Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun US, idiomatic The competitive process in which a political party selects their candidate, especially presidential; a
primary election viacaucus . - noun US, idiomatic A political competition; the game of
campaigning andone-upmanship to get votes and be elected. - noun idiomatic A laborious but arbitrary and futile activity; an activity that amounts to running around in a circle, expending great energy but not accomplishing anything.
- noun A win-win system; a positive system in which everybody wins.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From caucus ("special party meeting for vote allocation") + race ("contest between people").
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From caucus ("regular party committee meeting of elected MPs") + race ("contest between people"); a reference to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, chapter III "A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale", being a nonsensical satire thereof: all participants have to run in circles until until an arbitrary end is called and everyone is declared a winner; Alice has to give prizes to them all, and being declared a winner too she is solemnly taken and awarded back her own thimble.
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