Caucuses

gmjambear and I went to our first caucus today, at the nearby elementary school. About eight or nine precincts were there, totaling about 250 people.

The event began with a bunch of waiting around. The rules state that the proceedings could not begin until 1:00 and the individual precinct caucuses couldn't start before 1:30. So we began with the Pledge of Allegiance, a prepared speech, and a few moments for questions.

Then we broke up into precincts. Our precinct had 55 people caucusing. We chose as caucus chair an election inspector who had been a lifelong Republican until the current excuse for an administration changed his mind. Our secretary had caucused once before, on an occasion where the precinct only had four people caucusing; our tally clerk is from Illinois, and had firsthand experience of how well Barack Obama had navigated the treacherous waters of Illinois politics without help from the vaunted Democratic machine.

On our first ballot we had 39 for Obama, 13 for Clinton, and 3 uncommitted.

Between ballots a number of people spoke up and explained why they were supporting one or the other candidate or were still uncommitted. A few memorable remarks (paraphrased):

• I'm concerned that if elected, Obama will have the same problems that Jimmy Carter had, and won't be able to get anything done.
• If they were trying so hard to get Bill Clinton out of the White House over a blowjob, they certainly won't vote for him to come back there. [The part about the blowjob she said not once but twice. Heh heh.]
• I'd just as soon not see my tax dollars go to pay the Clintons two Presidential salaries. [I think she meant pensions.]
• McCain is pulling conservative Democrats back to the Republican Party, because they aren't willing to vote for a woman or a black man. I'm not sure what to do about this.

On the second and final ballot we had 44 for Obama and 11 for Clinton. This translated into five delegates to county convention for Obama and one for Clinton.

Next we elected our delegates and alternates. I considered putting my hat in the ring but county convention conflicts with Spring Thaw. By the time we were done, about half of the caucusers had left, and there were still resolutions to be read. However, since there was to be no debate on the resolutions we chose to leave at that point.