Caucuses turn out the party faithful. In the Democratic Party, that means disproportionately more liberals take part than typically show up in primaries, while the Republicans who come to caucuses tend to be more conservative than the party as a whole. As a consequence, conservative Republican activists and liberal Democratic activists both tend to prefer caucuses for the purpose of selecting delegates to presidential nominating conventions. Moderates in both parties prefer primaries.

That certainly is true in Washington State, where caucuses met today. Because there is competition among national presidential candidates this year, turnout was high. In overwhelmingly liberal Seattle, superficial evidence is that throngs came out (no numbers yet) for the Democratic caucuses. But Republicans apparently surprised themselves by also having a (relatively) good turnout. At the Republican caucuses for just one heavily Democratic legislative district in the central-north section of the city, some 400 or 500 Republican grass roots folk showed up. Moreover, they composed a lively, youngish crowd, with many minorities present. It looked a lot like the face of the future.

One criticism of caucuses is that they take too much time to decide something rather simple; namely, who do you support for president and who do you support to attend the next convention level that will select the national party delegates? Often in the past, the party operatives have held up the votes on those matters, monopolizing everyone's afternoon to make speeches on the gold standard or tax reform. But the caucus I attended today was brisk, friendly and over in an hour. Everyone seemed pretty cheerful and happy to meet one another.

The Democrats choose all their delegates in Washington State through the caucus process; the presidential primary that occurs in ten days will carry no real weight--though in a state that doesn't have official party registration, it will provide the Democratic state central committee a very good list of voter names. In order for your vote to count at all, you have to declare your party preference. Thus, an effective registration list is developed for the party, after all.

The Republicans seem to have come up with a somewhat better approach. The GOP caucuses continue to matter because just under half the national convention delegates will come from that process (filtered first through the state convention in May). But the winner of the February 19 presidential primary automatically will get the other half of the delegation (plus one). That appeals to another and genuine constituency--people allergic to meetings, for one thing--and it also produces at least as good a surrogate registration list as the Democrats will obtain.

Either way, it's democracy. If you are a former politician, like me, it is encouraging to see it in action.