Last night I attended the 14th Ohio District Democratic Caucus which began the process of selecting delegates for the Democratic Convention. Ohio has 153 delegates consisting of 136 pledged delegates and 17 super delegates. In order to become a pledged delegate you had to submit your name, your district and the person you support to the Democratic party by December 31st .
Last night Democrats from the 14th District came to Lakeland Community College. The doors opened at 6pm. You had to fill out a form with your residence etc. which became your ticket to the ballots. I would say about two hundred people showed up supporting various candidates. At 7pm the district Democratic chairperson gave a motivational speech to come together to defeat Trump in November, then dispersed the crowd to separate rooms for the different candidates. I suspect the most people were for Biden but they were rather quiet. The second largest group was probably for Warren; they were the most enthusiastic. Bernie came in third with about forty people. There were small numbers for Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar.
When we got to the Sanders room we found that about twenty people had filed to be Sanders delegates from the 14th District, however only six showed up at the meeting. That was fine because we had to chose just six delegates and one alternate, and most of us agreed that showing up was a qualification for being a delegate.
There will be six delegates from the 14th district allocated on the basis of the primary vote with a minimum of 15% required. So if Biden, Sanders and Warren each get about 30% of the votes, they each get 2 delegates from the district at the convention
The only difficulty was that the Democratic party has decreed that half the delegates will be male and half female, so there were two separate ballots, one for men and one for women. There was a third ballot for an alternate delegate which for the 14th District had to be a woman (in an equal number of other districts the delegate will be a man). However we had four women delegates and only two men delegates present. The solution we desired was to elect only two male delegates, and three women delegates, and then make the fourth woman the alternative delegate. That was not so easily done.
The problem was that on the male ballot four people voted for absent men. One of these was supported by two people. So that meant he became the third male delegate. The two men with the most votes got an equal number of votes so there had to be a coin toss to the determine who came in first. Why was it important to toss the coin? Because if Bernie gets only two delegates the man with the most votes and the woman with the most votes get to go to the convention. The reality is that the guy who got selected as the third male Bernie delegate with only two votes has no chance of going to the convention since that would only happened only if no other candidate gets 15% of the votes in the 14th District resulting in six Bernie delegates.
After we elected three of the four women to be delegates, we then elected the fourth woman to be the alternate delegate. I am beginning to wonder if in fact she gets to go to the convention. If Bernie gets two delegates, the highest ranked man and woman get to go to the convention. I suspect the alternate delegate gets to go to the convention but not vote unless one of the primary delegates is unable.
This whole process took about a hour. We gave each of the six delegates three minutes to tell us about why they wanted to go to the convention. The balloting process is very precise and well supervised by the party. You have to hand in your ID paper to get your ballots. They are all collected and counted by two teams of counters. I was part of one team. We counted and recorded each of the male ballots while the other team counted the female ballots. Then we switched ballots for the recount and came up with the same numbers. One person’s ballot was disqualified because that person voted for four women when the ballot said you could only vote for three. All the ballots and voting materials are collected by the party.
The 2020 Ohio Democratic primary will take place on Tuesday, March 17, 2020, as one of several states voting two weeks after Super Tuesday in the Democratic Party presidential primaries for the 2020 presidential election.
Ohio utilizes an open primary system. In an open primary system, a voter does not have to register with a political party beforehand in order to vote in that party's primary. In Ohio, voters select their preferred party primary ballots at their polling places on Election Day
In 2016, Hillary Clinton got 56.1% of the vote in Ohio, and Bernie Sanders got 43.1%.
In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump (R) won Ohio with 51.7 percent of the vote. Hillary Clinton (D) received 43.6 percent.
I confess that I have always found the caucus process rather arcane. The Democrats do it here but the Republicans don't. It seems like by the time we get to the national conventions, everything is a done deal. I wonder if the caucus process were more widely used, we might have been spared the ordeal of having Trump be the R candidate in 2016? Or maybe it wouldn't have made any difference.
ReplyDeleteSeveral people commented last night that they hoped this process would be an improvement of democracy. They said that in prior years they were often told not to worry about the delegate selection process, that the unions or the party would take care of that.
DeleteSome of the delegates emphasized their commitment to Sanders, i.e. they were unlikely to change their minds after the first ballot.
Of course the many superdelegates in prior Democratic conventions were a barrier of the establishment against new candidates. Obama overcame that barrier in 2008; Sanders failed in 2016
Jack, Did you end up feeling you had done a Good Thing, or just wasted an evening?
ReplyDeleteI think the worst "reform" the Ds led the way in was the primary election.
First, it creates a bunch of losers -- Bernie people if Hillary wins; Biden people if Warren wins, etc.
Second it gives equal power to junkies who can recite all the offices their candidates ever held and people who are voting for a familiar names. Like the lady from Iowa who favored Bourke Hickenlooper back in the '50s because when he was on that raft seagulls fed him. "Madam," said Sam Lubell, "I think you are thinking of Rickenbacker." "Hickenlooper, Rickenbacker," she replied, "He's a God-fearing man, and I am for him.
Third, it leads to the movement we have in Florida, in which Independents -- "I don't give a damn for either bunch of crooks" -- are claiming they should be allowed to vote in the primaries because otherwise they don't "get our say." Since Republican Education Governors did away with civics and history (the latter under the leadership of Lynne Cheney) to overemphasize STEM studies (and docile workers), national political ignorance has soared through the Oort cloud.
I think I would much prefer canning the primaries (and making political reporters go back to working for a living) and switching everyone to caucuses. But I have never been through one.
Tom,
DeleteI felt I understood the process better. We have a representative form of government, not a direct democracy. We elect other people who make decisions for us. So I think it is worthwhile to spend some time trying to decide who are the best delegates.
Unfortunately while many candidates filed, few where willing to come to be vetted. It would have been very helpful to have had ten delegates at the meeting, and also to have understood before hand that even though we may be voting for six slots it is likely that only two delegates will go to the convention and so identifying the top two vote getters is very important. On entrusting them with making complex decisions on the floor of the convention.
You are correct that the primary tends to divide the party. Everyone in the party has a vested interest in whom all the delegates are. I have read that there is some further post primary caucus that is supposed to clarify the final delegation. It would be a helpful point to unify the party even if the final candidate has not been chosen.
I see how that can become a zero sum game, too. But how about just having to mingle with folks who were for Biden and Buttegieg folks, seeing that they don't have two heads of tinfoil hats and generally espouse the same things? Is there enough time for that? It's easier to lose if you like the folks who win.
DeleteUnfortunately it takes time and context to see people in their complexity but that is helpful even when people are supporting candidates one likes.
DeleteThe moderator of the Sanders group was a retired judge. Obviously well connected with the political establishment of the county. Not the type of person one thinks of as a Bernie supporter. But then as a retired county bureaucrat neither am I, until someone finds out that I was in mental health and have a research background.
Getting to know people is good even if they conform to stereotypes. One of the male delegates was very young, with the local school system, and running for Ohio state representative. The image of the young Bernie supporter, future political leader. Helpful to see that in the flesh.
Of course the enthusiastic young women for Warren were very encouraging to see, and to interact with since I would like to see Warren as VP and eventual President after Bernie. I could also affirm how important it is that Sanders and Warren are friends and have avoided knocking each other.
The Biden people appeared to be people that were active in politics, knew each other, and were doing what they have been doing for years without much enthusiasm except for getting rid of Trump. Not a lot of reasons to open conversations with them, just hope that like when Obama became the candidate, political people will close behind Sanders or Warren. People like the judge are likely to help make that happen more than me.
Speaking as one who now supports Biden, if Warren or Sanders end up being the candidate, I will support them. The end game is to get rid of Trump. I think they are people of integrity, even if I don't totally agree with their political views. Integrity in government is in short supply right now.
DeleteEnthusiasm will likely win the election. Trump is still guaranteed the enthusiasm of his base. Bernie and Warren have enthusiasm going for them; I think they could turn out the vote if they combined in a ticket.
DeleteIf Biden is the candidate, I will vote for him but that is about all.
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ReplyDeleteJack - you never came to the part of the story that most interested me: are you one of the Bernie delegates? Will you get to go to the convention?
ReplyDeleteAt an earlier meeting in December they were looking for delegates and asked if I was interested. I declined.
DeleteWhen Obama was running I did phone calling and canvassing the first time around. Largely because of my faith in young people. When I was in graduate school I campaigned for Eugene McCarthy in the Wisconsin primary which forced Lyndon Johnson to not seek a second term. I didn't have much faith in people over thirty at that time and still don't.
By the second time for Obama my balance and health problems had limited my activity. However I made my first political contribution, the maximum amount because I read that Obama was putting the money into an elaborate computer system to get out the vote.
One of the things I like about Bernie is the way he raises money. That is the real foundation of his Revolution. In 2016 every time he would win, I would send him another $100. This time around I will probably give him the max too. So when you see about the many contributors, contributions and the amount of money he is raising people like myself are behind that. Of course there are also a lot of people doing phone calling, texting etc. which I am not a part of. Bernie has it all figured out, if he can expand his base of contributors to the entire Democratic party he will have all the money he needs (an obscene amount in his words) to win.
I like going to the few meeting like this when you can meet some of the people but I have not desire to go to Milwaukee.
Giving the max to a candidate puts one into the political elite. In December 2015 before I even knew Bernie existed as a viable candidate, I was invited to a wealthy person's house to meet Hilary (with the expectation of course that I would bring my check). I decided the Clinton's were the past not the future.
I do get phone calls from time to time from politicians across the state seeking my support. I am very careful about responding to them because I am not really that wealthy. Early on in life I decided to be very careful about charity. I like to target specific projects that I give a thousand dollars. That is the magic number that gets people's attention.
This impressing charities and politicians with money is a big irony for people who know me. I have very little interest in money either for myself or institutions. People at work in the mental health system saw me as the guy who never knew when it was pay day, who always had money in his pocket (because I managed it well) and who never was interested in stocks, etc. The mental health system in Ohio depends very much on levies which are renewed every ten years, usually county boards have two five years apart. I had not interest in them. My position was always that if we provided the best service the money would come. We did not need money to provide better service.