We had a little political pow-wow on Wednesday in my political blogging class. Jill Fagan, the political director for the Washington State Republican Party, and Jaxon Ravens, the executive director for the Democratic Party of Washington, stopped by to brief my classmates and I on the intricacies of our state’s upcoming primary (check out the King County Democrats' site for a nifty precinct finder; Fagan said the GOP will have something similiar up by the end of this weekend).

I won’t lie: it’s fairly complicated. But then again, no one said democracy was easy.

To start off, here’s a brief review of some caucus terminology:

CJC: caucus jurisdiction coordinator

ACC: area caucus coordinator

PCO: precinct committee officer

Pooled location: several precincts meeting in the same spot.

Fagan and Ravens plunged deep into the details of how the caucuses work, and how the two parties conduct them differently.

For example, the Democrats let 17 year olds participate in their caucus elections (provided that they’ll turn 18 by the general election on Nov. 4), while you have to be 18 to be included in the Republicans’ caucus deliberations (but not in the primary; more on that in a moment). The Democrats determine their delegates through legislative and congressional district caucuses after the precinct caucuses on Feb. 9, while the Republicans send their delegates elected on Feb. 9 to county conventions and then on to the state convention, which elects 11 delegates to the national convention. The Democrats hold county conventions and a state convention too, but don’t elect delegates there.

These differences are subtle, but they do matter.

Of the Democrats’ 97 delegates, 51 will be from the district level, 10 will be "pledged party leaders" and elected officials, 17 will be unpledged party leaders and elected officials, two will be unpledged "add-on" delegates and 17 will be at-large delegates. That means that at least 19 delegates can change their minds when they arrive at the national convention. Ditto for the Republicans. But half (or rather, 51 percent) of their delegates are chosen based on the Feb. 19 state primary results.

The really impressive thing about this whole process is that it’s run entirely by volunteers, with only minimal help from the state parties at the really local level. The parties’ professional staffs are stretched quite thin by the across-the-state caucuses.

"Anything political is run on the backs of volunteers," said Fagan. But that’s the best part of the process. "This is a very, very interesting year. It’s a great year to get involved," she said.

And although Ravens said that local Democrats have "a deep bench" of people to choose from on this side of the Cascades, many of these individuals have been drafted by the presidential campaigns.

But now they’re planning on returning home after Super Tuesday’s de facto national primary (on Feb. 5). Fagan and Ravens called it "stupid Tuesday," saying that the ruckus will leave many states out of the debate. The smoke should still be clearing on Feb. 9, however, enough to make the battle for Washington’s delegates the center of media attention.

"The caucus is the closest thing we have to a true democratic process," said Dave Irons, the Republican state committeeman for the 8th Congressional District, and the PCO for the pooled caucus that will take place on the Sammamish Plateau at Discovery Elementary School. He predicts that up to 75 percent of the caucus participants will be first-timers.

"I enjoy it," he said. "I enjoy the enthusiasm people bring to the table."