Deals Are Made Behind Caucus Doors
03 January 2008 1:55 pm by Taylor Marsh
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| Why penguins? Read this. |
The update to this story was added during my radio show. It further explains the Caucus process. As I’ve
been saying all day, neither Biden nor Richardson’s campaigns have made deals
with Obama on second choices. You know why? Because the Iowa caucuses are not
a top down event. It all happens once the doors are shut and the caucus begins.
If it is not true, why is a senior Obama advisor quoted on the record (albeit anonymously) by the solid John Harwood? Shouldn’t Richardson be talking about the dirty tricks the Obama campaign is playing? They are not saying that because it is true. Boy I bet those Richardson precinct captains are really enthused now. – Big Tent Democrat
That’s why I read this
comment on my show today:
In my Des Moines Precinct… (0.00 / 0)
In my precinct in Des Moines, I’m the precinct captain for Obama. I went
outside Obama’s campaign to reach out to the Richardson campaign’s precinct
captain here.We’ve agreed to boost each other’s group to increase either viability or
to give the other the extra delegate. For example, if the Obama group needs
6 extra people for an extra delegate and the Richardson crew has 10 more people
than they need, then they will give us those 6 extra people.Not sure if this is happening in other precincts.
by: IowaCubs @ Thu Jan 03, 2008 at 13:29:28 PM CST
Followed by this
comment:
If this is true, then Richardson = misleading (0.00 / 0)
I don’t know much about this deal-making stuff at caucuses, but it seems
kind of dishonest and filthy to me. Campaigns shouldn’t be able to make deals
that determine how the American voice will be heard. “I’ll scratch your
back if you scratch mine” seems like it undermines the whole caucus process.
The individuals at a particular caucus should be able to “vote”
how they want without having to be told, hey, your non-viable candidate told
you to do this because then they will pay us back later, I promise. Seems
misleading by Richardson, too…what appears to be him supporting Obama is
really a plot (albeit a bad one) to further his own agenda.by: LisaMpls @ Thu Jan 03, 2008 at 14:34:37 PM CST
Only Kucinich has shown blatant disrespect for the Iowa caucus process by directing
his supporters to support Obama. So much for Mr. Democracy.
John Harwood’s piece further outlines the caucus process, through this
“update”:
Update | 3:25 p.m. David Plouffe, Obama campaign manager, responding to the
report that Mr. Obama had reached an agreement for reciprocal support with
Bill Richardson’s campaign, insisted the campaign had reached “no
formal arrangements” with any of his rivals. But he said that “there
are certainly places where our precinct captains want to work with Richardson”
supporters — to gain second-choice support in cases where Mr. Richardson
doesn’t reach the threshold to compete, or to lend Mr. Richardson surplus
backers in instances where they can’t yield any additional Obama delegates.“We’re giving our precinct captains a lot of latitude to work
this out,” Mr. Plouffe said. “We’re going to fight as hard
as we can for every one” of Mr. Richardson’s available supporters,
and “It comes down to how well our precinct captains do.” With
polling showing that Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards are the top contenders for
second-choice support, Mr. Plouffe said they’d made similar efforts
with supporters of Joseph Biden and Chris Dodd as well. Dennis Kucinich has
already publicly urged his backers to support Mr. Obama in precincts where
Kucinich is not viable.
If candidates are going to act like Kucinch, what’s the point of campaigning?
What’s the point of all the efforts made by supporters of Dodd, Biden and Richardson?
It is a direct slap at what’s been happening over months in Iowa. Campaigns
have no right whatsoever to make deals with each other for a caucus voter’s support.
Only a caucus member inside the room can do that. Plouffe understands this,
as well as the dangers of disrespecting supporters’ powers?
Each person’s vote belongs to him or her. The beauty of the Iowa caucuses and
the whole primary system, even though I think Iowa is incredibly undemocratic
because they leave out anyone who can’t be present, including people working
at night as well as National Guard serving in Iraq because they don’t honor
absentee ballots, is that the people get to vote themselves. It’s a grass roots
event, not a deal making process directed from on high, which is why Kucinich’s
move revealed what I’ve said all along about this perpetual presidential candidate:
it’s all about him.
Jumping the gun on the reporting of this story is disrespectful to every campaign
and the supporters who have worked so hard for their candidate, whether it’s
a frontrunner like Barack Obama, or someone like Joe Biden. Will deals be made
inside the caucus between supporters of a winning candidate with those caucus
goers supporting someone who will not make the 15% threshold required to continue?
Yes, that’s the caucus structure. But it should not and must not be directed
from on high and any reference or hint of such a deal is not only bad reporting,
but subverting the integrity of the Iowa caucuses themselves.
In the heat to predict the right outcome and be proclaimed the one who
got the story first, many have gotten the story itself, the bottom up grass
roots nature of the Iowa caucuses, completely wrong.
Deals are made once the caucus doors are shut tight and not before, caucus voter to caucus voter, with the big shots cut out of the final process. The difference is democracy.
If you want to read the best piece on the Iowa caucuses read Micheal Schiffer.
UPDATE: Reader katymine just sent me two terrific articles, one on Edwards, and one on Kucinich’s alien choice of telling his people to pick Obama: Reconsidering Edwards and a beauty, Dear Iowa, Vote for Dennis But Don’t Listen to Him.
