Due to a unique set of circumstances I am able to directly compare a Democratic and Republican caucus for the exact same Colorado district. Due to the influence of my eldest daughter I supported President Obama in 2008. I was the caucus chair for the Republicans that year. My daughter turned eighteen and attended here first caucus this year. I hadn't bothered to change my party registration. More than anything else the caucuses revealed the weaknesses of both the Republicans and the Democrats this cycle. More after the fold.
First, my experience in 2008. The caucus was packed. At the time there were real choices amongst the candidates. I supported John McCain because of his views on global warming. To show how things have changed in two years the only denialist amongst the Republican presidential candidates was Fred Thompson. Support was evenly split between Romney and Huckabee. Nevertheless, we sent a Ron Paul supporter to the state assembly. (He supported Paul because of Paul's opposition to the Iraq War.) Regardless of the position involved there was both diversity and passion. There were green Republicans like myself and also anti-war Republicans.
The question I had going in was whether this cycle would be a classic off-year cycle or not. Were there any "game changers"? Would the President retain the atypical energy amongst the youth? Would the Tea Partiers ratchet up the enthusiasm on the Republican side? The only thing that appears atypical is the diversity amongst the Republican party is completely gone. All the candidates for the Fourth Congressional District have given into the Tea Partiers. Global Warming is a myth. Obama is a socialist, etc. etc. One of the things I hoped to find out at the caucus was there any Republican candidates that would stand up to them. Likewise, I wanted to find out if there was evidence of an enthusiasm gap in a newly purple, R+4, district.
The caucus I attended was literally the most boring I have ever attended (and I have attended almost every caucus since 1992). We had eleven attendees which was the same number for the one my daughter attended. Multiples caucuses were held in the church and it was very lightly attended. A KUNC reporter wandered about the very sparsely attended proceedings. One of the attendees openly wondered why nobody was there given "what was going on this week". The same individual ran for the state assembly with the rationale for his running being his personal edification! He had no idea who to support. None of us knew squat about any of the candidates. There was only one speech where one woman endorsed some personal friends. Two of the candidates she supported were running for the Congressional seat but she gave nothing substantive on why we should support either or why one was preferable over the other. The only candidate that stopped by was running for Sheriff. Another of the participants asked to delay the straw poll until some of the candidates stopped by (which never happened). The winners of our straw poll were Diggs Brown, Scott McInnis, and Jane Norton. At the county level Gardner, Maes, and Buck won handily.
So, the effect of the Tea Partiers at the local level was to purge the moderates and even mainstream conservatives out of the GOP. I saw no evidence of inside-the-party enthusiasm I have seen in local OFA meetings. Most of my friends in county leadership are long gone.
Now on to the Democrats. First the bad news. My daughter was the only youth there. There was much more enthusiasm, though. There were many resolutions discussed and debated. My daughter wowed them by showing the constitutional basis for or problems with many of them. Bennet won over Romanoff by one vote. Bennet won more handily countywide.
The bottom line in all of this is it appears that 2010 is not special. It comes down to your normal off-year ground game. The Democrats are disorganized but it appears to me that Republicans are even more so. The Tea Partiers appear to have a similar effect Ross Perot had here in 1992. I predict they will draw what energy there is on the right but not get it applied to electing Republican candidates. In an absolute sense both parties should be embarrassed on how poorly they are doing. But politics is graded on the curve and in that respect the Democrats are in my view well ahead if their base doesn't choose to sit on their hands in November.