perhaps if a candidate were kept off the ballot at the convention, it might spur some reform of the process. Which it seems you would like. I might, too.
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Perhaps if a candidate were kept off the ballot at the convention, it’d make even more people participate in the caucuses next time, strengthening the party further.
This process is all about who gets to be the Party’s standard bearer. Patrick, as noted by several commenters, worked hard to reach out to the rank and file of the Party in order to win at the caucuses. Reilly had organizers actively working to turn out supporters for the caucuses. The caucuses were open to any registered Democrat.
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That someone would waltz in after the caucus process is over and claim to be a legitimate candidate is offensive to me.
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When David gets on his high horse about letting “the voters decide,” it makes me wonder who he’s talking about. They had a chance to decide during caucus week.
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A more significant reform than changing some arcane Party rules would be, in my opinion, to allow only registered Dems to vote in the Democratic Primary. Why should we let quasi-Repuglicans masquerading as “unenrolled” have a say in who best represents the values and aspirations of our Party?
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[btw: I’m all for IRV, both at the Convention and in the Primary]
I think there are ways to reform the caucus process to make it better. For example, we should allow people to register as Democrats at the caucus – like Iowa does for their high stakes presidential caucuses. We tried that in 2002, as you may recall, and it was a remarkable success, bringing loads of new activists into the party. We should make the actual procedure at the caucus both simpler and better documented and work on other ways to make newcomers feel more welcome and less confused. Caucuses can be a great opportunity to bring new people in and get them active for the campaigns, but we’re not taking nearly as good advantage of that opportunity as we could.
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As for closing the primary… I have mixed feelings, but mostly, I prefer open primaries. Again, I think they’re a great way to get people who aren’t necessarily Democrats now, into the party and backing one of our candidates. Open primaries draw more people in. If it were merely a case of every eligible voter voting, and us setting rules to decide who is eligible, it would be different. But the environment we’re actually in is one in which most people don’t vote in the primary, and campaigns expend a lot of effort to find and turn out voters. I think it does us a lot of good to let those campaigns vie for independent voters, and I think it could result in more support for our nominee than a closed primary would.
You’re telling me that the caucuses were the voters’ last, best chance to decide who the next Governor is going to be?! That will come as a big, big surprise to the 99.5% of registered voters who did not attend their local caucuses.
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Gabrieli is a legitimate candidate. He is playing by the rules – none of which requires participation in the caucuses. Get over it.
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As for my high horse, come on up! The air is fine. And it smells like … democracy!
Are they good in themselves? No. I think that is what David is driving at. In MHO Parties have two primary goals: (1) enhance the power of the people running the Parties. This is the main purpose of primaries: force the candidates to cut deals with the Party insiders so that, should they get elected, the insiders will get jobs, contracts, etc., and (2) funnel support to the Party representative so they can beat their opponents. The latter is the reason candidates have to work with the Parties: an independent won’t make it. It is also the reason the Democratic Party deserves our support: it is far better than the rival gang. But we shouldn’t be naive about the basic reason these groups exist, or where these primary requirements are coming from.
Let’s be realistic all of the great democratic candidates for governor will get on the ballot.