Back to the Future

It was not only the era of muckraking; it was also a crucial period of transition, wrote Scott Nearing about the U.S. in the years leading up to World War I. "There was no radio or television in those days to divert and entertain. People were anxious to hear public questions discussed and debated in the lecture hall."

A similar restlessness was on display in Maine yesterday as tens of thousands of Democratic voters plowed through winter weather to attend presidential caucuses. Here in the River Valley, nearly 200 from seven towns packed the lunchroom at Mountain Valley High School. Many had never caucused before and had the hyper-alert, wary looks of school kids on their first day, determined to get up to speed quickly. Imagine their consternation when they discovered that there were no paper ballots.

Caucuses, they found, are cumbersome. Some first-timers were undoubtedly looking for drive-thru convenience; get in, get out, and get to where you gotta go. But party organizers had an expanded agenda. They wanted voters to stay a while, chat, meet local candidates, sign petitions, leave campaign contributions--in general, to get a good whiff of participatory democracy. The vets were giddy about the turnout.

There was even time enough for some people to change their minds about a preferred candidate. In my group an 8-to-7 split for Obama became 8-to-7 for Clinton when a young couple came to consensus, the husband deferring to the missus. Makes you wonder if they had discussed it much at home beforehand. If they and others talk about it some more afterwards, then the caucuses will have succeeded.

By the way, the River Valley towns went roughly 5:4 for Clinton, at odds with the statewide tally of nearly 3:2 for Obama. Elsewhere, in the more urban precincts, lines were out the door. Surveying the clumsy logistics in Portland, Maine House Speaker Glenn Cummings conceded that "the caucuses are not prepared for this level of capacity. It does make a case for primaries or absentee balloting." Perhaps the caucus will go the way of that uptown restaurant of which Yogi Berra once said, "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."