Big Sky Cairn

Erik Iverson and the Montana GOP took a lot of flack for their February 5 presidential caucus. Most of that came from Montana Democrats expressing their outrage at the “elitist” approach of the caucus. But the chickens are coming home to roost - although the Media is sort of missing the boat on this one.

Roy Brown credits the caucus with increasing interest and participation in the Republican Party at all levels.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Roy Brown said the state party’s Feb. 5 presidential caucus helped spur more interest early in politics, which he said will help statewide GOP candidates like him.

We’ve personally heard similar stories of interest among Republicans here in Missoula. Republicans who didn’t vote in the caucus, but who felt that they had a role to play - and continue to play in the process. Participation in a democracy is about more than the simple act of voting and oversimplifying civic duty to casting a ballot is patronizing.

Remember, participation in the caucus didn’t require any money or official title. That’s an important distinction because the Montana Democrats have been touting their party’s primary plebiscite as less elitist than the Montana Republican caucus. Let’s look at the Democrat’s version of inclusion:

Meet the Presidential Candidates in Butte (if you were lucky enough to be one of the few that could afford to buy tickets and have a computer and have an internet connection and not have a job that prevented you from logging on at 9 am exactly or a well connected friend to give you tickets).

Meet the Hillary in Missoula (if you can afford the $250 minimum donation).

Every vote counts the same to decide how Montana’s 16 delegates vote (unless you’re one of 8 Superdelagate from Montana whose votes will count for roughly 100,000 times more than the average Montana vote).

It’s 3 am. I’m not sure “elitism” is a grenade the Montana Democrats want to be throwing…

Good post — this is something that needs more attention.

Every single one of Montana’s GOP national convention delegates will have been selected through the caucus process. Even those who get an automatic slot as one of the delegates (Rehberg, Iverson, etc…) are requried to vote for the winner of the GOP caucus under current rules.

By contrast, fully 1/3 of the Montana Democratic delegates to the DNC are answerable to no-one but themselves — not even to the vote of a few thousand “party insiders.” Yes, they can choose to vote with the primary winner — but only because they deign to do so.

To be honest, the Dem system of superdelegates isn’t a bad one. There is some timeless wisdom that comes with being an old party hand, and the superdelegates at this point would probably do a pretty good job of choosing a winnning Dem candidate for the fall. Superdelegates can see things coming that aren’t even on the radar screen yet for the general public.

But it isn’t “one man, one vote,” that’s for sure. So at the very least, Dems should scuttle their rhetoric against the Montana GOP caucus until such time as they rid themselves of their superdelegate system. Even then, they should mind their own business — but that is another subject.

[…] vote for. In Montana, unless you’re one of eight super-delegates whose single votes can cancel over 100,000 opposing plebiscite ballots, the Democrat Party doesn’t really care who you think should be […]