I joined the Republican party a couple of years ago. I wasn't satisfied with my previous registration, largely due to my own ignorance about that party's positions, and I decided to start shopping around for one that fit me better. I don't subscribe to the idea that political parties are inherited on faith like religions (okay, I don't subscribe to that idea for religions, either), but I opted to join the party of my parents to make an informed decision. The fact that Republicans have a reputation for villainy also factored in, because whenever it becomes socially acceptable to bash a group, I want to know more.
So last year I went to the New Paltz Republican caucus for the first time, and it was suggested that I nominate Mike Nielson for Highway Superintendent. He didn't take the line, but his actions since would make any fiscal conservative proud, especially considering that one longtime member told me afterwards, "Let's see if your boy Nielson can do the work with his full-time job in Kingston." It was certainly a splashy way to enter into party politics.
Nevertheless, I regret doing it, and I won't do it again.
As I told Nielson recently, if we're going to have party politics, let's have party politics. Although my nomination failed, at least two registered Democrats ran on the Republican line for town positions last year. I don't think that's right.
There are good reasons for a candidate to want his or her name on more than one line. And with the timing of local caucuses - this year both are expected to be in August - it makes sense to try for as many as possible, to avoid that awkward feeling when your own party gives the nod to someone else. It's legal and it's appropriate.
It also undermines democracy.
In college, I made it a habit of running for the main leadership role of a club I belonged to every year. I never wanted the position, but it bothered me that only one candidate was willing to step up. That's not democracy by any measure I understand, even if it works in countries like China and Russia. Democracy is about choice, and not just the choice of which line to vote for Toni Hokanson on.
I'm a thinking voter, and I do my best to choose a candidate based on qualifications. I've never voted a party line in my life. Many people do vote their party line, though, and don't care about choices, because they only see their preferred row. These folks are also done a disservice, because in their ignorance they can cast a vote for someone who isn't a member of their own party.
So my dilemma is that there are some good candidates in this town who I may vote for in November, but whom I won't be supporting come the caucus because they belong to another party, and in my mind belong on another line. But New Paltz is a town virtually run by a cabal which excludes not only Republicans, but many Democrats and virtually all members of other parties.
In short, there's no qualified Republicans willing to step up. No one willing to help me, to help us have a choice.
To curtail any suggestions to the contrary, I have a career I love which requires me to be out of town when most local meetings are held. That alone makes me an inappropriate candidate for any local elected office, so I can't step up and put my money where my mouth is.
I'd like to shake the trees, though, and help find some willing citizens to take a stab at civic duty. New Paltz has too long been bereft of choice on Election Day, and I for one would very much like to help solve that problem at the Republican caucus by casting a vote for a GOP candidate or two.
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Showing posts with label Democratic Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Democratic Party. Show all posts
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Monday, March 9, 2009
The Difference Between a Cactus and a Caucus
is
(ha! ha! funny, it is a joke people!)
Caucus Update (see my previous post-rant on this topic here): At last Monday’s Democratic Committee meeting there was a discussion about the timing of the caucus and its impact on absent college student voters if held in June. Proponents of a September date spoke of the merits of a shorter campaign season. Some members felt the earlier June date was better for an incumbent because elected officials would know whether or not they were nominated and could plan accordingly. Additionally, this earlier timing would allow elected officials to focus on the busy budget time in the fall. I still believe, in the name of little “d” democracy, the caucus should be held in September.
There was a debate about the ramifications of positioning the caucus before or after independent line petitions are due in mid-August. One question that came up: can someone sign an independent petition and vote at the caucus? The group was not clear on the answer. We should have an answer to that by the next meeting. (Or if you think you know, please comment below!) Either way, if election law allows it, the committee proposed they write the caucus rules to clearly state that someone can not participate in the caucus if they already signed an independent petition. Procedures for monitoring this were discussed.
Two scenarios emerged:
1. If the caucus is in June, before the petitions are due, people could caucus and then later sign a petition. So if there is a June caucus, in late August all petitions could be checked against the caucus vote. This would allow the committee to knock an opponent off the ballot, that is, invalidate them for breaking the rules.
2. If the caucus is in September, the list of petitioners can be referenced at the caucus so the committee can check people at the door.
This is some hardball stuff that citizens seeking the Democratic nomination and/or and independent line need to know about! BTW - Apparently numerous candidates have already submitted letters of interest to the committee, but this information is not shared with the full committee until the candidate search committee has reviewed all applications. It is unclear as to when this will occur.
If you are wondering about whether or not you can vote in the Democratic caucus: Unless you were registered Democrat before last November’s election or you are new to the community and intend on registering as a Democrat at least thirty days before the caucus, you are out of luck.
The committee decided that they will vote on a caucus date as soon as the political calendar is released in April. Last year's political calendar came out on April 11th. The only scheduled committee meeting in April is on Thursday the 9th. However, my guess is they may schedule another meeting in April if the calendar does not come out by the 9th, otherwise, we will not know the caucus date until May 4th (which just happens to be my birthday.)
kt
(ha! ha! funny, it is a joke people!)
Caucus Update (see my previous post-rant on this topic here): At last Monday’s Democratic Committee meeting there was a discussion about the timing of the caucus and its impact on absent college student voters if held in June. Proponents of a September date spoke of the merits of a shorter campaign season. Some members felt the earlier June date was better for an incumbent because elected officials would know whether or not they were nominated and could plan accordingly. Additionally, this earlier timing would allow elected officials to focus on the busy budget time in the fall. I still believe, in the name of little “d” democracy, the caucus should be held in September.
There was a debate about the ramifications of positioning the caucus before or after independent line petitions are due in mid-August. One question that came up: can someone sign an independent petition and vote at the caucus? The group was not clear on the answer. We should have an answer to that by the next meeting. (Or if you think you know, please comment below!) Either way, if election law allows it, the committee proposed they write the caucus rules to clearly state that someone can not participate in the caucus if they already signed an independent petition. Procedures for monitoring this were discussed.
Two scenarios emerged:
1. If the caucus is in June, before the petitions are due, people could caucus and then later sign a petition. So if there is a June caucus, in late August all petitions could be checked against the caucus vote. This would allow the committee to knock an opponent off the ballot, that is, invalidate them for breaking the rules.
2. If the caucus is in September, the list of petitioners can be referenced at the caucus so the committee can check people at the door.
This is some hardball stuff that citizens seeking the Democratic nomination and/or and independent line need to know about! BTW - Apparently numerous candidates have already submitted letters of interest to the committee, but this information is not shared with the full committee until the candidate search committee has reviewed all applications. It is unclear as to when this will occur.
If you are wondering about whether or not you can vote in the Democratic caucus: Unless you were registered Democrat before last November’s election or you are new to the community and intend on registering as a Democrat at least thirty days before the caucus, you are out of luck.
The committee decided that they will vote on a caucus date as soon as the political calendar is released in April. Last year's political calendar came out on April 11th. The only scheduled committee meeting in April is on Thursday the 9th. However, my guess is they may schedule another meeting in April if the calendar does not come out by the 9th, otherwise, we will not know the caucus date until May 4th (which just happens to be my birthday.)
kt
Sunday, February 22, 2009
“They Don’t Vote”
I have written before about my Democrat dilemma, regarding how conflicted I am with my party registration and the lack of progressive politics in this town despite a Democratic monopoly in our elected leadership. Another chapter has been added to this saga.
“They don’t vote” is the response I received from a few of our elected leaders (Democrats, of course) when I questioned the Democratic Committee’s proposed plan to hold the town caucus in June this year when many college students are likely to be out of town and will be deprived of an opportunity to participate. Up for grabs are Town Supervisor, two board seats, and the highway superintendent job. The state board of elections sets the schedule as to when a caucus or primary can be held, typically the earliest day is in June. New York State and New York City both hold their primaries in September.
Call me crazy but systematic disenfranchisement of a significant portion of the electorate is not cool. There are other demographic groups who are not here all year. We have many senior citizens who spend quite a bit of the year down south. I know a couple people who work here at the college weekdays but are in the city with spouses or significant others on the weekends. Are days of residence a requirement for voting? College students, or anyone for that matter, are allowed to register at their New Paltz address if: they are a U.S. citizen, are 18 years old, live at their present address at least thirty days, are not in jail, and do not claim the right to vote anywhere else. Would the committee dare hold the caucus in the summer when families are away on vacation or in the winter when the seniors are gone? I don’t think so.
Good governments set election dates at a time when it can be reasonably sure that the entire electorate is available to vote. This is why many countries hold their elections on weekends, or they make it a required holiday, always, not just on presidential years. In 2001, the village voted to move their elections to May, avoiding an unsuccessful attempt to move them from March to June. (Smile about the gadfly in this New Paltz Times article about student’s influence on New Paltz politics.) Two college students ran for village board last year, meaning we would have a college student on the village board right now if Pete Healey had not decided to run, so don’t tell me college students aren’t paying attention, they are participating already.
Another compelling reason for later primaries or caucuses is our leaders can stay focused on governing, not on getting re-elected. Shorter campaign seasons mean incumbents are not concentrating on/distracted by campaigning for as long a period of time.
However, and this really perplexes me because of who is advocating for the early caucus, there is an incumbents’ advantage to a late caucus. Independent nominating petitions can be sought five weeks after the start date for a petition or caucus of a major party. By holding a caucus before the independent petitions are filed, which would be sometime mid-August if the caucus is in June, the party opens themselves up to attack. By waiting, the party gets their candidates, and due to the proximity to the general election, that is pretty much the end of it. By holding the caucus earlier, if there are disgruntled losers, be they Democrats or unaffiliated candidates who tried to get nominations and failed to do so, there is still time to get an independent line and mount a major campaign against the Democrats by using the whole five-week petitioning period as an early campaign.
Holding the caucus in June is a strange risk to take after last year’s filing fiasco which resulted in a write-in campaign where the candidate that got the nod, but not his name on the ballot, very nearly lost. Maybe it is concern that holding a September caucus leaves a deadline for filing that is awfully close? This should not be a problem with a competent filer.
Despite my thoughts that shaking things up with the party with a viable independent attack sounds perhaps just what this town needs, I can not get past the disenfranchisement of the college students. Bottom line, I can not be party to (don’t pardon the pun) a timeline that ensures the students who are here ten months out of the year, but chose to go home or away in the summer, can’t vote. To say “They don’t vote”, is what sociologists call blaming the victim. The onus is on the leadership to set up a system where all voters have the opportunity to vote and are incentivized to participate. Neither occurs with a June caucus.
The discussion about the timing of the caucus occurred at the last Democratic committee meeting, which I was unable to attend. Lesson learned: the gadfly can't miss these meetings! But the gadfly’s plate is quite full… so, please, if you are a registered Democrat and feel the caucus should be held when we can be reasonably sure the electorate is in town, start coming to the meetings which are now being held twice a month, the first Monday and second Thursday at Village Hall. We need more gadflies!
kt
“They don’t vote” is the response I received from a few of our elected leaders (Democrats, of course) when I questioned the Democratic Committee’s proposed plan to hold the town caucus in June this year when many college students are likely to be out of town and will be deprived of an opportunity to participate. Up for grabs are Town Supervisor, two board seats, and the highway superintendent job. The state board of elections sets the schedule as to when a caucus or primary can be held, typically the earliest day is in June. New York State and New York City both hold their primaries in September.
Call me crazy but systematic disenfranchisement of a significant portion of the electorate is not cool. There are other demographic groups who are not here all year. We have many senior citizens who spend quite a bit of the year down south. I know a couple people who work here at the college weekdays but are in the city with spouses or significant others on the weekends. Are days of residence a requirement for voting? College students, or anyone for that matter, are allowed to register at their New Paltz address if: they are a U.S. citizen, are 18 years old, live at their present address at least thirty days, are not in jail, and do not claim the right to vote anywhere else. Would the committee dare hold the caucus in the summer when families are away on vacation or in the winter when the seniors are gone? I don’t think so.
Good governments set election dates at a time when it can be reasonably sure that the entire electorate is available to vote. This is why many countries hold their elections on weekends, or they make it a required holiday, always, not just on presidential years. In 2001, the village voted to move their elections to May, avoiding an unsuccessful attempt to move them from March to June. (Smile about the gadfly in this New Paltz Times article about student’s influence on New Paltz politics.) Two college students ran for village board last year, meaning we would have a college student on the village board right now if Pete Healey had not decided to run, so don’t tell me college students aren’t paying attention, they are participating already.
Another compelling reason for later primaries or caucuses is our leaders can stay focused on governing, not on getting re-elected. Shorter campaign seasons mean incumbents are not concentrating on/distracted by campaigning for as long a period of time.
However, and this really perplexes me because of who is advocating for the early caucus, there is an incumbents’ advantage to a late caucus. Independent nominating petitions can be sought five weeks after the start date for a petition or caucus of a major party. By holding a caucus before the independent petitions are filed, which would be sometime mid-August if the caucus is in June, the party opens themselves up to attack. By waiting, the party gets their candidates, and due to the proximity to the general election, that is pretty much the end of it. By holding the caucus earlier, if there are disgruntled losers, be they Democrats or unaffiliated candidates who tried to get nominations and failed to do so, there is still time to get an independent line and mount a major campaign against the Democrats by using the whole five-week petitioning period as an early campaign.
Holding the caucus in June is a strange risk to take after last year’s filing fiasco which resulted in a write-in campaign where the candidate that got the nod, but not his name on the ballot, very nearly lost. Maybe it is concern that holding a September caucus leaves a deadline for filing that is awfully close? This should not be a problem with a competent filer.
Despite my thoughts that shaking things up with the party with a viable independent attack sounds perhaps just what this town needs, I can not get past the disenfranchisement of the college students. Bottom line, I can not be party to (don’t pardon the pun) a timeline that ensures the students who are here ten months out of the year, but chose to go home or away in the summer, can’t vote. To say “They don’t vote”, is what sociologists call blaming the victim. The onus is on the leadership to set up a system where all voters have the opportunity to vote and are incentivized to participate. Neither occurs with a June caucus.
The discussion about the timing of the caucus occurred at the last Democratic committee meeting, which I was unable to attend. Lesson learned: the gadfly can't miss these meetings! But the gadfly’s plate is quite full… so, please, if you are a registered Democrat and feel the caucus should be held when we can be reasonably sure the electorate is in town, start coming to the meetings which are now being held twice a month, the first Monday and second Thursday at Village Hall. We need more gadflies!
kt
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Was I invited to this party?
When I was approaching the age of 18, I was seriously thinking about how I would register myself to vote. I had grown up in a dyed-in-the-wool, old-school Republican household, but my older sister had outed herself to me as a Democrat a few years before. For the most part I found politics to be incredibly dull, but the way my father ranted at the evening news and my sister's passion for debate suggested there was more to it than my teenaged mind could yet comprehend.
Ultimately I opted to join no party, because it seemed like such a Big Deal to join either one. (I don't know if there simply were no other parties at the time, or if I was just ignorant of them; I knew that Anderson had run an impressive third campaign for the Presidency, but it never occurred to me that there were more options to choose from.) Even as a freshman in college I understood that a political party said something about your philosophy, and my own philosophy, that of a young man who hugged trees and hated everything else, didn't seem adequately represented.
I eventually joined a party and was quite content with it until I discovered it had a zillion different agendas that had nothing to do with my environmental positions. It was my fault for checking the box without doing my homework, and it actually served me well until it started fielding major candidates. I decided in the autumn that the party I was registered with had neither the power to accomplish anything of interest, nor the focus to accomplish much that I cared about, so I decided to change my registration to Republican.
Why Republican? Well, blame my father for that one - pretty much all my positive associations with the Republican brand come from him. Dad taught me that you don't solve problems by throwing money at them, that people need to live within their means without expecting a handout, and that we should have learned something from Prohibition before we started the War on Drugs. He believed that it's better to assume people are smart and ethical enough to make good decisions - but that you have to let them make bad decisions, too, without expectation of a handout from the government if you screw your life up.
The Republican party doesn't actually fit my own philosophy any better than the Green did, but it matches in different ways. I think the Green foreign policy platform is just as insane as the Republican energy policy. Truth is, there isn't a party out there that fits how I look at the world perfectly. From what I've read in this very blog, one either picks a party that fits one's philosophy or tries to mold one to that image. The former is impossible for me, and I don't care enough about politics to waste any effort on the latter. As my friends know, I expect to drift from party to party for the next couple of election cycles, seeing what different registrations feel like.
Of course, as long as I stick to New Paltz, my party affiliation is completely irrelevant. In fact, not only is mine irrelevant, I don't really care about anybody else's, either. People who are a party first and person next annoy me to no end. Political parties are a tool, and party loyalists lose track of that fact.
I've been actively lobbying a friend of mine to switch from a smaller party and become a Democrat for a few months now. My reasoning is that if, as I'm told, political decisions only get made in the Democratic caucus, that my friend, a politically active individual, should be in the thick of things trying to make changes. However I don't expect my advice to be heeded, because my friend doesn't wish to offend the head of the party by switching.
I understand that this isn't a big town, and people know each other, but are you going to political meetings to change the world or have drinks with friends? This is a college town - there are plenty of chances to have a drink with friends. I don't understand why someone would care about politics, and then associate emotions with it. Political activity is a tool that can accomplish many things, but so is a drill press - and I don't have a drink with my drill press.
Bill Mulcahy's letters to the editor suggest that so much is wrong in New Paltz because the Democrats control Town Hall. I sometimes agree with Bill's assessment of the problems, but I think it's because we elected five individuals that don't represent our interests. I don't care about their party affiliation, I care about who they are and what they do in the job. Yes, a party can suggest something about how a person would do a job if elected, but until I meet an honest politician I will think that party affiliation is an awfully speculative method of choosing a candidate.
I like the way the Village does it - parties really don't matter in those elections as much. I liked the last town council election even more - you can bet that every vote had thought put into it, if only to remember how to spell the candidate's name. I wonder if we can abolish petitions entirely in the Village and make all races entirely write-in campaigns? Sure would make the candidates work for every vote.
I know, if we did that we wouldn't get as many candidates that open doors for people, but hey, that's politics.
Ultimately I opted to join no party, because it seemed like such a Big Deal to join either one. (I don't know if there simply were no other parties at the time, or if I was just ignorant of them; I knew that Anderson had run an impressive third campaign for the Presidency, but it never occurred to me that there were more options to choose from.) Even as a freshman in college I understood that a political party said something about your philosophy, and my own philosophy, that of a young man who hugged trees and hated everything else, didn't seem adequately represented.
I eventually joined a party and was quite content with it until I discovered it had a zillion different agendas that had nothing to do with my environmental positions. It was my fault for checking the box without doing my homework, and it actually served me well until it started fielding major candidates. I decided in the autumn that the party I was registered with had neither the power to accomplish anything of interest, nor the focus to accomplish much that I cared about, so I decided to change my registration to Republican.
Why Republican? Well, blame my father for that one - pretty much all my positive associations with the Republican brand come from him. Dad taught me that you don't solve problems by throwing money at them, that people need to live within their means without expecting a handout, and that we should have learned something from Prohibition before we started the War on Drugs. He believed that it's better to assume people are smart and ethical enough to make good decisions - but that you have to let them make bad decisions, too, without expectation of a handout from the government if you screw your life up.
The Republican party doesn't actually fit my own philosophy any better than the Green did, but it matches in different ways. I think the Green foreign policy platform is just as insane as the Republican energy policy. Truth is, there isn't a party out there that fits how I look at the world perfectly. From what I've read in this very blog, one either picks a party that fits one's philosophy or tries to mold one to that image. The former is impossible for me, and I don't care enough about politics to waste any effort on the latter. As my friends know, I expect to drift from party to party for the next couple of election cycles, seeing what different registrations feel like.
Of course, as long as I stick to New Paltz, my party affiliation is completely irrelevant. In fact, not only is mine irrelevant, I don't really care about anybody else's, either. People who are a party first and person next annoy me to no end. Political parties are a tool, and party loyalists lose track of that fact.
I've been actively lobbying a friend of mine to switch from a smaller party and become a Democrat for a few months now. My reasoning is that if, as I'm told, political decisions only get made in the Democratic caucus, that my friend, a politically active individual, should be in the thick of things trying to make changes. However I don't expect my advice to be heeded, because my friend doesn't wish to offend the head of the party by switching.
I understand that this isn't a big town, and people know each other, but are you going to political meetings to change the world or have drinks with friends? This is a college town - there are plenty of chances to have a drink with friends. I don't understand why someone would care about politics, and then associate emotions with it. Political activity is a tool that can accomplish many things, but so is a drill press - and I don't have a drink with my drill press.
Bill Mulcahy's letters to the editor suggest that so much is wrong in New Paltz because the Democrats control Town Hall. I sometimes agree with Bill's assessment of the problems, but I think it's because we elected five individuals that don't represent our interests. I don't care about their party affiliation, I care about who they are and what they do in the job. Yes, a party can suggest something about how a person would do a job if elected, but until I meet an honest politician I will think that party affiliation is an awfully speculative method of choosing a candidate.
I like the way the Village does it - parties really don't matter in those elections as much. I liked the last town council election even more - you can bet that every vote had thought put into it, if only to remember how to spell the candidate's name. I wonder if we can abolish petitions entirely in the Village and make all races entirely write-in campaigns? Sure would make the candidates work for every vote.
I know, if we did that we wouldn't get as many candidates that open doors for people, but hey, that's politics.
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