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Here's my own article on today's caucuses. It may answer some questions some have had about the February primary and March caucuses.

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Pulaski Republicans caucus at 10 am today for presidential candidates
By: Darrell Todd Maurina
Posted: Saturday, March 17, 2012 6:46 am

PULASKI COUNTY, Mo. (March 17, 2012) — When Pulaski County voters went to the polls in February, they voted by large margins for former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and helped give his campaign a badly needed boost when every county in Missouri also chose for Santorum. However, that race didn’t actually allocate any delegates to Santorum and Republican caucus-goers in each of the state’s counties will decide soon whether to bind their delegates to the primary election result or start the selection process again.

For Pulaski County, the caucus will be held at 10 a.m. in the old Waynesville Middle School behind Eircil’s Jewelry in downtown Waynesville; the school building was recently sold to the county by the school district. Democrats will hold their caucus on March 29 in what is expected to be an easy re-nomination race for President Barack Obama.

Santorum’s Feb. 7 victory margin of 62 percent in Pulaski County was even higher than his statewide Missouri victory margin of 55.2 percent. Santorum won every one of Missouri's counties; a statewide county-by-county report can be found at this link: http://www.sos.mo.gov/enrmaps/20120207/county_map.asp?party=rep

While Santorum won in Missouri, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich wasn’t on the February ballot. Gingrich as well as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are contesting the caucus vote and it’s by no means clear who will win Saturday. Texas Rep. Ron Paul is also a candidate.

The dual vote stems from a dispute between Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon and the Republican-controlled state legislature. Legislators tried to move or eliminate the primary because according to Republican Party national rules, the state would have lost half of its delegates if the primary had been held on the planned February date. Republican national rules say only certain specified states are allowed to hold early primaries; others are penalized with a reduction in delegates if they hold their primary too early. Nixon, however, is an opponent of the party-run caucus system, which tends to attract party activists rather than the broader voter base of a primary election, and vetoed a bill to eliminate Missouri’s primary. Republican officials then went ahead and decided to hold county caucuses to avoid incurring the delegate penalty.

Today’s Missouri caucuses are the first step in a process that will select Missouri’s 52 delegates to the Republican National Convention. A presidential candidate needs 1,144 votes to win outright; if no candidate has that many on the first ballot, the convention delegates themselves will select the Republican Party nominee, though neither national party has had a brokered convention for a half-century.

Delegates selected today at the county level move on to a congressional district caucus on April 21, followed by the state convention on June 2.

Caucus-goers at the county level have the option of binding their delegates to vote in accord with the choice of voters in the Pulaski County primary, but do not have to do so. If the delegates aren’t bound, they can choose any candidate they wish at the district and state levels. For the Democratic Party, since Obama won more than 80 percent of the state’s primary voters, the role of the Democratic caucuses will merely be to choose the names of the delegates, all of whom must be pledged to vote for Obama.

Since Missouri has no political party registration system, to participate in today’s Republican caucus, people must be registered voters and declare that they are Republicans.

Pulaski County Republicans have published an eight-point set of caucus rules, as follows:

1. The Chairman shall appoint a credentials committee who shall meet and verify the credentials of the registered voters of Pulaski County who are Republicans present and qualified to participate in this caucus.
2. The Chairman shall appoint a rules committee who shall meet and prepare the rules of organization for the caucus in accordance with the call from the Missouri Republican Party.
3. The Chairman shall appoint a platform-resolutions committee who shall meet and prepare a report of all resolutions and platform suggestions that caucus delegates desire to have presented.
4. The Chairman shall appoint a nominating committee who shall meet and make such nominations as they deem advisable. Thereafter the floor shall be open to further nominations.
5. All speeches form the floor of the caucus on any questions, nominations, or candidate shall be limited to no more than two (2) minutes. Debate on any proposition shall be limited to eight (8) minutes, divided equally between proponents and opponents of the proposition.
6. The Chairman of the delegation shall select from the alternates an alternate to replace each delegate who cannot attend the Convention to which he has been elected.
7. Roberts Rule of Order, Newly Revised, shall govern the Caucus unless they are in conflict with the rules of the Republican National Convention, The Missouri Republican State Convention, the Call of the Missouri Republican State Committee or the Republican National Committee. All decisions by the parliamentarian are final.
8. The Chairman, prior to the Caucus, shall restrict access to certain Caucus areas. No other persons except Central committee Members, Convention Delegates, Alternates, News media with approved credentials, Officer and pages of the Caucus shall be admitted to this area.