Important Caucus Information!!

[mosquitobite]

For The WIN!

To summarize:

This seems like a very important article. Probably should sticky for each Caucus forum node.

The article is very detailed, so I thought it may be helpful to summarize. Not sure if I got this is right, so please correct as needed.

- 'Voting' (straw poll) for a candidate is ceremonial. It does not lead to RP being elected as the state's representative by delegates.

- The Caucus may or may not be at a different place than 'voting' for candidates in a straw poll.

- People need to get elected as delegates at the Caucus. This is the most important event. Again, 'voting' in the straw poll is not the purpose of the Caucus.

- People who want to be delegates give a speech to introduce themselves. The speech is used to get elected to be a delegate by Caucus attendees. Divulging your true support may or may not be best way to get there.

- If you say you're for RP in your speech, you'll get selected by other RP fans, but won't be selected by non-RP fans. If you say you're unsure in your speech, then you may pick-up non-RP votes, but at the risk of missing-out on RP votes. Also, there is no guarantee that there aren't hucksters, er, fake reps looking to take away RP votes, only to later support another candidate. This may be mitigated if all RP supporters know who is for RP, but other's don't (just conjecture on my part). In other words, it a game of organizing ourselves while confusing our opponents.

- Knowing the names of RP's delegates for your district before attending the Caucus seems best to avoid confusion. Not sure where to get this info, but your local RP rep office or meetup.com site probably has a list.

- There are only a certain number of slots for delegates and back-ups from each district.

- Caucus attendees write down the people that you want as delegates. You don't have to fill out all the slots. Just write-down the names of known RP supporters!

- Limited slots and limited votes means that there shouldn't be more RP delegates than there are slots. Otherwise, we'll be diluting our votes.

- Once delegates are elected at the local level, this game gets replayed at the state and national levels.

Basics:

If there are 10 delegate spots and you have 8 Ron Paul delegate noms - only write their names down. Don't vote for ANY other supporter than KNOWN Ron Paul supporters. To do so, dilutes our strength.

If there are 10 delegate spots and you have 15 Ron Paul delegate noms - everyone should know before votes are cast who will be the 10. If you leave it up in the air, you will be diluting your strength.

Do NOT vote for people simply because of they say they will be a delegate for Ron Paul.

Perhaps you should come up with questions to ask people (about his stances, etc) to confirm If someone is willing to be a delegate, they should know AT LEAST the basics

 

[passerby]

Thanks for starting a new thread on this topic. It's always good to understand this less-than intuitive process. I think we can save ourselves a lot of heart-ache by learning from roto's experience.

How frustrating will it be if we win a sizable popular 'straw poll' vote, but lose the delegates (hence the nomination)!

 

[RPDelegate]

How frustrating will it be if we win a sizable popular 'straw poll' vote, but lose the delegates (hence the nomination)!

I starting to believe this will happen actually. It's too late to start educating people about the caucus process. Most people going won't even hit this forum today or ever for that matter. So educating a few people just hours prior to the caucus, can help I suppose, but what an absolute shame that it wasn't done early. RP supporters in Iowa are not going in as strong/knowledgeable as they could have been. Good luck and I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

 

[pf_in_nystate]

we can hope

We can hope that a lot of "how to caucus" is spread via word of mouth at the caucus.

People who've been active before, or have been reading the forum today, will tell other attendees to "hang out and vote for the delegate too"

and considering how passionate RP supporters are, it seems safe to assume that most will say "oh, I can help in another way just by hanging here for a few minutes? tell me more about this delegate thing".



Hopefully, this information can spread virally via (literal) word of mouth then dissipating on the internets like everything else has.

 

[passerby]

Hopefully, something like this can be posted for the other state caucus forums so that people are better informed.

I also didn't know about the process until recently. The details will vary by state, of course, but the general framework seems similar.

 

[mosquitobite]

*******************Call to action!!********************

If you live in a caucus state - please spread this information TODAY to your meet up group. If you aren't currently in a meet up group SHAME ON YOU! If the grassroots are to succeed we have to work together. Meetup is an AWESOME place to start!
***************************************************

- If you say you're for RP in your speech, you'll get selected by other RP fans, but won't be selected by non-RP fans. If you say you're unsure in your speech, then you may pick-up non-RP votes, but at the risk of missing-out on RP votes. Also, there is no guarantee that there aren't hucksters, er, fake reps looking to take away RP votes, only to later support another candidate. This may be mitigated if all RP supporters know who is for RP, but other's don't (just conjecture on my part). In other words, it a game of organizing ourselves while confusing our opponents.

- Knowing the names of RP's delegates for your district before attending the Caucus seems best to avoid confusion. Not sure where to get this info, but your local RP rep office or meetup.com site probably has a list.

*********************************************

 

[royalecraig]

Is this still valid 2012 ?

 

[mosquitobite]

Is this still valid 2012 ?

Yes.

 

[CrushingSteps]

Anyone have any further information for the State of NY?

Good luck everyone! I'm going for it!!

 

[KnowNothing]

NY is a primary.

A closed primary might I add.

 

[kammel7]

delegates in Kansas

Anyone know details of delegates in Kansas? I don't think they're selected at the caucus "straw poll"; a self-nomination form is due no later than 2 days after the caucus. Who selects them?