While the Minnesota Republican Party did not elect delegates during the caucuses last night, they did have a nonbinding presidential straw poll, with Romney winning.  Unfortunately, the real news of the night was not the straw poll, but the complete failure of the Republican caucuses in Minnesota.  And after this massive failure it is likely that most of the first time caucus attendees will never attend a future caucus.

I have talked to people who attended caucuses at numerous locations in the metro area (Longfellow High School, Hastings High School, Concordia University, Champlin High School and Southview Community Center) and they all report the same thing. The caucuses were disorganized, they didn’t start on time, there were not enough ballots or no ballots at all, there were no signs directing people where to go, no leadership from BPOU officials, people convening the caucus had little idea what they were doing (one exception being the Champlin location), and the rooms were too small for the droves of people who showed up to participate. 

It is easy to be a Monday morning quarterback on this, but the state party and BPOUs were completely unprepared.  And the cherry on top of this caucus fiasco is that the state party, twelve hours after the caucus is over, only had 80% of precincts reporting results.

No doubt there will be people screaming for the caucus system to be abolished and replaced with a primary, like many other states and that is too bad because a properly run caucus is a great grassroots political experience that everyone should be able enjoy. The State Party, to maintain any sense of credibility, needs to take a serious look at the caucus process in Minnesota and do whatever it takes to ensure that the debacle that happened last night never happens again.