Ain't You Glad You Joined the Republicans?

That's an Abraham Lincoln quote, and the title of a funny book.

I thought of it reading John Fund in the Political Diary on the importance of turnout and weather in the Iowa Caucuses:

One reason some Democrats may skip the event is that Democratic caucuses are not the businesslike affairs the GOP caucuses are. At a Republican caucus, voters show up, listen to very short speeches, fill out a slip of paper, drop it in a box and leave. At a Democratic caucus, voters show up at 6:30 pm and vote for delegates for each candidate. But first they must listen to short speeches on behalf of all the candidates. With a half-dozen or more candidates, that takes time. Then everyone breaks into "preference groups," with voters gathering in various corners of the room to express support for a given candidate. If a candidate doesn't receive 15% or more support, his or her supporters must join another candidate's preference group. In most of Iowa, this effectively means only Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards will elect any delegates to the local county convention, which is held later. It also means that a voter's second choice can be highly important in who actually wins. Ominously, while Mrs. Clinton has many supporters, she's not the second choice of many Obama or Edwards backers.

Further complicating matters is that rural areas are given more weight than urban ones in selecting delegates. In a small town, 25 caucus-goers might carry as much impact as 250 who stop by a downtown Des Moines caucus.

Every year I get a little less proud of my party, although when they put Rep Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens in prison, I'll bump up. But reading this, it looks like the GOP gets the better deal.

Politics Posted by jk at December 19, 2007 1:18 PM