Raissa hit the nail on the head in the last post.
You are so lucky? you can vote twice!
This is true.? Had I elected to attend the Republican caucus I could have voted twice.? Sounds a little unconstitutional doesn’t it.? Well hell, when was the last time our Republican President did anything totally by the book.? They have a tendency to make it up as they go along.
In Washington State 51% of the delgates are selected using the primary vote.? (that ballot I put through the shredder)? 49% are selected from the caucus this afternoon.? If you signed the Republican oath you were able to vote in the primary and caucus.? That’s right ladies and gentlemen… that is two times the voting fun.
Sadly, I disagree with this method so I attended the Democrat caucus.? Did you just fall out of your chair?? I know my grandfather did.? It was a neat experience I must say.? There were hundreds of people packed into a little church basement shoving their way through to sign their names.? At the designated time we were ushered into another room by precinct and supposedly that’s where the fun was supposed to happen.? I thought it was more like a big Democrat cluster fuck.? No one really knew how it should work and then they whipped out the Democrat Handbook Manifesto to explain to the people how that whole new fangled caucus system worked.
The funniest part was in the example the guy read out of the Manifesto.? It went something like this:
This precinct is allowed 19 delegates.? Say 37 members show up to caucus from precinct 421 (the man was reading this to nearly 150 people)…
I was a little proud to see the Obama side a little larger than the Clinton side.? There’s my plug for the guy and that’s all you’ll get out of me.? Evah.? To say the least it was an interesting experience and one I would like to do again.
In more fun news, the trusty husband and I went out on a bona fide date tonight.? Dinner and a movie.? We paid a whopping $1.36 for our dinner since we had a gift certificate and we saw “Fool’s Gold.”? I would have liked an action flick, but this was the only decent movie playing at the time we wanted.? It was cute in an entertaining, I didn’t have to think much kinda way.
Lookin’ forward to chatting with you tomorrow! The only two things I have to say are 1) good job for going and participating, and 2) it’s not exactly a new-fangled system … off to put the kids to bed. Sigh. Kids! Go! To! Bed! already … sheesh. Must rest up for girls’ day.
You know, I think that we should all be able to vote for a Republican and a Democratic candidate in the primaries. I’m a pretty tried and true Democrat (a Republican would be hard pressed to jive with my liberal views), but who ends up running on the Republican side is important to me, too. I wonder how different our results could be if the conservatives could give their views on the liberals and vice versa.
Congrats on the date night!
Good to see ya’ll on Friday night.
Margaret, that’s a great idea! I’m also a liberal, but there are some Republicans that plain old fashion frighten me (hello Huckabee and Romney!), but I would like a say in who is available from “the other side” just in case they win.
As for the electoral college, I don’t think it works in today’s society because it means that those of us who are a minority for our state (in my case, Alaska) practically don’t need to show up to vote for the presidential election. (I’m not saying you shouldn’t vote – I’m a firm believer that if you don’t vote, you shouldn’t state your opinion of the results.) Due to the vast conservativeness of the state (for some unknown reason seeing as a large percentage of the population survives on liberal-based programs), the Democrats don’t have much of a chance in winning the electoral college votes. With today’s voting mechanisms, it is possible to count the population’s vote without having to wait for the Pony Express to deliver the Western vote to the White House. At the very least, I think the electoral college votes should be split to closely match the populous vote. If 50% of Alaska were to vote Republican, and 50% were to vote Democratic, then I think each candidate should receive one electoral college vote. Until the electoral college votes match the popular vote, I think it’s an outmoded system. In reality, the electoral voters can vote for whomever they want to vote for. If, by some strange chance, the WA electoral voters were to vote Republican, even though the state is primarily Democratic, that would be the way the vote would lie. It just doesn’t make sense to me that a very few people, compared to the total American population, can decide who our next president will be. Yes, they usually vote following their state’s popular vote, but they don’t have to. Enter in our friends Mr. Ethics, Mr. Blackmail, and Mr. Bribery. Oh, wait, maybe that’s just the Alaskan legislature.
However, one change that I believe should be made is that the media shouldn’t be allowed to announce who’s won in a particular state until voting has closed down for ALL precincts – Maine to Hawaii. I know many people who say “why should I bother when the rest of the nation has chosen candidate XYZ” because Alaska is one of the last states to close down polling booths. I don’t mind exit/entrance polls, but announcing who’s won in each precinct seems to cause more confusion. (Let’s NOT repeat the Florida fiasco again, please!!)
Elle – I think the potential for political debate on your blog may rival the evolution debate! You should toss out something really “dangerous” – say, the death penalty, just to see what happens! 😉 Just stirring the pot a little….
Wow, that carried on a little bit. Sorry about that! Like all comments, I’ve been working on it on and off all day whenever the kids give me a moment.
I don’t talk politics for a gooooood reason so I’m not going there. Really happy you had a date night though. A must do when parenting!!!
what?
huh?
In Washington State 51% of the delgates are selected using the primary vote. (that ballot I put through the shredder) 49% are selected from the caucus this afternoon. If you signed the Republican oath you were able to vote in the primary and caucus. That?s right ladies and gentlemen? that is two times the voting fun. but as each vote has only half-power it evens out in the end.