Much has been said about the Texas precinct caucus method for selecting delegates to the national convention, as a look at the recommended diaries today attests. Rather than get into the detail elaborated on in these diaries, which I agree is important, and in response to the many chicken-little's berating our system (sorta like the worry of where to bank your money after you win the lottery, as you'll see on the flip), I'd like to discuss the big picture, as a former Democratic county chair for many years who actually worked the Texas caucus system. And I'd like to start by saying the system is brilliant. That's right, brilliant, as I explain below.
Our system for selecting delegates to the Democratic Party Convention is an amalgam of the primary and caucus selection process, and, IMHO, brilliantly serves the interests of building the party, while still allowing the will of the popular secret vote to prevail.
126 of our delegates are allocated by popular vote. This serves the interests of having the national and state parties influenced by the popular vote in Texas. Yet 42 delegates to the national convention are allocated to delegates selected at their roots by Democrats attending their precinct conventions. (25 other delegates are elected at the state convention.)
The delegates allocated to election by precinct conventions are basically set aside to encourage participation by grass roots party activists -- that is, those who are willing to organize voters in their precinct to attend the precinct convention for their candidate. (Think of it as the very polar opposite of the superdelegates.) This is the pool of potential organizers/GOTV Democrats available to county chairs from which to organize their county in November.
The Party in Texas has long believed that this exercise in Party building is critical to victory in the general election. Its allocation of these 42 delegates from our precinct conventions (minidelegates?) is working like a charm, as it is encouraging participation in our Party at the grass-roots, people-powered, level -- big time! It is indeed a godsend for the Texas Democratic Party to have voters participate in our caucuses. They are the building blocks for our work in November.
Think of it for a second, thousands of precinct conventions across red (supposedly) Texas, packed with Democrats wanting so hard to support our presidential candidates that they will wrestle with whatever inconveniences and frustrations they encounter -- the vast majority new to working for the Party. These are not voters who voted out of habit, or only because their neighbor was running for constable in the primary, or as secret Republicans who were voting in our primary to cause their idea of mischief. These are voters who are deeply committed to a Democratic presidential candidate -- a voter that you can most count on, both to vote and to lick envelopes, when it comes to November.
Even the selection of this fraction of our delegates by caucus is democratic. The precinct chairs who run the precinct conventions are local activists who were elected by Democratic Party voters in their particular precincts at the prior primary election. The county chairs that run the subsequent county conventions, were similarly elected by all of the county Democratic Party voters in our primary. Yet any Democratic Party voter can help organize and control her precinct convention for her candidate this Tuesday.
The primary/caucus manner for selecting Democratic Party delegates in Texas is a system that rewards and encourages people-powered grass roots activism, while still allowing for the popular vote to prevail in a secret ballot primary election. We are actually seeing the brilliance of these rules at play, with almost unbelievable numbers of new Democratic Party activists expected to participate in our precinct conventions next week.
My personal observation is that this system paid off for the people-powered, grass roots, campaign for a Democratic presidential primary candidate last seen in Texas -- Jesse Jackson's. Despite the establishment support and money advantage of his opponents, Rev. Jackson swept the delegates at the precinct conventions in 1984 and 1988 in my county (which is overwhelmingly Mexican-American). I see the same thing this time around for Obama, as his campaign has long been preparing and gearing up to fight this battle (at least in my county).
Most importantly, our caucuses at the precinct level will bring in waves and waves of party activists together, committed to work for a solid Democratic wave-election in November, regardless of the eventual candidate. They will be invested in working to elect our candidate in November by attending our caucuses. This is exactly what the Democratic Party set out to do 50 some years age when these rules were first promulgated by the Party.
Ohhh, and the Texas GOP is shitting bricks.