Experimenting A Caucus
I didn’t expect the caucus to be so busy. Apparently neither did the organizers. Having waiting a while in traffic, trying to find parking, I finally made my way into the entry of the North St. Paul high school for the DFL party caucus. Sixteen precincts were meeting there. Surrounded by attendees and volunteers, a woman holding a baby was yelling out, “Is anyone lost, does anyone not know what to do?” Everyone looked lost to me, yes, me included. This was my first caucus event. I took her direction to find my precinct classroom by the crowds surrounding an island posted with maps and signs telling where precincts were meeting. Although volunteers were in the crowd, this was appeared as a no-one-in-charge shared-power model whereby people appeared to have a common goal to get voters in and to their precincts but lacked overall organization.
Upon entering my precinct classroom, there was a line for voting that trailed out the door and the classroom was nearly full already. A man from downstairs comes in and notes that that last precinct they had about 750 participate, they expected 1000 and over 3000 people had already showed up.
My precinct had co-chairs but one only ran the meeting. She stated how excited she was seeing all the people come in, her first years only a handful showed up to the caucus. Upon reading some rules, she stated that she had been co-chair for four years and wanted to know if anyone else wanted to lead. No one responded but one nominated her back in where she gladly accepted our votes to continue her role. Then, her co-chair who was observing said he’d be moving out of the area and wanted a new co-chair voted in. She said, for balance, it had to be a male. No one appeared interested; then a young, perhaps 18 year old, voter nominated himself and was accepted.
Our main chair had a drawing on the white board where she explained a quick, basic process about moving resolutions to the next level. She then stated that a constituent leader told her that all resolutions were able to be adopted if we voted them to be all accepted. She explained the process on either voting within on each resolution or we could vote that all will be adopted. Some had questions on that process, she explained how the next level similar resolutions are grouped together and then the voting process again takes place. She said about half of the resolutions continue to pass to each level. All but one voter agreed to pass all resolutions.
Resolutions were then read by the submitting individual. There were thirteen resolutions from five people. One submitted three different ones involving the post office, he wore a postal jacket. One of his resolutions was to not ban legislation mailings, as he stated fifty percent of their business comes from blind mailing. There were more from health care, the environment, education and peace. The resigning co-chair’s stated that he wanted the DFL party to reaffirm their values for the “common good” , listing values for civil and human rights, healthcare, education, fair tax policy, wise use of funds, worker rights for both public and private sectors. This one brought a round of applause and cheers in the crowd.
Next she said due to the number of people in the room, that anyone who wanted to be a delegate to go to the next level could. She explained the process to the thirty or so people that had stayed. About fifteen people counted themselves in. We had to wait about twenty minutes past eight for the final presidential vote to be announced. She said that since people were still lost coming in, they were officially in line to vote and had a right to. People chatted with their neighbors during the wait. Most talked about going as a delegate to the next round and that prompted a few more people to decide they’d like to attend so they quickly signed up. Then the announcement was made: Clinton had 44 votes compared to Obama’s 96. Some were excited but all dispersed quickly without much talk.
As for my experience, I knew our leader would make a difference on how I felt about the event. Our leading co-chair did a good job leading, finding out most people were new to the caucus and explained the process. She answered all questions with firm responses to her knowledge about the rules. She appeared, at all times, to be in-charge. She also easily pursued the voters to adopt all resolutions which saved us time. She was respectful to people reading their resolutions and continued the pace quickly not to draw out the evening activities for everyone there. Although she was in-charge, she allowed anyone to speak, ask questions or make suggestions, working at engaging the voters to be involved in our government. Due to her leadership style, contrary to my predicament, I left on a positive note about my experience, believing that the power was shared and that our leader was there to facilitate the process and represent the people.
-Alex
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Comments
With related questions, I took part in the caucus at Willey Hall on Tuesday night as an observer. I acquired the knowledge of the United States presidential election process and steps through observation and individual interview, and experienced the freedom air of politics and the public's enthusiastic participation. Although John Sharkey noted that “the vast majority of voters just want to cast their ballot and get on with their lives” and they aren’t interested in debating resolution, choosing local delegates and wallow in the mechanics of party politics, I was still touched by the participants’ enthusiasm.
Members from different areas hastily rushed to the scene and cast their own choice and solemn vote. I feel that the political issues were governed by the hands of ordinary people. They are not only voting for choosing their own candidates, but also discussing delegates and volunteering for the further meeting.
Compared to China's electoral system with American’s, these two systems are quite different. In China, for example, the most important election of Party at all levels, candidates must be approved by leaders and they don’t need to deliver any speeches. Usually, the voters have no doubt that who will win and who is just a display on the ballot before the formal election. The whole election process lacks of excitement and suspense. The enthusiasm of voters’ participation is not high and voters seem like in dealing with errands. Although the Party is to strengthen inner-party democracy-building, such as “We will reform the intra-Party electoral system and improve the system for nominating candidates and electoral methods” (Hu Jintao), but according to the demands of public, there is still a long way to go.
Through observation, although the whole process has lots of incomplete facets, such as, crowded meeting venue, staff inefficiency, and even statistics mistakes, in all I was affected by the freedom and democracy of Americans politics.
Regarding the Implications for Leadership I didn’t see many. If I use leadership theory to explain my observations, I think that “leadership in share-power world” and “leadership is everyone’s business” are fit for American society.
Posted by: Kun Yang | February 12, 2008 12:10 PM