No Results from the Raucous Caucus     Permalink

The Missouri caucuses were held yesterday. In contrast to most caucuses, which have very strict rules about how they operate, the Missouri Republican Party is apparently very relaxed and lets each county do whatever it wants. Decisions about whether delegates are elected individually or as slates, whether a secret ballot will be used, and so on, are up to each county.

The result was complete chaos at some locations, with fights over the rules, rooms that were too small to hold all the attendees, and more. As a consequence of the mess, no vote totals are available yet. By Tuesday, we will already have had the results of Puerto Rico, which votes today, and all eyes will be on the Illinois primary, so Missouri will have been forgotten by then.

One lesson from 2012 is that the Republicans are not capable of running caucuses as many of them have ended in turmoil. In contrast, the 2008 Democratic caucuses were hard fought but well run.

Puerto Rico in the Spotlight Today     Permalink

Puerto Rico is politically a bit of an oddity. Residents of the territory are U.S. citizens, can travel freely to the U.S., but do not pay U.S. income taxes, and cannot vote in general elections. They can vote in both Democratic and Republican primaries, however, and they are voting today in the Republican primary. A sign of how close the GOP nomination has become is that both Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have campaigned in Puerto Rico in an attempt to win its 23 RNC delegates. If any candidate gets over 50% of the vote, he gets all 20 of the delegates elected today. If no candidate gets over 50%, the 20 delegates are split proportionally. The remaining three delegates are the unpledged RNC members.

A hot issue in Puerto Rico is the November vote on the status of the island. People will then be able to choose between statehood, independence, or the status quo. Santorum waded into the November election on statehood when he said that he could support statehood if the island switched from Spanish to English, something that is unlikely to happen quickly given that few people there outside the tourist industry speak English. The local establishment supports Romney and he is expected to pick up most of the delegates.

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