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Primary surprise and party politics
Here something that has nothing to do with the presidential primary: when I voted (actually, when I looked at the sample ballot ahead of time), there were also people running for state and ward committee positions. (And not for Congress; apparently that's a *different* primary.) What are those? Turn out they're *party* positions, and reddit led to some fascinating primers on the subject:
http://www.democraticstatecommittee.com/DSC/Primer_DSC.htm
http://www.democraticstatecommittee.com/DSC/Primer_DTCs.htm
Even if you don't live in MA, it might be an interesting look at how party politics works. Like, it sounds really easy to join up and start working your way up from the ground floor. Also, not much of a progressive caucus -- because the party is old and hostile, or because progressives haven't been showing up? And the MA Democratic party has a lot of diversity baked in, like equal state seats for men and women, and seats reserved for gays, racial minorities, linguistic minorities, etc.
If I wasn't busy job hunting and possibly relocating, I'd be tempted to go look up my local committee right now. Maybe in a few months. I've said before "it's not like I'm committed to being a Democrat, they just run the people I can vote for", which is true, but it seems likely they'll be running all the people I can vote for for the foreseeable future, might as well get involved.
(I wonder if anyone has ever been centrist enough to be involved in both parties at the same time.)
http://www.democraticstatecommittee.com/DSC/Primer_DSC.htm
http://www.democraticstatecommittee.com/DSC/Primer_DTCs.htm
Even if you don't live in MA, it might be an interesting look at how party politics works. Like, it sounds really easy to join up and start working your way up from the ground floor. Also, not much of a progressive caucus -- because the party is old and hostile, or because progressives haven't been showing up? And the MA Democratic party has a lot of diversity baked in, like equal state seats for men and women, and seats reserved for gays, racial minorities, linguistic minorities, etc.
If I wasn't busy job hunting and possibly relocating, I'd be tempted to go look up my local committee right now. Maybe in a few months. I've said before "it's not like I'm committed to being a Democrat, they just run the people I can vote for", which is true, but it seems likely they'll be running all the people I can vote for for the foreseeable future, might as well get involved.
(I wonder if anyone has ever been centrist enough to be involved in both parties at the same time.)