Bowdoin students, along with Maine residents across the state, will soon head to school gyms and town halls to participate in the upcoming Republican and Democratic caucuses.
The Republican caucuses last from Friday until Sunday; the Bowdoin Republicans have endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Maine, as well as 13 other states, uses caucuses to award delegates to a particular candidate. While the Republican caucuses are held over a three-day period, with all of the state's delegates awarded to the winner, the Democratic caucuses are held on only one day, with delegates awarded on a proportional basis.
The reason Maine holds two different caucuses at two different times, according to Professor of Government Christian Potholm, stems from the idea of "two different parties, two different cantankerous kinds of people."
Maine, Potholm says, "[has] been a place where fringe candidates have come, made an effort and gotten that one day reward." Naming relatively obscure politicians who have won past caucuses, like Jerry Brown and Jesse Jackson, Potholm predicts that a candidate like Ron Paul could do well in the Republican caucuses.
"This might be a year where Ron Paul has his day here in Maine," he said.
Assistant Professor Michael Franz agreed, saying, "Paul might do a lot better than expected because he's the only one [campaigning] here." However, the nature of the caucus system means that "the real delegates [at the convention] are chosen some other time by other people," said Potholm. "Paul could win the caucuses, but at the end of the day, it will be a moderate, essentially McCain or Romney delegation at the convention."
The Democratic caucuses are on February 10th, though the Bowdoin Democrats, as an organization affiliated with the Democratic National Party (DNC), cannot endorse a candidate until the general election.
Both the College Republicans and College Democrats have activities planned to encourage Bowdoin students to get involved.
Bowdoin Democrats Treasurer Alex Cornell du Houx '06 said, "[We] are going to be doing rides to the caucuses, and the student groups for Obama and Hillary are working hard on registration and organization."
Student groups for both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been present in Smith Union in their efforts to register Bowdoin students to vote in Maine.
The Bowdoin Republicans have fewer activities planned for the caucuses. College Republicans Secretary John Cunningham '10 said, "We're not going to be putting out a table [in Smith Union] for Romney. "
However, Cunningham pointed out that they are also working with Bowdoin Democrats to register voters for the caucuses. "We will be working with the Bowdoin Democrats with their voter registration efforts, as we did in the fall with the referendum vote," he said.
The decision not to actively campaign for Romney, according to Cunningham, is due to a lack of Republican voters on campus.
"Because there are so few conservatives on campus, it would sort of be a waste of time. There's probably a wide variety of people supporting different candidates, and we'd rather wait for there to be one conservative we can all unite around," Cunningham said.