Prime, Primary, Caucus

The US Presidential elections brings back, once in four years, into limelight the role of primaries and caucuses in the selection of candidates for the US presidency. Unlike other political parties in India, Congress party’s Rahul Gandhi introduced the unique process of selecting a candidate for a parliamentary constituency ‘by the party workers and cadres’ called primary in order to give candidates’ selection process some fairness and transparency. Sadly, this experiment failed because the ‘primaries’ selected the sitting candidates,and status quo!

Prime has many meanings, and functions as a verb, noun and adjective. Prime means something that is important; first in time, order, sequence, excellence, quality, value; in the first or early stage; the earliest stage; the active period of one’s life such as in career or in raising a family; in mathematics having two integral factors. The prime (noun) aim of his life is to innovate a service for infirm and elderly. It is his prime (adjective) aim; and he would prime (prepare) to do anything to accomplish it.

Another meaning of prime is lustful, lecherous (priming for him or her). Primary functions as a noun and an adjective. Primary as an adjective refers to something of importance, principal, first or earliest in order, in the initial stages or beginning. Primary as a noun refers to the primary colours (RGB: red, green, blue): a group of colours from which other colours can be obtained.

Primary in the US refers to a preliminary election to appoint delegates to a party conference (Republican Party & Democratic Party) or to select a candidate for the presidential election. The primary ensuresthat a politician with wide support is nominated. In the US, many states have 34 primaries and few have caucuses.

There are different types of primaries: closed primary, semi-closed primary, open primary and semi-open primary; in open primaries, registers voters across parties which is not the case in caucuses. Also, in primaries, the voting takes place across the state and the voters cast secret ballots.

Unlike a primary (or primaries), in caucus (or caucuses) elections, the candidates express their support openly: raising hands or breaking into groups in support of the respective candidate. Caucus is a body of people representing the same political party, or a legislative body who are members of the same party.

Caucus is a faction, clique, coterie, or a pressure group in a party or organisation. Primaries and caucuses have come into existence in order to take the power from away from the party leaders but giving the power to the grassroots workers.