[Mpls] Re: caucuses

[freealonzo at mn.rr.com]

Fred's description is right on -- for a text book.  In reality the precinct caucuses are rarely, if ever, as Fred describes below (notwithstanding Barb Harris' fine efforts in organizing).  They are sparsely attended, dominated and ran by grizzled veterans and party hacks, beholden to the typical DFLer special interest groups (you know who you are), and confusing to newcomers and those who don't live and die politics.  Also this year I'm pretty sure 10 or 11 of the 13 wards are having all their caucuses in a school located in the Ward so precinct caucus supporters can't even say they are "neighborhood-based."


Dean E. Carlson (who will be at his caucus tonight between a son's basketball playoff game and a daughter's soccer practice while his wife is at a school meeting)
Ward 10, East Harriet



----- Original Message -----
From: fmarkus <fmarkus at usfamily.net>
Date: Tuesday, March 1, 2005 9:10 am
Subject: Re:[Mpls] caucuses

> I really like precinct caucuses. they are as close to the ground 
> as one can
> get in the partisan political process. 
> 
> I recently explained about caucuses, conventions and the like to 
> elderlyEast African-Americans, American citizens all, who live in 
> Minneapolispublic housing highrises.  This via MHRC's excellent 
> staffer Abdirizak Said,
> with the able assistance of MHRC's executive director, Barb 
> Harris, and with
> occasional linguistic interventions by the participants 
> themselves. For the
> record, we conducted this dialogue - and it was a fruitful 
> exchange - on a
> nonpartisan basis that will lead to further informative sessions 
> later in
> the campaign season when other interested parties and processes start
> showing up on the calendar. 
> 
> The caucuses are intimate settings. Especially for folks like 
> these who take
> their new citizenship very seriously, caucuses are on a less-
> threateningscale than conventions with hundreds of participants 
> and elaborate
> processes. Candidates are real people in these smaller settings. 
> Even if
> there are 150 people in the room, that's still a venue that tolerates
> translation. When there are 10 or 20 people in the room, there are 
> realconversations whatever the individual differences among the 
> participants.
> This is an environment where civics is real - where democracy is 
> physical -
> where local concerns can be vocalized and opinions evaluated. When 
> we go to
> vote at the public polling stations or by absentee ballot, there 
> is no
> comparable opportunity for person-to-person dialogue in a small group
> setting.
> 
> In contrast, meetings that assume ready access to transportation - 
> we all
> have cars, right? - that depend heavily on the printed word and 
> nowadays the
> Internet (see the grand websites that are now blossoming), large 
> meetingswith processes that speak to more experienced participants 
> in a familiar
> vocabulary more reminiscent of college courses than block clubs, busy
> environments daunting to old folks, immigrants, renters of every 
> age, people
> with various disabilities ... are frankly elitist.
> 
> At precinct caucuses, the folks who are there are purposive: not 
> passivemarketing targets inundated with mailings and robocalls and 
> unsolicitedknocks on the door. Sure, some of us are old hands at 
> this sort of thing but
> I for one feel obliged to pass my experience along to others not so
> advantaged and it's much easier to go this route at the precinct 
> caucuslevel rather than try to work with people "cold turkey" in 
> larger venues.
> 
> Fred Markus, Phillips West, Ward 6