Minnesota is stupid

[Famous Mortimer]

While other states are trying to simplify their their nominee selection process, Minnesota has gone the other way and made theirs even more complicated, as a "compromise".

http://www.dl-online.com/opinion/editorials/4059938-mn-gains-primaries-keeps-caucuses

In addition to a presidential primary organized by the state, Minnesota will keep having presidential caucuses organized by the parties. This is the Washington State/Nebraska system that everyone agreed was stupid.

I'm kind of surprised this wasn't already the case though, as Minnesota already uses the awful dual system to elect all other officials in the state. Party "conventions" are held to determine who gets to be the "official party endorsed candidate" but then the party endorsed candidate has to face whoever in a primary after that. The governor, senators, representatives, st senators, state reps, and all state constitutional officers are all elected this way.

Anyway, this is really really terrible and I think the DFL should be kicked out of the Democratic Party until they stop being idiots.

[Chief Justice Keef]

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[Desroko]

Yeah, you're not helping, Minnesota.

[Erc]

Haven't read the text of the bill, but I'd assume it's up to the parties as to how they want to bind their delegates (based on the primaries or the caucuses).

On the Republican side, the state party (thanks to a close vote at this year's convention) gets to set the rules for delegate binding/allocation, and they are free (and likely to) base it on the primaries.

On the DFL side, I don't know, but given the mood this year, I'd imagine they'll base the allocation on the primaries.

As a result, I imagine it will end up more like Georgia, where the caucuses do delegate selection, but the primaries will bind and allocate the delegates.  The primary will be what matters (barring a contested convention), it's what the media will cover and what voters will go to.

Don't freak out, Minnesota (presumably) knows what it's doing.

EDIT: The delegates are required to be bound by the primary, so this is a good move for everyone.  This is not a Washington/Nebraska-style system.

[cwt]

EDIT: The delegates are required to be bound by the primary, so this is a good move for everyone.  This is not a Washington/Nebraska-style system.

I think that is how the Washington GOP does it, not the Washington Dems, of course.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

This sounds more confusing than caucuses by themselves and could easily marginalize either the caucus participants or primary voters.

[IceSpear]

As long as the delegates are bound by the primary, I don't see what's so bad about it. It's not like they switched to the Nebraska/Washington system of an irrelevant primary, or the former Texas system where half the delegates were allocated by the primary and half by the caucus.

[Minnesota Mike]

I just replied to a similar post on a different thread but I will repeat myself here.

Delegates are bound by the primary, other party business is conducted at the caucus.  Nothing unusual about that.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

This is not how Nebraska or Washington does it.

This is how literally every primary state does it.

If you personally want to be a delegate to the convention, you show up to a precinct/CD/state caucus/convention a week or so after the primary determines how many candidates in a given CD/precinct/state (if you want to be an at large del).

Minnesota just adopted a primary system.