Why Can’t Republicans Figure Out How to Hold a Primary Caucus?

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Adam Sorensen on the embarrassing spectacle of the Republican caucuses so far:

Sure it took a month to declare the actual winner of the Iowa caucuses, tallies from eight precincts were lost altogether and vote counting in Nevada dragged on for days, but you can’t really understand the depth of dysfunction in the caucus system until you behold the caricature of incompetence that is Maine.

A nickel summary of the Maine fiasco follows. So what’s going on? I don’t remember anything like this on either side in 2008. Is it just an artifact of a bunch of close contests? Are Republicans trying to prove that we need tougher election laws by holding lots of seemingly corrupt elections themselves? What the hell is going on?

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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