With attention turning to Washington state, remember you can find out more about attending your Republican caucus here and your Democratic caucus here. If you can't find and don't know your own precinct information to find your caucus with either party you can either contact your county auditor's office or use Stefan's handy voter database to look yourself up.
Also, pudge's point about the primary bears repeating: follow the instructions properly and mark your party selection when you vote. If you don't, your vote won't be counted in the race you've selected.
Posted by Eric Earling at February 06, 2008 07:19 AM | Email ThisSometimes, Republicans just want to abuse themselves.
Posted by: swatter on February 6, 2008 08:10 AMOf course it makes it simple, just don't vote in it (Caucuses/Primary). Then, the Republicans (and Democrats) will see how few people they actually have in the state. They continue to insist on holding caucuses so that only so-called party people pick the candidates. Then, they wonder why turnout keeps getting lower and lower. Both parties aren't concerned about the will of the people.
Posted by: tc on February 6, 2008 08:40 AMSo by being concerned about the will of their actual members, they therefore aren't concerned about the will of the people?
Why bother having a party at all if you are going to ignore what the actual members of the party think?
Posted by: pudge on February 6, 2008 09:33 AMPudge -- you have a good point, so my decision was to step aside and let the Republican Party members make their choice. I refused to sign the "loyalty" oath and therefore declined to vote in the primary.
I am a Conservative, not a Republican.
Posted by: Dick on February 6, 2008 09:47 AMWell, if you're not a republican, then how could you claim a voice in who the republican party puts forward as a candidate? It sounds like some people want to have it both ways. Personally I don't see any point in opting out of the process, but it that's what you want to do, then you shouldn't complain about it.
Republicans and Democrats vote in the party primaries for the same reason that the vote is (or should be) restricted to residents of washington. After all, why shouldn't folks from Victoria have a voice? They have an opinion, too.
Note that the positions of candidates are *not* state positions, but party positions. Nothing is preventing people from forming another party that they *do* like, or running as an independent.
I consider myself to be a democrat....that is the box to check if you want to vote democrat.
I am a member of the Republican party......
Hmmmmm...How many people here have an actual membership card from the Republican Party? I have membership cards from a number of conservative groups, I've been a delegate for the R's at a state convention, but I don't carry a membership card from the Republican party.
Maybe I shouldn't have checked that box, did I just lie by saying I'm a Member? I haven't lied for 19 years (I'm trying to prove a person can actually not lie in their life if they try to), I guess it must be time to start over.
Posted by: Doug on February 6, 2008 10:06 AMWhy do you think changing offices to non-partisan races, like has happened in Pierce County for all but a few offices, is so popular?
Posted by: tc on February 6, 2008 10:08 AMWhere the heck have you been the last 8 years? Bush = middle of the road, not extreme. McCain even more so! The problem with the GOP today is that they are too much Democratlite and not extreme enough! The ideological battle in America today should be conservatism and classic liberalism vs. statism and fascism, not statism vs. statismlite.
Posted by: AP on February 6, 2008 10:49 AMIf the linear spectrum we use is powerful big government vs. small government, Bush is totally middle of the road. Since being President is being the CEO of Govt., government is the primary issue, and using that as a gauge, the GOP is way too middle of the road, including Bush.
Posted by: AP on February 6, 2008 11:27 AMI will vote for Obama over McCain. McCain is so destructive, it is better for the GOP and country that he loses. I won't vote for Hillary however.
If you don't want to lose in 2008, you still have some time to support Romney.
Posted by: AP on February 6, 2008 11:30 AMAre you now, or have you ever been a member of the Republican Party?
Posted by: tim on February 6, 2008 12:19 PMUmmmm. Sorry, I don't understand the question at all. MOST political parties throughout history do not represent a majority of the people, and even when they do, it is usually for only a short time. I cannot understand why "not representing the majority" should have any bearing on a party's existence.
A party exists for one reason: to further the political interests of the members of that party. Indeed, a better question is the opposite: why have a party if it DOES represent the majority?
In this modern age, what do parties really offer? Part of my main problem is that both parties appear to want to cater to the extremes. What one is seeing in this election is the revenge of the middle.
So if you don't like parties, then why should you care to help the party pick their nominee?
Posted by: pudge on February 6, 2008 12:35 PMOne of the long term effects any president can leave on the country is the selection of Supreme Court justices and Federal judges.
Policies and [congressional] legislation can be overcome by public outcry and elections. Legislating from the bench, or poor decisions from the bench are virtually permanent.
Would Clinton or Obama selections to the courts really be better for the country?
Would a Clinton or Obama, coupled with stronger Democratic majorities in Congress be better for the country?
If this were to happen, would we see the Federal version of what we have right now in this state? Would this be better for the country?
In fact, I heard it mentioned that the State constitution setup the primary system. Therefore, the State pays for them. Remember, there really weren't a whole lot of independents back in those days.
If I have to pay for a primary, by golly, I like to vote and should be able to vote. And I plan on it.
Posted by: swatter on February 6, 2008 01:04 PMI think the concern is that because we've, for whatever reason, entered into a situation where the parties are the only entities with a real shot at winning the election, folks have no choice but to have a vested interest in the choice of that party.
I think it would be a lot more appropriate to force people to declare themselves among your party to choose who will represent you if the two parties didn't have a virtual monopoly on national office.
To some degree I think the parties have brought this onto themselves, because they have consistently worked to marginalize third parties (those that don't do it to themselves, anyway) and create the mindset that it's only R vs. D.
But, to be fair, I'm also not a fan of forcing people to do something for the 'public good', so I'm merely pointing out why folks make comments like that and not suggesting it should change.
Furthermore, if you had to declare R/D to vote in any primary for that candidate, leading to more extremist candidates in each camp, maybe people would actually go third party once in awhile, so it might not be bad anyway.
Posted by: Andrew Brown on February 6, 2008 01:13 PMDo you have to be a registered voter to vote in a caucus?
Posted by: SouthernRoots on February 6, 2008 01:17 PMHe would have won in 2000 if Rove hadn't smeared him from here to Sunday.
McCain is straight, indepenent and NOT a party lemming.
He offers everything we want in a leader...especially in times of war.
This guy can beat Hilary easily...and inexperienced Obama with some good old fashioned straight talk.
Go McCain GO!!!!!!
Posted by: McCain Supporter on February 6, 2008 01:20 PMWell, I agree, except for that they do have a choice: they can work on alternatives. This is all about liberty and democracy. The R and D parties are as powerful as they are because voters chose for them to be powerful, and continue to do so. Granted, maybe if there were a ready alternative, they would choose something else, but no one ever said liberty was easy.
To some degree I think the parties have brought this onto themselves, because they have consistently worked to marginalize third parties (those that don't do it to themselves, anyway) and create the mindset that it's only R vs. D.
Oh sure. I am the first to blame the parties when they do something wrong. I criticized the GOP oath in question on this site just the other day, and I have long been highly critical of all efforts to exclude third parties, such as when I voted for Harry Browne in 1996 just because Bob Dole worked to exclude Ross Perot from the debates sponsored illegally by the Commission on Presidential Debates. (Also, I lived in MA, where my vote literally made no difference one way or another, so I figured I'd use it as a protest vote.)
I understand why people hate the parties, or hate what the parties do. But the bottom line is the parties get to make choices for themselves, and that this is not only the way it HAS to be, but the way it SHOULD be.
Posted by: pudge on February 6, 2008 02:03 PMBut when McCain was asked to release all their phone records, he said no!
You really want to stick with that.
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on February 6, 2008 02:20 PMTake a deep breath, slow down a bit.
All better now.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on February 6, 2008 03:29 PMShould we blame McCain, Romney or Huckabee ?
Posted by: Mike on February 6, 2008 03:39 PMShould we blame McCain, Romney or Huckabee ?
Heard John Kerry today. The cause of the tornadoes was ........ Global Warming and the fact that we are doing too little to combat it.
Yes, apparently it's all due to Global Warming! I'm surprised Kerry didn't actually call them "Gore-nadoes".
Posted by: Smoley on February 6, 2008 04:38 PMLuckily, being economic conservatives, we never mail our ballots. We drop them off at the precinct on election day, so we will simply have to steam open the the outer envelope to repair our flawed ballot.
Posted by: Tadpole on February 6, 2008 07:52 PMThey also don't wear shoes.
Sorry, I couldn't resist that one. FWIW, half my family is from Arkansas. :-)
Tadpole: In previous primary elections the party choice was on the ballot itself.
Note that this is a presidential preference primary, which is not a normal primary. It follows different rules.
I have two guesses why it is on the outside: maybe because of the length of the oath (which is not allowed on the normal primary ballot) it wouldn't fit on the ballot, or maybe because they had a need to be able to pre-sort the ballots, which means it has to be on the outside.
However, you're right, this is bad and a poor design and many votes are not being counted because of it.
Posted by: pudge on February 6, 2008 11:41 PMIf you are a Pierce County resident, by the way, you can find your caucus location at www.piercegop.org. Have fun at the caucuses but be a bit careful getting there. Many of the Pierce County Republican caucuses share their location (different rooms, naturally) with the Democrats.
Posted by: Deryl McCarty on February 7, 2008 10:08 AMAlso, I think there is no oath for our GOP caucuses in Snohomish County. I looked at all the paperwork and saw none, but I don't have it in front of me to doublecheck.
Also, there is one huge difference, much more significant than capitalization: the Democratic oath says "I consider myself a Democrat" while the GOP one says "I am a member of the Republican Party." You may think those are the same, but a great many people disagree.
Posted by: pudge on February 7, 2008 03:11 PMI am assuming pudge and the local Republicans are going to be all over it.
Posted by: swatter on February 7, 2008 04:46 PMAre you now, or have you ever been a member of the Republican Party?
To which I respond: Yeah.... it'll be someone wearing a black uniform with a death's head on one collar and a "D" on the other.
Posted by: Hinton on February 7, 2008 06:57 PMAs to Pete Jackson, huh. So he is actually a Republican now.