Santorum in MN

[naomikritzer]

I fully expected Santorum to win in Minnesota, but people all over my Facebook seem to be shocked. Here's why Santorum won.

1. We have caucuses here, not primaries. You don't just stop by the caucus on your way home from work; you spend an entire evening sitting somewhere like a middle school classroom, following the Robert's Rules of Order and listening to people propose "resolutions" (which, if you're a Democrat, may eventually get incorporated into your party platform. This does not stop people from proposing huge numbers of resolutions for things that are ALREADY in the party platform. I'm actually not sure whether Republicans participate in this particular ritual, or not.)

2. In addition to the time commitment, you have to be an honest-to-God party member to go to a caucus. Joining the party is quite straightforward: you sign in at the door. However, they are fairly serious about not wanting you there if you do not honestly consider yourself aligned with the views of that party. Given that you caucus with your precinct -- which is to say, with your neighbors -- you could actually be challenged and evicted if your neighbor points out that you still have a Wellstone sign in your yard and a bumper sticker that says "Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Republican." (It's unlikely, because Minnesotans aren't very confrontational, but it could happen.)

3. Also, when you sign in they want your phone number and they will call you FOREVER. And so will all the candidates. And the national party fundraisers. And so on.

4. So it's only the really MOTIVATED people who go to these. And historically, the really MOTIVATED Minnesotan Republicans have been hair-raisingly conservative. HOW conservative, you might be wondering?

5. Back in the 1990s, we had a wildly popular Republican governor, Arne Carlson. The state Republicans declined to endorse him, instead endorsing Allen Quist. (Who was then utterly humiliated in the primary, illustrating the overlap between "Minnesotans who go to caucuses" and "Minnesotans who vote.")

6. Caucusing Minnesotan Republicans went for Romney in 2008. But that was before Obama took Romney's health care plan to the national stage and the Republicans decided they hated it. Also, he was the underdog at this point in 2008, and Minnesotan Republicans were convinced that McCain was a liberal in Republican clothing, much like they're convinced of that this year with Romney.

7. Ron Paul tries to pull in Independents, but the whole caucus setup is not very independent-friendly. I'm surprised he did as well as he did.

8. There's no way Minnesotans were going to go for a meanie like Newt. Santorum is a dickhead, but he's a mild-mannered, personable dickhead. The sort of dickhead a Minnesotan can feel comfortable with. Newt, not so much.

So: yes. Santorum surges in Minnesota. This isn't because Minnesota is a particularly conservative state, but because we run caucuses. In the highly unlikely event that Santorum wins the Republican nomination, he'll be trounced in Minnesota.

Comments

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

I went to the 2004 caucuses here in WA. They sucked. 20 precincts all in the same school cafeteria, everyone shouting to try to be heard. The PCO was a little old lady who pretended not to hear anyone who disagreed with her. Crappiest political experience of my life. Give me a secret ballot any day.

The political reporter for the local paper pointed out that in the Iowa caucuses, Romney didn't get the number of votes he would have needed to win a local County Council seat. The caucus system is absurd.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Thank you for elucidating this rather arcane system. Coming from a state that while it lacks any political sanity at all (we brought you Joe Lieberman, to our shame, and will probably be replacing him with Triple H's Mother-in-Law [at least as of 2001, when they were still running that plotline and I had a roommate who watched wrestling], I shit you not), has primaries, this is very helpful. That said, my selfish political hopes are that the Republicans fight one another down to the primaries and disintegrate, but that's me.

[racebannon42.livejournal.com]

I attended the GOP caucus for the 5th ward. ( N Mpls)
Personally I dont care much for any of the canidates, I was a Huntsman supporter, But I went along with my neighbor, since she wanted to go. There were only about 40 people there, but then again N Minneapolis is not a republican stronghold.

Final Tallies were something like this
Paul 21
Rommney 8
Santorum 7
Gingrich 2
Huntsman 1

GOP also has the resolution process.
My precicnt was remarkably progressive for a group of republicans. One person propsed that the GOP remove the Definition of Marriage as man and woman from the party platform, and it passed unanimously.

[sage (from livejournal.com)]

TPaw is a personable dickhead, too. Explains a lot.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Another article I read on NPR pointed out that it's conservatives who go to the Republican caucuses, and the cause the Minnesota conservatives really care about is abortion. Two news stories have brought abortion concerns to the fore: the Koman/Plannned Parenthood debacle (from the anti-abortion point of view) and the frothing that's been going on about Obama's requirement that health plans, including Catholic ones, must cover family planning and abortion. And Santorum's their man: not only is he adamantly against abortion for any reason whatsoever, he also hints he's against birth control. Just their kind of guy!

[naomikritzer]

That's awesome. It warms my heart to know that Minneapolis Republicans are pro-gay-marriage.

[naomikritzer]

Yes. The abortion issue was also central with Arne Carlson vs Allen Quist. (One of the many weird things about 1990 was that a Republican who supported abortion rights defeated a Democrat who opposed them! I was not actually living in the state yet but the whole "OMG so-and-so was at a pool party with naked teenagers" or whatever the scandal was actually got some coverage in Madison.)

[naomikritzer]

Yes. Our state loves personable dickheads.

Although it also elected Jesse Ventura, who was kind of in-your-face. Jesse was running against Skip Humphery and Norm Coleman, though, and I think his election was the result of Minnesotans being absolutely fed up with the sort of double-talk they were getting from the major party candidates.

[naomikritzer]

When I express this hope, Ed points out that the extended battle strengthened Obama, rather than weakening him. On one hand, I think Romney is getting at least some of his gaffes out of the way (and let's not kid ourselves: it's going to be Romney, in the end). On the other, Romney and Gingrich have been far more openly negative than Obama and Clinton. (Clinton and Obama slung a lot of nasty implications at each other. Gingrich and Romney are calling each other liars, straight out, in their ads.)

I'm mostly hoping for a scenario that leaves the far-right nutjobs feeling so alienated that they just stay home. (Although unfortunately this will just persuade the Republicans that they have to run people who will kiss the ass of the far right in order to win elections. We'll worry about that in a future cycle, I guess.)

[naomikritzer]

I think a caucus system is OK for doing party endorsements -- I just think there should also be a primary. For statewide races, we sometimes have situations where everyone agrees to drop out if someone else gets the party endorsement, but a lot of the time we have a primary. I don't know why we don't get to have a primary for the presidential race, too.

[naomikritzer]

And hey, you got a mention from Minnesotans United for All Families: http://mnunited.org/release.cfm?releaseid=11

[corinnethewise.livejournal.com]

I don't even study American politics (let alone state and local versions) but I am freakishly in love with your dissections of Minnesota politics. (I have also never lived in Minnesota, adding to the oddity). :)

[kellymccullough.livejournal.com]

We were flying back from Cali on the day Ventura was elected (voted absentee) and the Californians kept asking how this was possible. Our theory at the time, and I maintain it to this day is that Skip Humphrey is the most boring politician in the history of the state of Minnesota, which a hell of an achievement, and that Coleman is a giant slithering sack of puss and everybody knows it, though for some, he's their giant slithering sack of puss.

[stargoatpdx.livejournal.com]

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you could actually be challenged and evicted if your neighbor points out that you still have a Wellstone sign in your yard and a bumper sticker that says "Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Republican."
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Huh.

My state party draws a clear distinction between nominating candidates for public office and everything else. If someone didn’t want me voting on the party platform, for example, I suppose they could challenge whether I subscribe to the our statement of principles. But as I recall, Oregon state law is very clear that anyone who checks the “Pacific Green Party” box on the voter registration card is entitled to vote in our nominations for public office, no matter what they believe.

I’m not really familiar with federal laws or precedents having to do with the “one person, one vote” concept, and I wonder how throwing someone out of a party caucus for their beliefs complies with those.

I wonder: If a voter can’t find a party willing to accept them, are they just SOL as far as federal law is concerned? That is, is there a federal right to have a say in who gets *nominated* for public office, as opposed to who gets elected? (For the moment I’m ignoring options like “start your own party” and “use a nomination mechanism that doesn’t make use of parties”.)

[naomikritzer]

Well -- first of all, I may be totally wrong about the possibility of evicting people. (My parents said that at their caucus, they were told that if they knew there to be a Republican present, they could challenge that person. Why any Republican would go to a DEMOCRATIC caucus in a primary season that's this interesting for Republicans and this boring for Democrats, however... anyway, this may have been a joke, I'm not 100% sure.) I have heard it stated rather firmly that you are not supposed to go to a party's caucus unless you consider yourself to be aligned with that party's important principles. Who exactly decides whether you're aligned or not, I'm not sure.

Fundamentally, however -- I think the basic problem here is that although there are all sorts of laws about voting rights in the Presidential election, the primaries are much more the domain of the parties rather than the government. I mean, let's say I started a new political party, the Naomi Party USA, and let's further say that somehow this party got really big. I'm pretty sure that if the Naomists decided to do our Presidential nomination by some other method -- let's say, a single big national meeting on July 4th of the election year, held in Kansas City on the grounds that it was centrally located -- that this would not violate any laws.

And then there's the weirdness that is our state-by-state setup. The reason NH has the first primary is because THEIR state law says that they will have the first primary. Other states have challenged this and it's been handled by the parties' willingness to kiss up to NH and IA.

The Democrats and Republicans are so entrenched that it really feels as if LOGICALLY we should totally have the right (the legal right!) to have a say in the candidates, but I'm pretty sure that's not actually the case. If the Democrats decided to throw out the whole primary system and do it with a national meeting in Kansas City, I think they could. (They wouldn't, because people would be so outraged, and outraging people at you is not a good way to win elections.)