Caucus Like You Mean It
Today was caucus day in Washington State! Now, the caucus system has some problems (primarily appeals to the elite, misses those who can't get off work don't get an easy vote, etc), but it was kind of fun to be able to see all my neighbors - who know we had so many? It was huge turnout all over Washington, and this might push the Democratic party away from the caucus system in the future, since it was very difficult to manager and organize that many people. Anyways, our day!
At about 12:30, Brian and I walked about four blocks from our house to Bryant Elementary, our caucus site. The gym and cafeteria of our site held about 15 precincts, and it was bustling about 30 minutes before the official start time, 1pm. We found our precinct table, signed in with our preference (you may choose: Obama, Clinton, Gravel or Undecided. No, you may not go Kucinich. No, really.) and settled it. We met Shaquita, a young pediatric resident who lives less than a block away from us and discussed politics and watched the people streaming in, the cute kids people brought with them, and peaked looks at the lovely cupcakes Brian brought. At 1pm, the organizer for the site came onto the piddling sound system to say that they would not officially start counting initial preferences until at least 1:30 - by this point, the line to get into the site was around the block, and they wanted to have everyone who wanted to make their preference in.
At about 1:45, the organizer came back onto the PA system - the turnout at the site was the largest it had been in more than 30 years, and more than double the turnout for the 2004 caucus. Cheers! Yays! They extorted the importance of voting in November, regardless of the final candidate. Oh, and now let's get to counting the preferences! At each precinct, a precinct officer and a counter tallied the preferences expressed, tracked down the people who neglected to write in anything, and those who tried to vote for Edwards. For each precinct, the population of the precinct determines the number of delegates who get sent onto the legislative district convention. Following that, a smaller number of delegates is sent from the district to the state convention, and then the process repeats for the national convention. For our precinct, that meant that we got 6 delegates that would be sent onto the district convention, and so our voting would translate into some number of delegates for each candidate (or "Uncommitted").
Coming into the caucus, I wasn't sure what to expect from our neighborhood. I knew that most of Seattle (young, hip) would be pro-pro-Obama, as evidenced by the mad-house Obama rally/speech that had taken place on Friday near the Space Needle. 19K people in Key Arena, 3K more trying to get in, versus the 5K that showed up for the Clinton rally on Thursday. However, our neighborhood is a little older, a little richer (um, not us though), and I just don't know much about their politics.
Our precinct captain told us that 113 voted in the initial preference - a huge turnout! He didn't tell us the exact breakdown, but - 5 delegates for Obama, 1 for Clinton. Cheers from our crowd! I guess we are in Obama country.
After the initial voting is the "change period." People get up, talk about why they support a particular candidate, and try and convince the section of the room that didn't garner enough votes in the first round of voting to their sides (that would be all the undecided votes). Since we had such a huge room, with bad acoustics, the organizers decided to allow one person from each camp to speak, rather than allow the extensive precinct-specific debating that occurs at some caucus sites. The Obama speaker was actually a coordinator working with the campaign and was eloquent, with good talking points. The organizers had to call a few times for a Clinton supporter to speak, and the one they found had some good points but was not nearly as eloquent and inspiring. But maybe I'm biased. After their speeches, those who wanted to change their vote were given the opportunity - it didn't do anything to our initial delegate count, but we maybe got one more Obama voter overall (who loved our cupcakes? Who knows.)
At this point, many people started to leave, but there was still the decision of actual delegates to send to the legislative district convention in April. Only one person volunteered to be a Clinton delegate, which was all that was needed, and he spoke about being a cancer survivor, how he was inspired by both candidates, but Clinton's health care plan had won him over. Six people volunteered to be actual delegates for Obama, and since we only needed five, they all talked for a minute - some had been involved in politics for years, some had never voted in a primary, but were inspired by Obama and the energy that he inspired in themselves and their children. Brian signed up to be an alternate delegate in case one of the nominated delegates isn't able to go.
Basically, our precinct showed how the rest of the state played out - I've been reading election results from various other precincts around Seattle and the Puget Sound, and I still haven't seen a precinct that swung for Clinton. In fact, every single jurisdiction (mostly county-size, except for big counties) has gone for Obama. Every. Single. One. That's amazing! It's about 70% Obama, 30% Clinton, overall. On the Republican side (which had a caucus today as well, which determines about half the delegates that go to their national convention) it looks a little closer. Results are still coming in, and it's very close between McCain and Huckabee, with a large proportion breaking for Ron Paul (seriously?).
Afterwards, Brian and I trekked to a bar with some of my work friends, and then to a results-watching party to be political nerds. In sum: civic participation and cupcakes.
