Michigan Patriots,

A big thanks goes out to everyone who supported the Caucus for Victory plan.  Unfortunately, the Republican Party State Committee voted to go for the open primary after all.  In fact, all but 17 Committee members (out of over 100) voted for the open primary.

Some debate the State Central Committee had last Saturday.  After 12 minutes (3 speakers for each side, each given 2 minutes to speak) the committee voted overwhelmingly to end discussion and vote for the open primary.

Twelve minutes.  For the most important decision facing the Republican Party this year.

For a decision ultimately affecting who Michigan votes to send to the White House in 2012.

12 minutes.  That was the overwhelming vote of the state committee—the people the grassroots elected to represent them.

They voted to cut off debate after twelve minutes, and then to adopt the open primary.

This is surely a loss for the state party, which in addition to inviting Michigan Democrats to vote for the Republican nominee, also set a primary date that puts us about 20th out of 50 states to have one—late enough that Michigan will likely not even vote until after the nominee is certain.

So, Michigan is now pretty much irrelevant to the race for Republican nomination.

This is unfortunate, since Michigan could be a swing state come November 2012.

But now, without campaigns having an interest in winning Michigan, that door-to-door groundwork needed to beat Barack Obama will probably not begin until next year. 

Much too late.

It's a shame to think what could have been, had the policy committee, and ultimately the state committee, made wiser choices.

• We could have set an earlier date, and been significant.
• We could have had proportion representation, at least giving all campaigns a shot worth taking.
• We could have had an actual Caucus for Victory, saved taxpayers $10 million, blocked Democrat participation, and given the grassroots something to get fired up about.
  

The date, of all things, illustrates just how foolish the policy committee's decision was. 

I have wonder whether the state central committee even realized that the primary date was going to be that late.  I bet they expected the date, early enough for the RNC to penalize Michigan half its national delegates, to actually be early. 

Yet it looks like Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Washington, Wisconsin, Nevada, plus several small states and of course Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida will all be earlier than Michigan.

I can only assume that they did no research whatsoever into exploring other possibilities, although they claimed to have done so much. 

Fundamentally, people were concerned for months about Democrat participation in the primary.

And the committee came back saying, "we considered all the options, and decided there was nothing at all we could do." 

Except lie about the primary by describing it as "closed."

I'm not one to point fingers and call people dishonest, but the Policy Committee was absolutely aware that the primary plan they developed was not the least bit closed. Yet they continued to describe it this way, as did all of its defenders at the State Committee meeting.

But whether it was an intentional effort to mislead the grassroots into believing that something had been done, or whether it was pure negligence, the result was the same.

Did the state committee do their job?

I contend that if they did, they would have come up with anything better.

Oh, well.  What's done is done.

Still, I think we should all be extremely disappointed in the committee's decision, and particularly the policy committee, who supported the primary plan unanimously.

Policy Committee chairman Mike Cox told the State Committee yesterday that the policy committee reached its decision after much deliberation and discussion with the general public.  This was a wild exaggeration; in fact other than a brief phone call with him, nobody on the Policy Committee discussed the caucus plan with me, and nobody took a look at the materials on the website, got involved on the forums, or submitted suggestions for improve.

Nor did anyone ever offer a substantive criticism of the Caucus for Victory plan.

The except was Bill Bigler, who did, whose concerns I listened to, and who joined the minority of 17 to oppose the open primary.

Otherwise, the supporters of the primary, for their six minutes, recycled the usual spurious criticism. 

They used the "1988" scare tactic, even though the caucus of 1988 bore absolutely no resemblance to the Caucus for Victory plan. 

They claimed alternatives were too "exclusive," even though the caucus plan was designed to allow just as much exclusivity as to exclude Democrats without making it so anybody couldn't vote.  Even for troops overseas, it would have been trivial to allow them (and only them) to vote by mail.

At any rate, what's done.  Those who never took part in the discussion adopted a meager voting scheme.  Let's hope we don't lose Michigan for it.

The events will play out over the next year.  The failure will be obvious. 

Next year, another state committee will be elected.  Perhaps the next will have the courage to change things for the better.

Will you help find serious, committed people to run, and the precinct delegates to elect them?

I'll remind you next year.


For Victory,
Adam

This video shows you the caucus—including registration and an actual acted-out caucus.  It shows you just how easy it is, and how to prevent any fraud. UPDATED: Sample Rules Document Caucus for Victory presentation to Calhoun Tea Party "Why I Don't Support a "Closed" Primary: A Rebuttal to Mike Cox" by State Committee Member Bill Bigler The first document is a PDF that goes into a sample caucus process. There are many ways to run a caucus, and this is a specific example of one of the many ways to do it.