You can be a political insider.

If you want to help pick the candidates for your favorite major party, from President to all the local offices, the time to get involved is now.

You can be one the insiders by:

1) Pick up the telephone your state or county headquarters. You can find the phone number by Goggling "Republicans" or "Democrats" and your ZIP Code. Ask who your precinct committee people are. If there aren't two, volunteer to be one of them.

2) Go to their house or apartment and offer to help on your block to get the word out about the caucus. If he or she is open to your participation, great. Follow them by helping in any way they ask. If they are closed, plan on finding someone else to run against them in at the next caucus, or plan on running yourself.

3) Look for opportunities to be of service to your political party. Keep holding up your hand and offering to help. Focus on the party rather than a particular candidate right now, but go to an many candidate events as possible. Those who do the most good seem to be those who hold off making a decision about which candidate to support until the neighborhood caucus is held, and even then it is possible to remain uncommitted to a particular candidate until the nominating assembly.

I've done this 3 times, twice as a Republican and once as a Democrat. Each time I ended up getting elected precinct committee person and a delegate to all the nominating assemblies at the county and state levels.

There are other ways to get involved. You can Google your favorite candidate for President and contact their campaign to volunteer for him or her. Another way is to get involved with a political club, just Google Colorado Young Democrats or  Colorado College Republicans, for instance.

What has your experience been with getting involved with your local political party? Please post your comments here. If you have experience, what do you recommend to the political newcomer? If you aren't involved yet but would like to be, what is holding you back?

This year I'm registered as an unaffiliated voter with the intention of getting more new people involved in leadership roles in both parties.

I'm actively looking for someone who shares my passion for our wonderful Colorado caucus-assembly system for nominating to the primary ballot and our two party system that has served our country so well ever since it was started with the contests between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. If you'd be interested in helping me in this effort (or replacing me so I can get re-involved with one of the parties at the caucus this year), please contact me at John@JohnWren.com or call me at (303)861-1447.

I wrote yesterday about Occupy Denver on my (now) personal blog www.JohnWren.com

Jimmy Carter said on a recent Charlie Rose show that the spirit of the Tea Party was what made it possible for him to be elected President.

That same spirit of reform is now active in the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street.

Should make the 2012 Colorado Caucuses the most interesting yet on the 100th birthday of the bi-annual event, first held in 1912.