So the announcement by party chair Esser that McCain was the winner is utterly meaningless in terms of delegates. But it was highly meaningful if you’re trying to derail Train Huckabee. Huckabee won the KS caucus and the LA primary the same day. One can’t blame him for claiming to have been cheated out of the triple crown. I wonder who Esser supports for president…
As the commenter Roger Rabbit so aptly said
Well, well … the grassroots Republicans who took the time and went to the trouble of going to their precinct cauci just discovered something we liberals have known for eons: Their party is a top-down dictatorship in which their opinions count for squat.
Jesus’ General has updated the WA-GOP website accordingly. 
Please share widely!
There’s serious question whether it’s legit to call the Washington GOP event we’re discussing a “caucus” at all, since it didn’t determine how the delegates were selected. Here’s an article from a local WA blog:
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p>http://www.horsesass.org/?p=4286
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p>A couple people from MN told Talking Points Memo that they were worried that after the hordes of low-information Obama supporters showed up and cast what they thought were their votes, they went home and party-regular Clinton supporters chose the actual delegates. But another reader who has been involved in MN DFL conventions and caucuses for a long time said no, that the rules for how many delegates each campaign gets are as advertised. At the state convention, the Obama people among those there will choose a slate of however many pledged Obama delegates there are supposed to be, and similarly for the Clinton people.
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p>But that’s MN — it’s possible that in other states it might work differently. On the other hand, there seem to be uniform rules about 15% thresholds and proportional representation by congressional districts that every state’s Dem process appears to be following. So you probably can’t hijack pledged delegates this way.
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p>The GOP, on the other hand, has the Bush adminstration’s respect for rules and a bunch of leaders who came up through the College Republican ranks. I wouldn’t put a lot past them.
thank you, i link to that blog in the diary above (but just added an additional link, since you mentioned it :).
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p>i don’t know how MN works, but having witnessed the WA dem caucus first-hand, i can attest to it being completely on the up and up. so, i am astounded to learn what a sham the gop caucus is. i look forward to getting updates from my gop friends who i know caucused (for mccain and paul).
I’m pretty sure I heard CNN mention last night that there would be a GOP primary in Washington next Tuesday (along with HI Dem and WI both). Maybe this is where delegates are actually selected. Does anybody have any insight on this?
Washington Republicans select half their delegates through caucuses and half through a primary.
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p>Democrats select all their delegates through caucuses and have a primary that selects no delegates
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p>Here’s the squirrelly part. The Democrats, including those who voted at their caucuses, can vote in the Republican primary. They aren’t supposed to, but because it’s on the honor system they can. And since the Democratic primary is just a beauty contest, there’s no incentive to vote there instead.
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p>I suspect this will give McCain an extra advantage in the primary.
in actuality, the dems don’t “have a primary” in the sense that they are deliberately staging one. what happened was that when the repubs requested a primary this year, the state apparently had to provide one for both parties, even though it is meaningless for the dems. so thank the republicans for this waste of taxpayer funds (the caucus is payed for by the party).
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p>second, i doubt any true dem maliciously voting repub will vote for mccain. they will vote huckabee so as to prevent mccain from having what many see as a fraudulent victory in the caucus.
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p>if you want to talk squirrelly, it is this repub system of allocating delegates half by straw poll, half by primary. how is it squirrelly? it gives every gooper the opportunity to vote twice. after seeing the farce that was the gop caucus (described above), i question whether we can rely on people’s honor not to disenfranchise their neighbors by voting in the primary even when they have already caucused.
I’m sure I recall reading here about what an abomination unto democracy, equality, and all that is good and righteous a caucus is, and how they should be abolished ASAP. So isn’t a move away from caucuses a good thing? Or is that only if Democrats do it?
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p>From the description above, the real risk sounds like the honor of Democrats, who have little at stake, to improperly vote in the GOP primary.
i personally think we should use primaries to allocate delegates. however, as long as both parties in the state insist on using a caucus, i find it crazy to institute a primary also. let me spell out again the reasons why:
1. the gop is giving some of it’s members (those who could caucus) an opportunity to vote twice. people who couldn’t caucus only vote once, at the primary. yuck.
2. it may look like the gop is being somewhat democratic by using the primary to allocate half of their delegates, but truth is that the fuzzy math they use erases any “democratiness” gained through the system.
3. taking 1 and 2 together plus the dems not using the primary results, we’re wasting our tax money for nothing. if the gop was using only the primary to allocate their delegates in a transparent, honest, by-the-numbers manner then yes, they would be the champions here. but they’re taking a lower road than even the wash. dems.
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p>The real risk – there are several risks:
1. goopers voting twice (the first time in the caucus) thus unfairly stacking the deck for their candidate.
2. dems who did caucus with the dems but vote gop. these would be malicious voters on par with the double-voting goopers in #1. these are the people you’re talking about i believe.
3. goopers who caucused gop but vote in the dem primary. this won’t make a difference to allocation of dem delegates, but apparently dem superdelegates do notice the results of the dem primary. so, theoretically they could influence dem sd’s who care what the electorate thinks.
4. dems (or people of any party) who didn’t caucus with their own party can legitimately vote in the gop primary. that is not a risk.
at the primary polls, voters have to sign a statement saying that they did not participate in the caucus of another party. each party gets a list of the names of participants in the other caucuses to check against. so technically they could recognize you as a malicious voter. however, unless they check on the spot, this method can only weed out malicious mail-in voters.
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p>those who didn’t caucus, however, can get away with malicious voting quite easily. if, that is, they are willing to lie in signing an oath.
This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.
Can you abuse a process that was installed and is abused by the people charged with running it (Washington GOP)?