What Happened at the Jefferson County Caucus?

The short version? After 9 1/2 hours (!): “a slate of 73 delegates was chosen, with their support split among Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich.”

The long version, however, involves intraparty conflict, allegations of theft of the roll as well as hijacking of the event. The fallout from the caucus is bitter and ongoing.

In short, from what is out there (other than the Dear Leader, I haven’t seen any other media reports on the JeffCo caucus), the Ron Paul faction (allied with the small Mitt Romney contingent) joined forces to take on the establishment types who were in favor of a “unity” slate of delegates. I’m not sure, but I think the establishment also tried to pull the “bind the delegates to the primary” trick that Rick Santorum types were trying to advance statewide.

In JeffCo, it sounds like the Paul people had a majority of the attendees (see this report). According to the linked account, the Central Committee folks stole the roll, held the meeting “hostage,” and attempted to use the stolen roll to bargain for half the delegates. In the end, the Paul slate was removed because some paperwork was not filled out right (the delegates’ addresses were not on the proper form, only their names).

The opposing view is that the Paul people unfairly took over the meeting and tried to impose their slate on the meeting (report at this link).

This sounds a bit similar to the well-publicized St. Charles County Caucus, at which, in my view, was another attempt to shut out the Paul voters. Being the best-organized is not unethical; in a caucus, the majority rules, especially if they have command of Robert’s Rules of Order. It looks to me like there was some desperation across Missouri to keep Ron Paul from getting delegates. I’m not in the Paul camp, but this is just wrong, and in the end, destructive.

On the lighter side, for some breathless, poorly written local commentary on this and other local political happenings, see this Facebook page for “Politigal Republic.”

UPDATE: The Romney and Paul camps are officially asking that the Jefferson County caucus results be thrown out due to “serious and prejudicial misconduct.”  Party chair Janet Engelbach said the missing rolls mentioned above disappeared because they were “taken by a volunteer, who had to leave early and inadvertently packed the documents up with her computer.”

UPDATE: The secretary for the caucus has refused to sign off on the delegate selection.

Jefferson County Caucus Preview

Today, county GOP members gathered at the Hillsboro R-3 Intermediate School to begin the process of officially awarding our convention delegates to the presidential candidate of our choice. This is not to be confused with Missouri’s February 7 presidential primary; that was a non-binding “beauty contest,” as the pundits like to call it. While this caucus already occurred, I’m going to preview it.

The countywide primary results may give us a preview of the caucus. Here’s how Jefferson County voted:

• Rick Santorum – 56.7%
• Mitt Romney – 20.6%
• Ron Paul – 14.7%
• Newt Gingrich was not on the ballot

These results are similar to what happened statewide:

• Santorum – 55.2%
• Romney – 25.3%
• Paul – 12.2%

The conventional wisdom is that caucuses, since they require more of a time investment, draw more hardcore, committed voters than primaries do. But I suspect that the fact that our primary was non-binding kept a lot of less-interested voters away, so the primary electorate may be pretty similar to the caucus attendees.

However, this caucus system is rather complicated, so the results at the county level won’t say much. It doesn’t appear as if any real numbers will come out of the county caucuses – just lists of delegates. But these delegates will likely profess their support for their favorite candidate, so we can judge the delegates based on who they said they support. Santorum had the most supporters in the primary, but Paul is known for having committed voters that eagerly attend caucus events. Both of these candidates appeared in Missouri over the weekend, and Romney made a later appearance.

Judging by his big primary win, one would have to assume Santorum will do well, both county- and state-wide, on Saturday. Committed as they are, it seems unlikely Paul voters can overcome his big deficit here.