A few days ago my wife and I received mass mailing letters from Bill Clinton, “From the Desk of Bill Clinton" with a Seattle address. “Special Message from President Clinton.” Enclosed with the letter was the Surrogate Affidavit Form for the 2016 Democratic Precinct Caucus. This form allows people who have schedule conflict due to religious observance or work, or a disability or illness to submit a caucus vote without attending. Friends of ours also received this letter, so it probably has gone out to most Democratic voters in the State.
We were angered to various degrees by this mailing that seems sneakily designed to end run the caucus process, to encourage early voting for Hillary Clinton without having to spend the considerable time that caucuses require. This is the season for campaign trickery like that which Ted Cruz pulled in Iowa. This letter does not rise to that level of dirty tricks, but I think it is conniving and manipulative. And that unfortunately says something about the way the Clintons and their staff are prone to operate.
The opening of the letter encourages support for Hillary and says “There are two ways to stand up for Hillary: "1. vote by mail now, or 2. attend your caucus in person.” This plants the idea in mind that you can vote in the caucus without attending it. And this is the former President of the United States, pretty good authority.The following paragraph says "If you can’t make it to the caucus on March 26, because [of the conditions mentioned above] you can support Hillary right now" by filling out the Surrogate Affidavit form.
Cognitive psychology tells us that our minds tend to attach more strongly to ideas that enter first. The former President's letter therefore sets in place the notion of voting immediately by mail for Hillary. And it makes it easy to do so by providing the form. When they actually fill out the form, voters will have to claim a condition they might not have. But now they are inclined to vote. Perhaps they might fit those conditions a little bit, enough to talk themselves into it. And I think it's likely that some number of voters are annoyed by the caucus process in the first place. (Washington State also has a non-caucus vote, a non delegate, meaningless contest, just because there has already been pressure to move away from caucus voting.) A voter thinks, "Darn caucus. I have a right to vote, so I'm using this form that Bill and Hillary have so conveniently given me." It’s obvious that the Party does not have an enforcement mechanism for evaluating the truthfulness of surrogate voters. Cheating is easy when you have the form and encouragement in hand.
How many will respond this way? I would hope not many. But obviously the Clinton thinking is that this finely calculated maneuver can up Hillary's total, perhaps by enough to overcome or cut into the advantage that Bernie Sanders will probably have here.
If you have no experience with caucuses, it may be difficult to appreciate how annoying and dispiriting this end run effort is. Caucuses are genuine participatory democracy in action. Neighbors talking to neighbors, trying to persuade one another. In my experience, they are always civil, and they always feel good, something healthy, something that promotes real citizenship. Mere primary voting can be thoughtful or thoughtless, informed or uniformed. Caucusing is real democracy in action, and the people who attend are much more likely to do real work for their parties than people who just check off a box. I Imagine, though, that the national party Establishments might not like caucuses; they require a lot more candidate effort per vote, and the more active voters who attend them are undoubtedly harder to manipulate with superpac funded 30 second ads.
I'm disappointed that the Clintons and their campaign have resorted to this maneuver. I'd like them to be better than this try-everything-to-win carefully calculated piece of maybe cleverness. It can’t be shown to be a violation, but it is off. I feel disrespected and less likely to vote for Hillary.
Monday, Mar 14, 2016 · 2:47:34 AM +00:00
·
dbpark
I see from the comments that a number of people don’t understand the point I am making, or think that I am some how against voting or against people voting for Hillary Clinton. I am not at all. To be blunt, my point about the mailing is that it is cleverly designed (albeit only indirectly to create a predisposition, and by force of reaching large numbers of people) to generate a significant number of affidavits from people who never intended to go to the caucus, and who are willing to falsely claim an excuse,that is to misuse the form—which is very easy to do. Beyond the way the letter is written, the logic is pretty simple:People who really want to go but can’t for good reason will easily find their way to the affidavit on their own. There is no reason for a mass mailing for them.
If you don't like caucuses and think it should be a straight primary, that's fine, but if you dislike caucuses so much that you have no objection to flouting the rules, I have nothing to say to you except to imagine how you might feel if you took the trouble to attend and were confronted with a significant number of affidavits from people who did not come, a larger number than one might expect from honest excuses. This of course may not happen. My complaint is about the strategy.