Hillary on caucuses
Friday, January 11th, 2008 8:44 am(9:45 a.m.) Hillary Clinton continues to worry about the caucus system disenfranchising people. Eloise Harper on the ABC News blog reports here that while in Las Vegas yesterday the New York senator expressed concern about military people get left out in the cold.
“You have a limited period of time on one day to have your voices heard,” Clinton, D-N.Y., said. “That is troubling to me. You know in a situation of a caucus, people who work during that time — they’re disenfranchised. People who can’t be in the state or who are in the military, like the son of the woman who was here who is serving in the Air Force, they cannot be present.”
Nevada, like Iowa, has a caucus system.
This isn’t all that much different than what Clinton said in Iowa in the closing days before the Jan. 3 caucuses.
It should, however, be a sign to Iowans that if Clinton wins the presidency there’s going to be more than just her loss here to contend with when trying to renew the present system for 2012.
Iowans are cheering the big jump in participation – especially on the Democratic side – but there’s going to be enormous pressure to revamp the system. And in wartime, the idea that military are disenfranchised in one of the country’s most important nominating contests is going to be a hard thing to overcome.
January 11th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Before we worry about a caucus, we could do better at assuring that our troops get to vote. 2006 my son was doing daily patrols from a forward Operating Base in Afghanistan with no opportunity to vote. He was exhausted, low on sleep, & doing the job of 3 men down-range. Mail was erratic as every delivery risked a helicopter being shot down. He was 20, didn’t know when or how to obtain an absentee ballot from Scott County.
I would like to see deployed elegible citizens automatically provided with absentee ballots in October.