State lawmaker wants to cancel caucuses because of fighting and hurt feelings.
The Reno Gazette-Journal reported Tuesday that Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus plans to sponsor a bill that would cancel future caucuses and reinstate presidential primaries.
“This notion of neighbors getting together with neighbors to talk about politics, that’s just not Nevada,” Titus said. “What I found in my caucus is that the meeting didn’t lead to collaboration, cooperation and a good discussion. It led to hostility.”
Jeez! Is Titus a boob or what?
The caucus was an awesome thing. Voter interest was so high that precincts such as mine ran out of ballots and voters had to write in their candidate’s name on slips of blank paper. Why would Titus want to squelch such enthusiasm?
And where does she get off saying that Nevadans can’t talk politics? Two weeks before the caucus I got together with a group of loosely connected friends to share information on the candidates’ positions on key issues like foreign policy, health care and the environment. This was a group consisting of Democrats and Republicans, small business owners and liberal intellectuals, and no, we didn’t all agree, and yes, sometimes people sounded kinda uninformed. But we enjoyed each other and learned a little too.
A caucus is hyper-local politics, and in a society as digitized and disconnected as ours, it’s refreshing to physically sit in one spot and talk face-to-face. Caucuses dredge up the lost art of political discourse and encourage civility. I’m all for ’em.
To tell Titus to get a clue, email her at dtitus@sen.state.nv.us.
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