Campaign Details, etc.

Very nice summary of the reasoning behind a caucus. Your summation showed me several things I didn't know... but none so surprising as the "at large" stuff.

I know that my experience with the "caucus" ritual is very limited. Probably the closest thing I have to compare it to is the "Model U.N." experience from my days at UW. Wisconsin holds a primary, as does Pennsylvania and Mississippi. I recall from my days in "Poli-Sci" at college that the caucus is one of the last vestiges of the "parliamentary" system here in the States, and while it is relatively new to the electoral system of government, it is still a popular local election activity in places like Maine, Mass. and Rhode Island.

All I know for sure is that the states and regions that still employ it are VERY fussy about the "geographic" nature of the operation. In Iowa, people drove for hours to get to one of the 19 caucus centers to participate. As far as I know, there are no considerations for those that might work odd hours or late shifts. I am not 100% sure, but it is my concerted opinion that if allowances are made for particular job sectors or industries, the people and states that instituted this process back in the 60s and 70s feared the label "Soviet" might be applied... because there is a STRIKING similarity between the "proletariat" system of election employed by the Soviets and the caucus system of the US, with the only real difference being that the Soviet system was based solely on where you worked, while our caucus system was geo-political in its make up.

The entire electoral system is constructed to ensure that small, lightly populated states have a proportional voice in the election process to the huge, heavily populated states like Texas and California. A balance between size and population, if you will. Concessions the likes of which you are describing seem to me to defeat this purpose.

I would rather see the State (say, Nevada) deem the process important enough to allow, through legislation, considerations to be made to people and employees that must take time off of work to go to the caucus centers... rather than re-write the caucus system to focus on individual industries like education, health care and hospitality/entertainment (i.e. casinos).

As far as Hillary making a stink about the "little stuff"... please. Nit-picking details and fine-print is a political tradition in this country that dates back to its inception, and in no way do the Clintons have a monopoly on that kind of campaign tool. It is a dedicated and oft-employed function of the process that is taken up by both sides of the isle equally, when viewed over the long-term. Hillary just got a local example started that caught your eye... focus on IL or NH, and you'll find Barack or McCain doing the same thing there over another issue. For God's sake, Jefferson and Adams fought a campaign of hate and rhetoric that lasted for several decades beyond both of their Presidential terms!

One point you brought up that IS a concern of mine is the "faithless elector". This is a member of the Electoral College that, for reasons of their own, refuse to cast their vote according to the dictates of the caucus/primary results. It has happened repeatedly through out our history, but it has never happened to where it actually EFFECTED the result of the election. In both FL in '00 and Ohio in '04, it was the popular vote that determined how the electors would cast thier ballots, but had the popular vote been clear and the electors cast OUTSIDE of the election mandate, then we'd have seen an unprecedented MESS, because I know of NO historical example of the Electoral College failing in its course to elect by a clear majority the President of the US. In years when the losing candidate WON the popular vote, it only meant that the margin by which they WON the states with the largest populations was large enough to cover the margin by which they LOST the smaller, less populated states that (electorially speaking) voted for the other candidate. Thus, win enough of the MidWest and Southhern states, and you don't need CA, TX, FL or NY to win the election, even though those states can give you the majority of the popular vote.