Popped my Caucus Cherry

[omorka]

Hadn't gone to the caucus in 2004 because both noms were sewn up by then. Didn't go in 2000 or 1996 because no one told me about them, probably because both noms were sewn up by then. Went tonight because it was important.

Our precinct has 35 delegates to the local convention, and we split 21 for Obama, 14 for Rodham-Clinton. No idea how the primary voting went, or whether our caucus is representative. The Spouse and I both noted that the 50-and-over crowd seemed pretty evenly split, the 30-to-50 crowd seemed to be 2-to-1 for Obama, and almost everyone who looked under 30 was on the Obama side of the room.

The process took forever, mostly because it took an hour to get everyone signed in - there were just under 300 people there, and the organizers looked like they were expecting about 100.

Comments

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

Four years ago here in WA we had the largest turnout in the Democratic caucuses anyone around had seen (and we've got folks who have been doing this for nearly 50 years). This time we had three times as many as then. So even though we planned for what we thought was an absurd number of people ("well, maybe we'll get twice as many"), there was still a huge bottleneck. I'm not surprised you had something similar (similar split, too... most of the precincts around here went anywhere from 2-1 to 4-1 for Obama).

[quantumduck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm sorry I wasn't able to make it out for the caucus. At least this year I have an airtight excuse. This is still the first year I've ever voted in a primary. Too bad it looks like TX is slightly in favor of Clinton overall. The numbers from the big urban centers are in favor of Obama, but everywhere else is Clinton by a decent margin.

[princejvstin.livejournal.com]

The caucuses here were insanely crowded, as I have mentioned.

I just wonder if all of this positive energy will be bled away in an increasingly sharp and nasty fight.

[briareos.livejournal.com]

We caucused as well... I would estimate about 75% Obama - 25% Clinton - I don't know the final count because we _HAD_ to leave once we signed our choice. It was stifling in the elementary school cafeteria we were in, there were about 400 people there, and 300 were on our half of the room. The room was almost completely divided along racial lines - there were only a handful of white people on the Obama side, while the Clinton side was majority hispanic. The odd thing about that is I don't think either is a majority in this precinct. The caucus was too chaotic and densely packed for any meaningful dialogue, and the racial (and lingual) divide didn't help.