Delegates are ones in control of Utah politics

If someone complains to you about Utah politics this weekend, ask them where they'll be Tuesday night.

One of the best-kept secrets in the state is that it is controlled by the few people who show up to small neighborhood meetings.

The very best-kept secret is that anyone can attend and wield astonishing political power. Yes, even you. And even that wacky Marxist-Leninist holdover living down the street.

What happens if he shows up and you don't?

Well, he'll have the chance to help dramatically alter the local and state political landscape.

You, on the other, will be one of tens of thousands who vote on local and state races in the June primary or the November general election. But that will be long after many of the big decisions have been made. It's also when many people often feel like their vote doesn't much matter.

Sometimes, they're right.

So if you tell me you feel that way in November, I'll ask you where you were at 7 p.m. on March 25, when you most certainly would have mattered a great deal.

Here's how it works.

On Tuesday night, the Republican and Democratic parties will hold what they call neighborhood caucuses, a really lame term for a meeting where 10 or 20 or 30 regular Joes and Jills you know from church or the PTA will pick a couple of their friends to represent you as delegates to the county and state conventions.

Those delegates will each represent about 1,250 people, most of whom won't even know they're being represented.

I went to my neighborhood's Republican meeting for the first time last year, and I couldn't believe what I'd been missing.

About 40 folks from my neighborhood sat in an elementary school room and made decisions that set the tone for the next two political seasons.

They voted on which of us would become delegates to the county and state Republican conventions. Several came with campaign speeches ready. The savviest showed up with a bunch of friends who promised to vote for them.

Oh, yeah, we talked about the party platform, too. And school vouchers. You want to know how the Legislature came to pass a voucher law the following year?

Neighborhood meetings. Those Joes and Jills selected delegates who were going to vote for pro-voucher legislative candidates.

The anti-voucher crowd managed to defeat vouchers in a ridiculously expensive statewide referendum, but they could have managed the same thing by getting their people to those neighborhood caucuses in 2006.