There used to be something special and appealingly quirky about the way Maine expressed its presidential nominee preferences. The old caucus system had its flaws, but the face-to-face debate among supporters of the various candidates was street-level politics at its best, the slow trickle of results from town after town provided some drama.

The advent of the Yankee Primary blunted the impact of the caucuses, and the absorption of the Yankee Primary into the 13-state Super Tuesday mega-primary has turned Maine from a small but interesting voice in the nominating process into one in danger of just being small.

Maine has the opportunity this year to make a little noise. The Democratic caucuses being held throughout the state Sunday are being described here and nationally as the last chance for Bill Bradley to re-energize his campaign, to get a much-needed boost heading into Super Tuesday and perhaps to derail, or at least slow down, Al Gore’s nomination express. It seems a thin thread upon which to hang hope, espcially for a candidate with Sen. Bradley’s solid credentials, but it certainly makes the caucuses worth following, and for Democrats and the unenrolled with Democratic leanings, worth attending.

The Republican caucuses are spread out over a few weeks, lessening their punch but not their importance. It is at the caucuses of both parties that delegates to the May state conventions are chosen and it is at the conventions that party platforms are developed and that candidates for state office are enlisted. It is a process not nearly as orderly as it sounds.

While the Maine results from Super Tuesday won’t decide the nominations of either party, they could have long-lasting significance for Maine politics. The largest single voting bloc in the state is the unenrolled, commonly called independents. One of the great stories of this primary season, especially on the Republican side, has been the participation of independents. They put John McCain in the race, it is they who will keep him there. It is telling that the campaign of George W. Bush has gone from suggesting that independents are meddling interlopers to stressing their candidate’s appeal to them. Whatever effect Alan Keyes has upon the race will be due to voters who, though perhaps registered Republicans, are thinking independently.

Independents — the unenrolled — should not feel the least bit shy about going to the local caucus of the party with the candidate they find most appealing and they certainly should feel like meddling interlopers on primary day. An unenrolled voter in Maine can register with either party at the polls Tuesday; there is no lasting obligation beyond being restricted to that party’s state primary in June.

Given the stranglehold the two parties have upon this money-driven system and the often wide gap between what both parties — particularly at the national level — say they stand for and what they do, it is wrong to suggest that the large and growing number of voters who make the conscious decision not to enroll should have no say in this important part of the process of selecting a president.