Politics: It's Not a Spectator Sport

I know a lot of people who spend thousands of hours per year worrying about politics. People worry that “the government” will get us into yet another undeclared war, launch another trillion-dollar bailout program for wealthy financiers, or drag down the quality of their child’s public education (you don’t have to worry about that one… we’re already 25^th out of the 34 OECD nations in education, not much farther to fall.).

But only a very few people actually DO anything about politics. Here’s a little inconvenient truth for those who don’t like “the political parties”. WE ARE the political parties. The problem is that we don’t show up to the conventions (in fact, most of us don’t even show up and vote in the primaries, and then we complain about how bad the candidates are in the general election). The party conventions are dominated by those with something to gain from the existing system: government-employee union members, subsidized businessmen, vampires gaming the bloodbank TARP program, etc. Those who have something to LOSE from the political system (most of us)… stay home and yell at our TVs.

You can save those thousands of hours that you waste yelling at your TV or complaining to your annoyed co-workers. Just become a delegate to the major political party of your choice, show up for one (1) day per year, and vote in the party officials and platform changes of your choice. Will you change the world? Well, you’ll have one vote in a few hundred, so you (and the delegates you talk to) might turn the tide. And if you don’t solve all the nation’s problems, at least you save all those hours of valuable time that you used to spend helplessly worrying about politics, which you can devote to creating a billion-dollar software company in your spare time. Or go kayaking.

How to become a delegate to a NH political party

Political parties are not made of magic (although as Rumpelstiltskin says, they do always come at a price). They are composed of the people who show up to be delegates one day a year at the party conventions. Those people create the party platforms and vote for the party officials.

There were a little over 500 delegates at the Republican annual meeting that I attended this year. The Democratic convention only had around 350, due to their closed system of delegate selection.

How to become a Republican delegate:

Republican delegates are elected during the primary election, by registered Republican voters. All you do is sign up to run for delegate at your town hall in even-numbered year elections. There isn’t even a filing fee. Then you talk to your neighbors and get a few votes (there is a minimum requirement, but it’s only 30-something. You know more than 30 people ;)

Many delegate candidates are uncontested... in fact, many delegate slots are left vacant because no one runs. For example, in three out of four towns in my local state rep district (Sullivan County 1), no one bothered to become a Republican delegate.

The second way to become a delegate is to run for state-level office and get past the primary election. This method carries the dreadful risk that you might be elected to office, though, which takes a lot more than one day per year! If the office is state rep, you might die of malnourishment… the job takes half the year and only pays $100 (of course they used to be 100 silver dollars, so that was $3300 in today’s money… and back then the sessions only lasted a couple weeks).

How to become a Democratic delegate:

Democrats in NH do not allow democratic election of their delegates in primaries. Democratic delegates are created at party caucus meetings (at midnight, while the twisted creatures chant “,ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn” ) so the only people that can vote are the caucus attendees. This means that to become a Democratic delegate, you have to show up to local party meetings before the caucus and do some serious social engineering. You can learn the full Democrat delegate process here.

Or, you can also become a Democratic delegate by running for a state-level office and winning the primary.

So: stop yelling at your TV, and use the time saved to start a billion-dollar company. Oh, and also to become a delegate to the major political party of your choice.

Full disclosure: Bill Walker is a member of the Sullivan County Republican Committee (Not affiliated with Miskatonic University).