Recently starting a political blog has been an education. I have learned several things so far. One of the things I have learned is that there are things called caucuses and the major political parties are holding them very soon, next week in fact.

The reason I found about about these caucus things actually had little to do with this blog. One of the local Republican party members called my sister and asked her to call 20 other people. She agreed, but there was a problem. The Republican party script did not leave a provision for a message. Now my sister is a good person, but she does not have time to call 20 people multiple times in attempts to get them to pick up the phone. In fact, many people I know don’t answer their phone any more unless they recognize the caller ID. They assume, as I do personally, that anyone that actually has something important to say will leave a message. I’m sure there are 15 or so people that my sister was asked to call that won’t know about the caucus because the party didn’t think it was a good idea to leave a message.

Now, I am also a member of the Republican party. I mention this somewhat hesitantly because my intention with this blog is to have a non-partisan/bi-partisan discussion about local politics. I will not take sides drawn up around party lines. I will post based on my personal ideas, but I also welcome points of view and comments from Democrats, Libertarians, Greens or any other party out there.

As a member of a major party I believe I am also eligible to attend a caucus on March 21, but no one called me (or at least didn’t leave a message, if they did) so I have no idea where this caucus thing is. I checked the Colorado Republican Party website. They have a convenient caucus locator tool. Unfortunately, it didn’t work for me. Then I tried the Weld County Republicans site. They have a link to find your caucus location as well, but it didn’t work in my browser. I had to open it up in the highly unsecure IE to find my caucus location (note: This isn’t really a big deal, but completely unnecessary and poor web design. There are many people who use Firefox as a security measure these days, why make your links unaccessible?). Finally I get to my page and it lists everything by precinct. I have no idea what my precinct is (whaddya think this is, Hill Street Blues) so I go to the County’s site, get my precinct information and finally find my caucus. I hope you democrats out there have an easier time figuring out where you’re supposed to go.

Now (finally) I know I’m having a caucus and I know where it is, but the real question is what do I do there? I’m not really sure, there doesn’t appear to be any kind of agenda or anything published on the website. Are we selecting candidates? Is there a list of the candidates we are going to pick? Does anyone really know?

This caucus situation is a prime example of my concern with local politics. The parties don’t appear to be able to communicate with their members. The average Joe has little idea what’s gong on. Both parties have websites that don’t communicate much information and make assumptions about your level of expertise.

I for one am going to attend my local caucus on March 21 at 7:00pm, if only to see what it’s all about. I encourage everyone else that is a member of one of the two major parties to do the same. Have a voice, make a difference!!