There seems to be some confusion in the public mind about the purpose and nature of caucus meetings. For example Thomas Wright, chairman of the Salt Lake County Republican Party, is quoted in this article on KSL.com saying:
{the candidates have been busy recruiting people to show and get elected at those meetings.}
“That’s why it’s more important than ever for the everyday citizen who hasn’t been recruited by a candidate to go to their caucus meeting and run to be a delegate. If they allow the candidates to recruit and get their people elected as delegates, then ultimately the voice of that neighborhood has been taken away.”
This statement implies that those who have done their research before the caucus meeting and settled on a candidate are not “everyday citizens.” I freely admit my own reservations with choosing candidates who are focused only on one of the races they will be expected to vote on, but simply because a person has already chosen their senate candidate does not mean that they are not everyday citizens in their neighborhoods.
Another comment I heard directly contradicted the quote above and belied a complete misunderstanding of the purpose and function of representative government. One person stated that the caucus meetings were a failure because so many of the state delegates who were elected were not already committed to any senate candidate.
I would consider it a good attribute in a state delegate that they were already aware and engaged in a major race such as our senate race this year. That indicates a level of preparation that should make them more prepared to cast informed votes. On the other hand, the purpose of the caucus meeting is to choose delegates whose judgement the people of the precinct trust who will be prepared and informed in time to cast a vote at the convention, not to choose delegates who are necessarily already committed to one candidate without the extra weeks of close investigation to make their decision. What would such a delegate do if the race were to change because of their candidate getting out of the race – could their neighbors trust their secondary choice?
A proper understanding of the meetings highlights the underlying problems that we must solve to make any political system work. Over the weekend my father-in-law expressed his wish for a primary system rather than a caucus system. He asked why he could not have a chance to vote on all the candidates. I asked him why he could not vote on every piece of legislation that came before the state legislature or Congress. The answer is that not all people have the ability to get informed in the time available which is why we choose representatives at various levels.
The idea of representative government is that we choose people we trust to take the time and exercise their judgement in making decisions that we are not always able to be fully informed about. Of course those representatives should not ignore those they represent and should work to help their constituents become informed as much as possible but their job is not simply to parrot the will of the majority.
My father-in-law then exposed the fundamental problem when he confessed that after seven years in his neighborhood he still did not feel that he could trust the judgement of any of the candidates for state delegate from his precinct. That tells me that the community is too loose, either politically or generally, if seven years is not enough time to find others in your neighborhood whose judgement you trust in such matters. If you can’t trust anyone in your neighborhood how can you hope to trust any of the senate candidates who are not even that close to you and who will be making even more complex and binding decisions than who to put on the ballot?
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