The Family That Caucuses Together…

Saturday we held the Democratic Caucuses in Washington. Turn out was double what the party officers expected. The depressing thing there is that last time we had 2% participation, so this record turnout means we got 5% participation. Not very democratic.

In the Larsens’ neck of the woods, they had consolidated all the precincts from Marysville, Arlington, Granit Falls and the surrounding areas (at least 40 precincts) into one place. We arrived an hour early and there was already a line out into the parking lot. They stopped letting people get in line at 45 minutes after start time.

It was crowded. It was noisy. It was confusing. The people at the sign up desks were giving people false information. I heard people being told that they could only caucus for Hillary or Obama, not any of the other candidates. The site coordinator kept telling people that they should feel free to sign in, pick a candidate and leave. He promised them that their votes would count even if they left. Even thought there were many small precincts that didn’t end up with delegates because nobody stayed.

Evelyn and I found ourselves being consulted as experts, because we had attended a single training session and printed out the rules from the party web site.

Evelyn ended up being the Huckleberry Precinct Chairperson, I ended up being the Precinct Secretary, and Siona was the Precinct Tally Clerk. We were also the only three people from our precinct to stay. The other tree participants signed in an left. Precinct official results: 5 votes for Obama, 1 vote for Kucinich, 0 votes for Hillary. Delegates from our precinct: 2 for Obama. Evelyn and I are now Precinct Delegates and must go to the next caucuses on April 5th or we will lose our representation at the next level. Siona is an Alternate Delegate.

So there you have it. Democracy in action. Messy, sloppy and loaded with confusion and peer pressure. But when you watch CNN they make it sound so simple and clean.

State wide in Washington Obama got the most delegates by a 2 to 1 margin.

More later if I have the time.