Jason Brzoska: From the Washington State Democratic Caucuses

Sunday, February 10, 2008

From the Washington State Democratic Caucuses

Ted sent me a report from the Democratic caucuses in Washington:

Well, we're done caucusing.......at least my precinct is. It was an interesting process. First it was amazing to see people streaming towards the school on foot, by car, by bike. It was like something out of a movie.....people coming from all directions, converging on this school. They clearly got more people than they expected.....not enough forms, not enough seats. They had to send someone to Kinko's to make more copies.

The crowd was fairly diverse.....old, young, white, black, purple; in fact, there were some teenagers and tweenies observing. As far as income, I could see no difference.....mostly middle class, probably white collar but that's a guess.

The caucus started promptly at 1:30 PM. We were separated into rooms by precinct. My room had 64 people of which 5 were undecided. My neighbors from across the street were there. We chatted it up.......we hadn't talked in a while. Unfortunately, I realized as I took our signup sheet to the front of the room that they were for Clinton. I guess there won't be too many summer barbeques this year. hehehehehe! (Jason's Note: "Ted" is actually Beavis)

Then we separated into three groups: Obama, Clinton and Undecideds. I know, I know.....you want the break out for Obama and Clinton but you ain't getting it til the end and no fair cheating. We started out by making a list of resolutions we wanted presented to the county wide delegate meeting to be held in April. Then each candidate group picked three delegates for a total of six.

Finally, the actual caucus began. The Undecideds told us their doubts about each candidate. Then 5 speakers were picked from Obama's group and 5 from Clinton's group. I was one of the 5 for Obama. They were asked to address the concerns and questions of the Undecideds. Did I mention that my neighbor was one of the speakers for the Clintons and that stupidly my comments piggy backed off what he said, and in the process, turned his argument around to the detriment of Clinton? Politically savvy like Obama I am not. Forget the "no barbeque problem"...I am hiring a security guard for my house. ;-((

After the speakers were done, the Undecideds were asked to go up to the precinct captain and indicate if they had changed their position. We started out with 5 Undecideds and ended up with one. In fact, one woman came up to me and told me what I said had turned her around for Obama. Yay! One for the Obama gipper! In fact, Obama got all but one of the Undecideds.

And now for the final tally: 46 for Obama, 17 for Clinton and 1 Undecided. From what I understand, the majority of the 6 delegates go to him but they weren't sure exactly how many he would get. I am unclear why anyone would think this process favors Obama. Whatever the reasons might be, it was not obvious to me.

Oh yeah, my neighbor......he looked at me strangely as I left and was not nearly as friendly as when we first saw each other. Oh well............

Labels: 2008 Election, 2008 Primaries, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, Politics