My friend Sue O'Brien wrote in this editorial in 2002 when our wonderful
Colorado Caucus, our neighborhood system for nominating candidates to
the primary ballot, was in danger of being killed by Amendment 29.
Partly because of Sue's and The Denver Post's strong support of the
Colorado Caucus, the misguided Amendment 29 was defeated.
Sue's
wonderful column is still very much worth reading as a reminder of why
the caucus-assembly system is worth preserving, warts and all. I hope someone forwards a copy of this to the Republican National Committee, which is considering whether or not to ban the caucus as a way to pick the delegates who nominate the RNC's Presidential candidate. Here's what Sue wrote in the Denver Post:
Caucuses aren't for ciphersOctober 6, 2002
by Sue O'Brien
cipher - a person or thing of no importance or value; nonentity
- New World College Dictionary
So, what will we choose to be: ciphers or individuals?
Ciphers
are faceless. They have value only as something to count - a signature
on a petition or a vote to tally by machine. It's easy for ciphers to
hide out. Hey, they're just part of the mob.
Individuals, by contrast, stand out. They take responsibility. And they rarely hide.
We
have a sovereign opportunity to become ciphers this November. One of
the few mechanisms left in modern politics that rewards individual
initiative - the precinct caucus - is on the brink of being eliminated
in favor of a political nominating system that would let wannabe
candidates get on the ballot only by collecting - and counting -
petition signatures.
It's a lousy proposal put forth by an otherwise admirable organization: the Bighorn Center for Public Policy.
Now,
I have nothing against getting on the ballot by petition. But why
eliminate the choice - caucus or petition - that our present system
provides?
It's not as though there's something inherently wrong
with the caucus. And, even though these grassroots conclaves have seen
declining attendance in recent years, there's a lot inherently good
about them.
Look around modern society. We have a woeful lack of
what Harvard scholar Robert Putnam calls "social capital" - the
dynamism that comes from doing things together and making community
decisions together. Yet the spate of election "reforms" we're seeing
these days almost seems designed to stomp out the last vestiges of
community collaboration.
"Voting and following politics are
relatively undemanding forms of participation," writes Putnam in his
influential "Bowling Alone." "In fact, they are not, strictly speaking,
forms of social capital at all, because they can be done utterly
alone."
We can be utterly alone, too, when we perform the two
other actions modern politics seems to want to limit us to: writing
checks and watching attack ads on TV. We're systematically replacing
"social capital" with plain old monetary capital.
Colorado's
traditional caucus-convention system, in contrast, rewards the
shoe-leather and diligence. It provides a low-cost way for aspirants to
work the neighborhoods, investing energy instead of dollars. Recent
proof of this pudding came in the race for the GOP nomination in the 7th
Congressional District, where Rick O'Donnell captured first line on
the primary ballot with a low-budget campaign that focused on
traditional caucus and door-to-door campaigning. O'Donnell eventually
lost the primary to the better-funded Bob Beauprez, but his achievement
in getting on the ballot was impressive.
But even more
important than the caucus' benefits for candidates is its benefit for
ordinary citizens. It's a vibrant neighborhood forum for hashing out
ideas - the last remaining arena in which you can get on the first rung
of the ladder toward political effectiveness by just showing up.
I've
covered precinct or town caucuses in Iowa, Maine, Minnesota and
Mississippi as well as Colorado. My favorite memory is of escorting a
big-deal network analyst to his very first caucus in an American Legion
hall in Iowa. This was a political expert well into his 50s, yet he'd
never seen a caucus; primaries had always been his beat. He was blown
away. For the first time in years of covering politics, he told me, he'd
seen the true face of America.
He was right. Caucuses offer a
peculiarly intimate view of a community and its people. They'll amaze
you with the quality of caring and thought participants bring to the
discussion. And sometimes, if you're very lucky, you'll see new, young
leaders find their first toehold in the process.
Why is the
Colorado caucus withering? First, because the legislature, in an
ineffectual grab for national headlines, created a meaningless
presidential primary that eliminated the headline race that once
inspired much caucus activism.
Second, because we're all getting
good at sitting on the sidelines. The Kettering Foundation's David
Mathews once reminded readers that the word idiot comes from the
Greeks. Privacy, they thought, was akin to stupidity. "Idiots" were
incapable of finding their place in the social order.
Why bow to
the trend of letting the next guy do it? Why sell out to letting money
replace shoe-leather at every level of American politics?
Why
not keep the caucus as an open door to involvement, while continuing to
provide the petition alternative? Bighorn's goal may be to increase
the number of people peripherally involved in the process - but the
initiative will never replace the quality of participation the caucus
can provide.
Good political talk … is where we recognize the
connectedness of things - and our own connectedness. … Good political
talk is also where we discover what is common amidst our differences.
-David Mathews, "Civic Intelligence"
Sue O'Brien was editor of the Denver Post editorial page.
