Leadership and Change

As with many others, this was the first caucus my wife and I have attended. I didn't know what to expect, but I agree with most others. Located at Harding High School, the caucus organizers were completely unprepared for the number of attendees. It took a while to find our precinct room because of an unnecessary numbering system they made up. Once we got there it was so crowded we had to wait for 10 minutes to enter. Inside the precinct organizers were using strips of paper to record votes for the presidential straw poll. Everyone looked confused and many left as quickly as possible. We decided to wait it out a bit and made our way to a wall to see what would happen.

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.

Circling the high school in search of nonexistent parking, I observed a parade of my neighbors, all of them strangers, drawn toward the doors that for this night only, represented an opportunity to be a part of leadership and change at both a neighborhood and national level. I was surprised, and proud to be a part of, this unexpected large number of individuals in attendance.

I attended my Minneapolis caucus (senate district 59 / ward 3 / precinct 1) which includes Dinkytown and part of the surrounding Marcy Holmes neighborhood, just north of the U of MN. I hadn't attended a caucus in many years and was surprised by the confusion and messy process I found. Over 700 people streamed through the church basement to vote, while amidst the noisy chaos a group of about 50 citizens attempted to get down to party business.

The convener said that our precinct had been prepared with twice the number of ballots as the previous election, but the ballots were gone in about fifteen minutes. The large turnout here and statewide was attributed to people's interest in supporting their preference for president in a very competitive race. Student support for Obama was very strong. The final count at this site was 626 votes for Obama and 93 for Clinton.

I must admit that I’m already tired of hearing the word “change”. I don’t know if it’s that I’ve been wanting change for so long that when it finally starts occurring it tends to get boiled down to the least common denominator and lose some of it’s specialness or maybe I’m just tired of the word. Either way, the caucus ended up being a great experience, mostly because I got to meet a lot of my neighbors and feel a sense of community.

I, too, attended a caucus in Dakota County, the Democratic one, and it was jam-packed. I, too, considered attending the Republican caucus, not because I’ve always been a staunch anything, but because I don’t feel like the Democrats are offering much in the way of variety. At least in the Republican Party the sparks seem to fly from the candidates’ disparate stances rather than race or gender. I finally decided on the Democrats in the hope that through exposure to the leaders from my district, I might gain some insight, enthusiasm or knowledge that would steer me one way or the other. What I found was that many of the people with whom I spoke were not terribly concerned about which candidate won the nomination, only that a Democrat win the election. Repeatedly I heard that it was past time for a change and that this will be the election when that metamorphosis occurs in the White House. My hopes for inspiration were dashed.

Those responsible for directing (herding) the unusually large turnout were lost. There was a spring tide of constituents and no levies in place to guide the flow. This was very much the no-one in charge, shared power approach. They had one mantra, “You can’t vote unless you know your precinct number.”

There was no organization to the room locations for the precinct meetings, finding where one belonged took several trips back and forth between rooms. Two precincts were assigned to each room, rooms designed to hold only about 25 people total. It was standing room only – which clearly threw the Precinct Chairs into a frenzy. However, having two precincts in one room provided the opportunity to observe two different leadership styles.

The initial order of business was to elect new Precinct Chairs. Both sides of the room followed the same routine – nominations, seconds, votes and there were two new Chairs, I’ll call them PC1 (mine) and PC2 (the other precinct). The outgoing PC1 chair handed a list of things to do to the new Chair and made his escape in the blink of an eye. My exposure to his theory of leading was so brief it leaves me with no ability to even assign it a name. Furthermore, it was as if he resigned, or abdicated, or was cast out. He took himself out of that room as fast as he could manage without running anyone down. On the other side of the room, the outgoing PC2 is taking a few minutes to explain to the new PC the tasks to be carried out, the order in which they need to occur and to recommend some basic ground rules she had found to be useful. She then stepped aside and let the new PC2 lead. Having observed that her leadership style, which I identified as leadership for the common good, was an effective, efficient and collaborative process, PC2 followed her lead.

At the end of the evening, PC1, who had been left with no leadership style to follow, no firmly established style of her own to lean on, and who had been given only the most minimal information, had no idea who the delegates from our precinct would be and had no Vice Chair. We had discussed and voted on 10 resolutions, all but one of which had been submitted by the same person and only one of which spoke to an achievable goal within party lines. The debates, which were to have lasted a maximum of three minutes per person, had been consistently dominated by the same people and frequently went on for 15 minutes before a vote was taken. Promptly at 9:00, our side of the room emptied to the woeful cries of the resolution man who hadn’t yet completed his list.

On the other side of the room, PC2 had a Vice Chair, a list of delegates and alternates and a handful of meaningful, well thought out and fairly discussed resolutions. Everyone who choose to speak was heard, there were more volunteers than positions to be filled. This half the room began clearing at 9:00 as well, but people left in groups, continuing discussions and planning for the next meeting.

While I felt some sympathy for PC1 and some disillusionment with the process, I have nothing really against which to measure my response. This having been the first caucus I attended I can’t balance this experience against another. The fact that I was able to observe two widely divergent examples of the leadership spectrum doesn’t help displace the unease I feel at having my precinct left to the vagaries of the no one in charge scenario.

Sarah W.

I was glad to see that I wasn't the only one to attend a caucus for the first time last week. I see, also, that a lot of other classmates share a similar experience and sentiments. Thanks to everyone for sharing your thoughts and insights.

Working in the world of education I am quite often surrounded by people that have similar political viewpoints. I had a school administrator fake faint when I told him that I was going to the Republican Caucus and all of my coworkers had dropped jaws when I told them that as well. Having been a staunch DFL backer all of my life, my wife was also quite surprised at my choice to go to the Republican Caucus.

I chose to participate in the Rep. Caucus because I need to better understand the other viewpoint. Since barely over 50 percent of the American people vote Rep. then I figured that it was my duty to better understand their perspective. Below was my experience at this event.

Being a fairly new graduate student I often fall back into my undergraduate methods when faced with a class assignment. I have waited to form this post, attempting to find a specific list of "Models of Change". Perhaps I missed it, but I was unable to find one in the material we've covered so far. So, I will report what I experienced Tuesday night and hope it fits the bill.

I noticed three distinct types of changes at my first caucus. For lack of formal descriptions I will term them, the Activity Model, the Reaction Model, and the Results Model.

Most of you have probably read about the record turnouts and how unprepared many caucus organizers were for the crowds. I spent the first 90minutes managing the lines, distributing and collecting presidential ballots and answering a continual stream of questions from first time attendees.

Many first timers were discouraged when I informed them that to have an impact on the endorsements for congress and senate, they would need to become delegates to at least the Senate District and Congressional District conventions. Due to a system that limits higher level influence on important endorsements, as much as the crowded conditions, I estimate that 70% of those who showed up simply cast presidential preference ballots then left before delegates were selected. The caucus system needs to evolve if it is to survive the numerous calls for its replacements by primary elections, and remain a viable means of grass roots engagement, and a source of volunteers for political parties and campaigns.

I will begin by letting everyone know that this was indeed a new and interesting experience for me. It would have been helpful to know in advance a little of what to expect but I would like to interject here that I was not alone according to what I observed.

Precinct 7 was my assigned spot at the Andover High School in Anoka County. Finding a Parking space became a challenge. I was not surprised at all by the turn out due to the fact that I have been following all the media coverage of large turn outs in previous states that had the opportunity to vote before caucus night.

When I entered there was a line of people waiting to get information on which class room their precinct would be located. This was very short and fast. I was then directed to a room full of fellow precinct members. I then realize that there were two “leaders “in the room who were responsible for leading the process of voting, presenting resolutions and making sure that voters knew or understood the rules even though at that point I realized that these two had to get help from other floor members when it came time to explaining the basics of caucusing. Another point to note here is that one of the leaders of our precinct had on an Obama t-shirt. I then wondered what would have happened if they had both had on Obama T-shirts? The other leader seemed neutral without any sign of who her support would go to. This then bring me to my final observation regarding the leadership which was stated sometime during the evening. The rules were that the two leaders had to be one male and one female.

One interesting point I observed was the emergence of a “leader” within the group. I think his name was Doug. At one point there was the issue of volunteers being needed to serve as delegates to the up coming conventions. A total of 29 delegates were needed. Even though there was a roomful of more than 35, there were only about 15-17 persons that initially volunteered. Doug then asked to speak and he then took the stand and made a powerful plea to his fellow precinct members to not let the moment pass by where they could be a part of history making where they would be directly responsible for making “change” happen. Through this measure he was able to persuade more people to get on board to become delegates to the next meetings.

We were reminded from time to time by other participants who were frequent attendees to these caucuses how this was a milestone turnout. The whole process was interesting but somehow disjointed for quite a few. Maybe the thought would be for people to get more involved and active in these processes then the idea understanding the issues surrounding caucusing would be more meaningful. (Just my thoughts.)

Is “change “really on its way as is being seen by large turnouts and participation or is this jus the perfect opportunity to be a part of the wave? The question for me is, will the change be at all levels of the society or does it stop at the top? (Just my thoughts.)

I have to say that this was my first caucus experience and I was not sure what was going to happen. Luckily, I was able to find the caucus location on-line because there were no signs indicating we had the right place when we did finally find it. It was apparent that the turnout was far greater then they had anticipated. The Convener had pointed out a few times even before we started that ‘we just don’t get this kind of turn out, last time it was 10 people’. My estimate was that with the four precincts there were approximately 120 people there. That being said, I will be hopeful that because of the large response it is why the entire process seemed so laborious and disorganized. The Convener started the night by giving us a brief agenda of what to expect. Although, he had left out a few items that I found interesting some of which I will illustrate below.

I attended the democratic caucus for precinct 3 in Eagan. It was held at Eagan High School. Prior to yesterday, I had heard about the possible record participation, but was not prepared for what that might mean for such administrative issues like getting there and parking. The line of cars trying to get into the already overcrowded school parking lot must have been over a mile long. Cars had to move out into the surrounding neighborhoods to find parking; many walked. If participation signals upcoming change, or desire for change, there will be a lot of change and future leaders need to be well equipped and absolutely committed to lead these desired changes.

I began Super Tuesday excited and full of anticipation, for it would be my first experience at a caucus. I'd done my research, found a lot of information on the Web, and felt at least more knowledgeable than in the past. It had been my previous naive belief that caucuses were only for a select elite few. Don't laugh...I discovered, after talking to many people over the past two weeks, I was not alone in that misguided conclusion. Therefore, realizing I could actually participate in the delegate process to some small degree felt empowering from a grass roots level.

I admit it, tonight was my first caucus. Don't judge me too quickly, though, I'm a very hands-on participant in democracy - from voting in general elections to calling elected officials and voicing my opinion on issues to even working on drafting policies directly with City Council Members and State Legislators. Still, I was excited about empowering myself by getting involved in my first caucus, especially given the political climate and opportunity (and necessity) for great change.

There are two middle schools in Farmington, MN and the newspaper had obviously been mistaken. The parking lot at the East building was jammed; a flagger was waving cars to the back bus lot. The slow line of basketball families stopped to let two grandparents cross to the school. A young man in a baggy jacket and knit cap jogged toward them with an armload of campaign signs, and as I turned into the lot I saw about a dozen signs with "Hillary" or "Obama" planted in the snowbanks. Was the DFL Caucus sharing space with evening school activities or was this truly an outpouring of citizen involvement in a town with a very different reputation?

No, it is a movement coming from the roots up.

I arrived at the DFL precinct caucus for downtown St. Paul (west of Wabasha and extending along West 7th street to Irvine Park. Presidential vote: Obama 83 Clinton 41 uncommitted 3 and Edwards 1 = 128 total. 55 people stayed for the caucus votes and discussion. Our community includes renters, condo owners, and folks whose permanent address is the Dorothy Day Center – a homeless shelter and community meal site. The mix seemed to be mostly young men (20s) and elderly women and the DFL volunteers said it was the largest turnout they could recall. We elected 22 delegates with no discussion, as only 22 people were interested in being delegates. Three people were interested in being alternates, all were accepted. Surprisingly, all of the people interested in being involved as delegates were the younger people in the room! Yahoo!

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