Are Caucuses Really Why Obama is Winning?

The huge support and passion for Obama by average Democratic and Independent voters on the street has been under-reported, imho. Thanks for this.

Also, perhaps the total campaign donation dollars are reported, but I wonder how historic the number of donors is? Isn't this unprecedented? This is a story that reaches into the pockets, hopes, and dreams of so many Americans.

I do think that people frequently use "caucus states" as a shorthand for small states. The issue isn't their voting mechanism. It was Obama's committing to contesting those states aggressively.

jayackroyd - I must disagree with you on that.

Here in Washington, we had a caucus on February 9th and a (meaningless) primary on February 19th.

Obama won every county in the caucus but Clinton did better in the primary and won a few counties (she still lost the overall popular vote though.) It's not the best example because many caucus attenders may not have voted in the primary because they knew in advance that it would not count and their vote had already been counted.

In Texas, there was also a primary and a caucus with both allotting delegates. Clinton won the primary but Obama won the caucus afterward. It would be probable that if Texas held no primary Obama would be declared the "winner" by all accounts becuase of the caucus results.

I know these are not the most scientific of examples but it's interesting to think about.

Make no mistake, the primary reason for Obama's pledged delegate lead is the DNC's complex, Byzantine, system of awarding each candidate a percentage of each state's delegates—not by popular vote mind you but according to a highly complex formula in each state. On the other hand, if each state’s delegates were awarded on a “winner take all” basis as the Republicans do, as the Democrats did in the past, and as how electoral votes are awarded in the general election—Clinton would enjoy a commanding lead in the delegate count.

IN ADDITION, can we really say that the caucus states have selected their delegates by "popular vote". My point is willing a caucus in remote-wherever, OK, Vermont, is not the same as winning by 10% of the popular vote in, say, California is it?

Sure, Stephen, but those were the rules. They're in place for good reasons. (I go over some of those reasons at length here.)

To retrospectively examine the results, or to try to construct a counterfactual result is pointless. Both candidates knew the rules and understood the selection process. To now say that the rules are wrong informs the revisions that will take place next time, but doesn't have anything to do with this time.

"I do think that people frequently use "caucus states" as a shorthand for small states. The issue isn't their voting mechanism. It was Obama's committing to contesting those states aggressively." - jayackroyd, since caucuses do rely on deeply flawed voting mechanism that have produced different results when they are compared with primaries in the same states, it is unreasonable to ignore the valid concerns Clinton supporters have with caucuses, and claim that we are only complaining because they are in small states and Obama has done well in them. Anyway, Texas is not a small state.

The study is not exactly detailed in its descriptions of their methods of projecting the primary votes, which makes it difficult to critically examine, and clearly Hurowitz's support of Obama makes it even more important to question the study. But if, for the sake of argument, they are right and Obama would have won the primaries by a smaller margin in terms of percentage, and a larger margin in terms of vote totals, would Clinton and Obama be closer in pledged delegates?

Also, we absolutely should not change the rules mid-race and give less weight to the caucus delagates. But we shouldn't change the equally ridiculous role of the Superdelegates in mid-race either.

Also - let's not forget that the media fails to account for the caucus states when considering the popular vote. If you included these states you'd most likely see another 100,000 vote differential in favor of Obama.

Hillary surely had as many people able to come to caucus for her as actually caucused for Obama. So what the caucuses measured was the difference in enthusiasm for Clinton and Obama, which is what it was designed to measure.

Are caucuses less democratic? In little ole "remote-wherever, OK, Vermont" we have annual town meetings, which have long been considered the last vestige of "pure democracy," and which resemble the caucus. Long ago the state basically shut down for the day, and towns gathered at the town hall to have a pot luck lunch and argue whether to spend umpteen dollars on a new snow plow. The smaller towns still do that. Larger towns and cities have moved to an evening meeting to discuss some things, and day-long australian ballots for other things. But where they still exist they do represent real democracy - people getting together and trying to convince their neighbors of their point of view, and then taking a vote to plan a course of action. And in that way they resemble caucuses. We've apparently come to think that caucuses are "less democratic" because everybody can't come. But primaries are less interactive, and for that reason "less democratic." Furthermore, we don't have uniform rules even for primaries, which isn't "democratic." It may well be that the caucus system could use some tinkering, but we should be careful what we ask for. Primaries, or even worse, regional primaries, will give more and more power to the very media that so many in the Swamp wring their hands over.

Beyond all that, party nominations aren't governmental activites, and there's no need for them to be "democratic" other than the need to give people a sense of participation, and because the members of the party have decided they want to make nominations democratic.

not true, not true just look at Texas...

Plus, should we really take this seriously since it was written by Obama supporters...they know that caucuses are a way of disenfranchising people directly and indirectly, so they put this "study" to make it look otherwise...

Sick and tired of press peeps parroting the line that caucuses are "less democratic" when the opposite is true. The definition of democracy is governance directly by the people. Anonymous, drive-by voting by a slightly higher percentage of the voting age population is, if anything, more indirect than a room full of dedicated, informed supporters philosophically duking it out in a room together.