This past weekend I traveled back to Maine to participate in the Democratic caucuses. Maine doesn’t offer much in the way of delegates. Just 34 are sent to the National Convention. Yet with the race for the Democratic presidential nomination as tight as it is, even my tiny home state became vested this past weekend with a sense of national political relevance, one that its residents seemed to embrace gleefully. Senator Obama was greeted in Bangor on Saturday morning by nearly 6,000 cheering Mainers—1,000 more were turned away at the door—while Senator Clinton’s jaunts to both Orono and Lewiston were also jam-packed.
This same political electricity was palpable at my town caucus on Sunday afternoon, and I left it feeling thrilled. Part of it was probably because it was my first caucusing experience, one in which I was able to observe both lofty political ideals and small-town hijinks flourishing side-by-side. In no other state but ruggedly sophisticated Maine would one be able to watch someone praise a candidate for US Senate—in this case, U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, the likely Democratic challenger to Susan Collins in the fall—as both “knowledgeable about health care, and especially the drugs and stuff” and “definitely NOT a milquetoast.” Later on there was a pretty substantial uproar over how to count the votes—the two-tiered opera house in which we were caucusing was packed to the brim, and dominated by Obama supporters. When the moderator suggested moving the smaller Clinton delegation to the top tier of the theater, one cheeky voter, observing that one of her constituents was physically handicapped, screamed out, “Why don’t you ask the lady in the wheelchair what she wants?”
In spite of its occasional ridiculousness my local caucus was more than just an entertaining spectacle. Almost two centuries ago Alexis de Tocqueville wrote a book that praised local governments’ role in helping citizens “resist tyranny” and perceive that involvement in political concerns better their own lives. Local autonomy helps citizens come to love not only the tangible ends that politics can achieve but also the liberty to become involved in politics for its own sake. I’ve been forced to read Tocqueville for two of my classes now but had never really felt the substance of his famous—if slightly overdramatic—ode to American democracy resonate as strongly within me as it did this past Sunday afternoon.
My local caucus embodied on a small scale the political vigor that makes this year’s race for the Democratic nomination such a unique and special one overall. In the end it was Senator Obama who won my hometown, and the whole of Maine. However, it is the faces in the crowd—and especially the new faces—who define this race as much as the candidates themselves. They are young and old, male and female, of all colors and creeds, supporters of Clinton and Obama alike. The issues they hold most dear diverge as wildly as do the people themselves. Some cannot rest until they see the Iraq war over. Others would rather have a health care system that works. And still others simply think that music video the guy from Black-Eyed Peas made is really, really cool. Yet they all have one thing in common: they care. They want to participate. And that bodes well for the country, not just the Democrats, regardless of who ultimately comes away with the party’s nomination.
–Joseph Michalakes