Indiana

The Politics of Politics

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

As much as I love politics, I find the internal processes even  more fascinating.  Two examples of that were Monday night’s caucus election of Angel Rivera to take the place of Kent Smith on the City-County Council and the Tuesday afternoon Marion County Election Board hearing over candidate challenges.

Rivera won the caucus after two rounds of voting.  He got 122 votes on the first round and 168 on the second.  At the election board there were 14 challenges to precinct committeemen  picked by Indy Mayoral candidate Brian Williams, 12 were upheld, leaving Williams with 195 people running on his team. 

I’ve heard complaints from some Democrats and Republicans regarding both matters.  Some Republicans were saying the caucus was rigged.  Some Democrats were saying Williams is circumventing the system and making enemies.   Actually what both men did was take the current rules system of both parties and make it work for them.

As soon as Smith announced he was leaving the Council Rivera started making calls to every delegate who had a vote.  Months ago Williams and his team started quietly getting candidates to run for precinct committeemen and studying the rules to get them on ballot.  

There had been chatter that some candidates for the at-large GOP seat saying they couldn’t get lists or that the establishment had the fix in for Rivera.  While party leaders, Rs, Ds and Ls have their preferences there’s nothing written down that says a candidate is entitled to anything.  Political parties are not democracies nor open government.    It behooves them to keep their processes as transparent as possible, but it’s not mandatory and there are consequences if you stray too far off the reservation.

However, I always tell people, if you don’t like like the system, pull a Brian Williams.  Get enough of your people  together, get organized run at the precinct committeemen level, hopefully win and expand your power base and then make the change you want.   It’s hard, it’s tough, it’s a long shot.  It’s politics.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on March 03, 2010 (boomark / email).