A caucusing we did go...

Politics at its most, grass roots, basic level was alive and well in Minnesota tonight. Minnesota is one of the few states that conduct caucuses that give ordinary citizens an extraordinary voice in influencing their party's platform at its most basic level. Yours truly attended the Republican precinct caucus at Apollo High School in St. Cloud this evening.

King Banaian, who was also in attendance, has an excellent rundown of candidate presentations here. It appears that the folks from my precinct (which just happens to be Jim Knoblach's home precinct) were nearly unanimously in favor of Knoblach. Personally, I'm pretty conflicted about the whole thing. I've been caucusing with Knoblach (I live in his precinct) and have worked on his campaigns, and have come to know him personally in the past ten years. At the same time, I have come to know Jay Esmay personally, and consider him more than fit for the task. Either one, in my opinion, would make a stellar 6th District U.S. Congressional candidate. When it finally comes time to endorse, it certainly won't be an easy choice.

One thing is for sure, no matter who gets the nod, whether it's Esmay, or Knoblach or Bachmann or Krinkie, it is my opinion that the 6th district Republicans will not be wanting for an electable candidate who will honor the party platform.

Our individual precinct was well attended (the last time our precinct was convened we had a grand total of six people--tonight we had fifteen and had to move to another room since our table was too small). Since I had prior experience as a convener I was again elected to lead the meeting. Some interesting proposals for changes to the Minnesota Republican Party Platform were proposed. One proposal that was passed was to a motion that it would be the policy of the Minnesota Republican party to allow local governments to describe standards of decency, and the resultant right to regulate and/or ban adult bookstores, strip clubs, or other such venue that would be in odds with those community standards.

Another proposal that was passed was a motion to strike the language (Section 4h) in the platform that would strive to repeal MinnesotaCare. There were several there (including a man who lost his wife to cancer, a man with an otherwise-uninsurable son with diabetes) who stated that they would have been financially ruined without MinnesotaCare. They felt that it was not necessarily socialized medicine, since they paid similar premiums that one would expect if private insurance were available.

One proposal that was struck down in my individual precinct involved a motion to allow gay marriage. The gentleman who put forth the motion argued that gay marriage would necessarily help decrease the promiscuity prevalent in the gay community. That motion, predictably, went down in flames.

One heartening aspect of the evening was an uncharacteristic willingness by precinct participants to go the extra mile to help their party. We filled our slate for six delegates (yours truly included) and six alternates, as well as five of fifteen attendees (yours truly included) who volunteered to be election judges.

Since I'm a duly-elected delegate, I'll also be attending the District 15 convention, tentatively scheduled for April 22nd at SCSU. I'm looking forward to the experience.

***UPDATE***

I see that King and I are not alone among the party activists... Uncle Ben, Jeff , Kevin and Bogus Doug also attended their respective caucii and were elected to be delegates. Huzzah!

(Filed under elections)