Nevada Caucus Politics

The importance of the Nevada Caucus

How important is the Nevada Caucus to both the Democrats and Re publican's Political Machine? It is important, but not as important or valued as it is to media pollsters and the importance to build confidence among certain candidates. The reason the pollsters are interested is because of the roller coaster ride the media and pollsters are receiving. The first surprises being the Iowa Caucus win by Mike Huckabee. The second surprise is the win for Hillary Clinton and John McCain in New Hampshire. All three wins were a surprise to the candidates as well as the media. With McCain losing Michigan to Mitt Romney it’s almost considered a crap shoot for Nevada and South Carolina? The pollsters have been wrong and they need some stability in the primary race to establish credibility. The primaries have been so unpredictable international politics and politicians are refraining from commenting and making early alliances due to the fact it’s still any body’s race.

January 19th and Nevada play an important role in helping create stability among the primary and the Political Machine. The turnout for Nevada is expected to be large because of minorities and the involvement of Nevada’s largest labor union representing Culinary Workers Union (Casino) supporting these minorities with about 60,000 supporters and service employees with 17,500 members supporting Obama.

About the Nevada Caucus
Delegates are elected at the town or precinct-level (in larger cities) caucuses attend their desired party's county conventions. There voters elect delegates to the state conventions. From this step those voters at the Nevada conventions elect the delegates to the national conventions. It should also be reinforced that delegates at county, state and national conventions are not required or legally bound to continue to support the candidate they pledged to support at the caucus level or at a lower level convention (county for instance).

Voters in the Republican caucus must have been registered for at least 30 days before the Iowa caucus. So in order to be eligible to vote in the Republican the Republican voter had to be registered in December. Democratic Party rules differ from the GOP. They allow Republicans, Independents and previously unregistered persons to register as Democratic anytime up until the day of the caucus.

A downside to the caucus system is the absence of secret ballot voting and having to declare their candidate in public, along with the confusion and lack of understanding regarding caucus system by many potential voters. Although caucuses are not a secret as voting in a traditional primary the people of Nevada can expect to create some excitement by participating in a caucus rather than the traditional primary. The fact is the caucus induces more energy but is one of the more confusing processes of the political machine no matter which state has a caucus.