Upstaged Maine Republicans wind up their drawn-out 2004 caucus season

AUGUSTA – Maine Republicans quietly wrapped up their 2004 caucus season this weekend, upstaged by Democrats whose single-day party gatherings last month were livened by competition among several presidential contenders.

Unlike the Democrats, whose municipal party caucuses were held in towns and cities all over the state on Feb. 8, Republicans allowed their local caucuses to take place within a 21/2-month span that started Jan. 1 and ended Saturday.

Republicans were upstaged not only by the piecemeal scheduling of their caucuses, but also by the lack of a field of contenders for the presidential nomination, with Geroge W. Bush’s renomination a foregone conclusion.

In fact, the vast majority of the more than 100 local party organizations that held caucuses did not even take presidential preference votes, state GOP Executive Director Dwayne Bickford said Sunday.

Of the few that did, President Bush was the undisputed choice for renomination, Bickford said. No votes were formally recorded, however.

State Republican Party rules – or the lack of them – leave party activists without a clear process for selecting their presidential favorites, Bickford said.

Maine switched from a caucus system and held presidential primaries during the 1996 and 2000 election cycles. The parties have since opted to return to the caucus system, but in doing so Republicans adopted no rules guiding the process.

“There’s been some discussion about changing the rules to allow some process” for expressing presidential preferences at caucuses, said Bickford.

This winter, the main purpose of the GOP caucuses was to attend to party business such as electing local organizations’ officers. While state law allows caucuses to begin Jan. 1, GOP meetings began Jan. 17.

In about half of Maine’s counties, town caucuses were held countywide in single locations, Bickford said. The rest were held in respective towns and cities.

Republican Party rules call for an open caucus system, in which delegates elected to the state party convention are uncommitted to any candidate. The state convention will be held in Augusta on May 14-15.