Civic Duty

Rachelle and I attended the dreadfully dull neighborhood Republican caucus meeting last night. Here's a summary of the proceedings:

• The chairman read us rules and party platform for 20 minutes
• We took nominations for precinct chair, vice chair, secretary/treasurer and delegates. Most nominees declined and there was lots of uncomfortable silence.
• Nominees gave 90 second speeches. These tended to sound a lot alike. They followed one of two scripts, the "severely conservative" people who think that compromise shows weakness, and the admitted moderates who are tired of extremist rhetoric from both sides.
• Voting was much more streamlined than last time, as it was by preference. Everyone listed all the candidates in order of preference so we didn't have to take multiple votes to arrive at a majority.
• The "severe conservatives" carried the day, leaving me feeling like I am not very well represented.

 Nobody could tell me what issues were important in the county or state. The Severe Conservatives were all very opposed to Common Core curriculum (I don't know and don't care), and Obamacare (we all hate that), and wanted the state to take over management of public lands from the Feds (pipe dream). Since there were no hot primary races attendance was down and there wasn't much excitement. Someday I might try and get elected as a delegate to see what the state convention is about, but if it's anything like the neighborhood meeting maybe I should forget about it.