I don’t do that many diaries and I usually don’t even read or comment in candidate diaries, but I made a little discovery yesterday and thought I’d just put it out there and see where it goes.
I was sending out an email to my colleagues about the C-SPAN series on the Presidential Libraries and the Capitol when I decided to add a little note about going to the caucuses (which happen to occur on the same day as we return to school). We have to be careful about being political in school so I was trying to explain to the teachers how to find caucus sites for both parties without seeming to advocate one or the other. Remember that this is a caucus so the locations will not be the same as it would be if it were an election.
When I was looking for my site I just went to candidate webpages and found the place where I put in my address and zip code. I went to both Obama’s and Clinton’s sites and each of them has a link to click on it for "States" right at the top of their page. Edwards has a big link to "Caucus Command Center." It was quick and easy. I never had occasion to even look at any of the Republican pages so I thought that they must be somewhat the same.
OK, so here I am trying to convey political information in as bland and nonpartisan a way as possible. I decide to use the Iowa State site rather than any candidate sites in order to be as vanilla as possible. Trust me, nothing is more vanilla than the Iowa website... I click on "Voter Information," then "Find your polling place." On this page are links to Democratic and Republican information websites. The Democratic site has links to several pdf files about caucuses and one for finding your location. That link is essentially the same as the ones I found on candidate sites. Easy.
I didn’t want to assume that the Republican one was the same so I went back to click on it. I’m glad I did. That link sent me to a map of the state by county. Clicking on my county led to a long list of caucus sites by precinct. Nowhere is there a way to find out what your precinct is if you don’t already know it. Plan B, go to candidate sites and locate their caucus finder. Wrong again. I checked three sites: Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and John McCain. The only one with anything on the caucus was McCain and I couldn’t get a caucus site without giving all kinds of information, presumably to get me on mailing and email lists. Giuliani’s site was about what you’d expect with lots of self-serving hype and solicitations for $$ (ALL the candidates’ sites have plenty of this. His site was just pretty much bereft of anything else.) Romney’s site had absolutely nothing about the caucuses that I could readily identify plus (or minus, depending on your point of view) they have an annoying little video walk-on by one of his kids talking about – OK, I’ll admit it: I didn’t stop to listen so I have no idea what he said.
My conclusion after all of this clicking around is that Democrats want everyone possible to be involved. They make it easy to find caucus sites and find information on how to register, caucus, etc. The "Big Tent" party appears to want the whole process to remain a closed mystery to all but their own. I was really surprised to find this is the case. The Dems always seem to me to be less organized and cohesive, yet the Republicans, who are so good at message can’t seem to get this kind of important information accessible to people who might want to come to this event for the first time. In the end, I had to tell my friends that if they wanted to know where the Republicans were meeting, they’d just have to call a candidate’s local office and find out. I won’t make any predictions based on this little insight, but I do think it speaks well of Democrats. We really ARE interested in having everyone participate.