Tuesday night was Super Tuesday, and locally, caucus night. It’s the official kickoff of a political season that never seems to end.
The caucus system is a strange piece of work. At its Normal Rockwell best, it’s grassroots politics with neighbors coming together to discuss issues and potential candidates. The neighborhood caucuses select delegates to a county party convention. They go to the county party conventions and formally nominate the local candidates.
Under the Democrats’ rules, if a candidate gets 60% of the delegates, he or she gets the nomination without a primary. Less than that, there is a primary runoff between the top two. So the process of the caucus/delegate-selection/nominating convention is a big deal to the candidates in terms of eliminating the expense of the primary election, or getting on the ballot at all.
At its worst, the system reinforces the lock that the two dominant political parties have on ballot access. There is really only one political party in most of Utah, which operates much like China, with similar results.
Sitting at a table with the neighbors from my precinct — and who knew there were five confessed Democrats in South Summit 11? — there was a feeling of pride in a process that allows that level of citizen involvement. There was also some discomfort over why the few people who chose to show up at the caucus meetings should be able to decide who you get to vote for.
I was there at the request of a friend and candidate in one of the races. I had pretty strong feelings about a second candidate in one of the other races, and sort of ambivalent feelings on the third. I didn’t have to fight to the death for my candidate — everybody else thought she was great. There was strong support for the two I supported, and a sincere willingness to listen on the other. So I was happy to have others at the table become delegates.
On the race with a level of uncertainty, maybe a primary is a good idea. The delegates’ gatekeeper function should open doors as well as close them.
Meanwhile, across the school campus, the Republicans were meeting to do the same thing. They had an additional task. They were voting on the presidential nomination.
In a normal world, that would have been a Super Tuesday primary, with mail-in ballots sent to every registered Republican in the state, and they all could have cast a ballot from home. But the state Republican Party apparently doesn’t trust their members, and didn’t want to have a primary among all registered Republicans. Who knows where broad participation could lead? So they limited it to voting at the caucus meeting, making sure that only the most committed Republicans would be able to vote, and eliminating anybody unwilling to attend the caucus. If you can’t win on substance, beat them with procedure.
It kind of blew up on them. Turns out that when you put a bunch of election deniers in charge of running an election, things go about as expected. In a lot of precincts, the voting system crashed. They could have used the state’s election system, which seems to run pretty much flawlessly, but then they would have lost the ability to restrict participation.
Still, right here in bright red Utah, Niki Haley appears to have about 42% of the vote against the other guy’s 57%. That was Haley’s best showing anywhere other than Vermont and Washington, D.C., where she eked out wins. But it didn’t matter. She’s out of the race, and the Republicans are moving full speed ahead to nominate the indicted, financially compromised, sex offender for president. I understand conservative policies, but I don’t understand this.
The Democrats had a normal primary for president, with Biden easily winning over whoever is still running against him. The level of enthusiasm for Biden’s nomination was readily apparent at the Democratic Caucus — his name was never mentioned that I recall. The primary was outside of the caucus process, so there wasn’t a need to bring him up, but when I’ve gone to these things before, there’s usually a “yay team!” kind of rally video meant to inspire and fire up the crowd. There was no inspiring or firing for Joe, not even at the party caucus meeting.
The fact that the general election will be between those two demonstrates the failure of the two-party system that blocks ballot access for other more appealing choices on all sides. I don’t know how to fix it, but leaving the selection process in the hands of the two dominant parties clearly isn’t serving the country. A bad process usually produces bad results.
On a happier note, I know all of the Summit County Council candidates either personally or by reputation. We are incredibly fortunate to have a roster of choices like this. They are people of integrity, competence and ability, sincerely committed to serving the community in a role that really isn’t much fun. Work long hours for modest pay so you can be hollered at in the grocery store and ridiculed in newspaper columns.
Any combination of these candidates would be a big win for Summit County. So thanks to an outstanding slate of candidates. We’re lucky to have you.
Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986.