Buildergrrl goes to caucus

One of the realities of living on the west coast is that national elections are usually called before the polls are closed. And if you're not living in California then nobody really cares cares how you vote. I've got friends here and in Alaska and Hawaii who've never bothered to vote for president before. But this year is different. With no clear front runner after Super Tuesday, all of a sudden our opinion actually matters. How 'bout that!

So I went to caucus today. I walked up the street, cut through the park and turned left to the Lutheran church. A few blocks out I noticed other people in ones and twos heading in the same direction. I joined the stream and we wound our way to the basement of the church. Inside we were herded by volunteers to maps where we could find our precinct. I found mine – a five-digit number in a block of the map where my house sat. The block was colored in with gray magic marker.

I committed the 5-digit number to memory. Shortly thereafter I forgot it again. I found another map table; this one had index cards and a pen on it. I stood beside an old woman and found my precinct again. The woman was just figuring out (evidently for the second time) that she was in the wrong place. Her precinct wasn't caucusing here in the Lutheran Church. The volunteer was patiently explaining that she'd have to go to another church a few blocks away. Except that the old lady was chauffeuring two "elderly friends" who were presumably wandering around looking for their precinct here. Hoo-boy. I wrote down my precinct number, made note of the color and stepped away from the table into the conga line of Democrats spilling into the hall.

We wound our way through a sea of bodies. Every few yards there was a table surrounded by a clump of people signing in trailing lines of people waiting to do the same. Over each clump bobbed a colored balloon. I hung tight in the conga line looking for gray balloons. We wound up the stairs to the main hall and I spotted them. At the far front of the conga line and inside the church itself there they were; a couple of grey balloons with my precinct number drawn on them in sharpie.

I approached the line to get to the clump and that's when I realized two things: A) I was surrounded by a crowd of people & B) I was in a church.

I happen to have a very strong aversion to both of these things.
I made the conscious effort not to flee. Instead I sucked it up and got in line to sign in.

I'd nearly reached the table when I realized the folks right behind me were my downstairs neighbors. Oh-hi! A quick discussion revealed that none of us had ever been to a caucus before and we had no idea what we were supposed to do or what was supposed to happen. Huh. A collective shrug of our shoulders and we signed in.

No identification necessary. Just step up to the sign-in sheet and write down your name, address, e-mail, phone number, etc. By doing so you affirm that you are a member of the Democratic Party, yadda yaddda. Then you write in your preference for Democratic Party Presidential Candidate. Unlike the state primary this is not an anonymous ballot. For the record, I wrote down Obama.

Then I milled around trying to figure out what happened next. The guy at the table with the thing in his ear said he'd be calling the precinct together in about a half-hour. Then what? He tried to explain but he was distracted by all the people and this was his first time doing this so he kind of bumbled. He did however have an agenda, which I took and read. The moment I realized that I didn't have to stay for the duration I decided I was out of there. There were way too many people. And churches creep me out.

Having decided I'd done my bit for Democracy I fought my way upstream along the conga line and out the door. The conga line wound it's way around the block. Woah. Whew, fresh air was good - that was feeling a little close in there.

A few blocks away I was finally starting to relax and that's when I began to kick myself for being a chickenshit. Then I chided myself for missing an opportunity to engage in the political process on the ground floor. Besides, if I went home now I wouldn't be able to explain to anyone what happened or how it worked.

I went home anyway. I made a cup of tea and took a few advil for the headache that was coming. Then I went back to the Lutheran Church to see what happened next.

There were even more people than when I'd left. Lots more.
I hid in the ladies room until it quieted down.

There was a guy standing up in front of the church explaining the rules. There were also groups in the hall, in the foyer and in the big basement room too. In the church itself were four groups – including my precinct. The guy was explaining that the first thing that'd happen is we'd break up into our precincts and they'd read out the first tally. Once the tally is done, a preliminary allocation of delegates is made based on the vote. Our job was to allocate our precinct Delegates to candidates according to the vote. The Delegates would then go on to do all this again at the Legislative District Caucus in April.

Our precinct had 80 people who showed up and signed in. Of those, 56 voted for Obama, 16 for Hillary and 8 undecided. This led to an unfortunate allocation of 3-1/2 delegates for Obama, 1 delegate for Hillary and 1/2 for Undecided. Unfortunately, you can't split a delegate in two. That would hurt. So we'd have to vote again until we got only whole number allocations between the three options.

So now we entered the second phase of the caucus. The part where the candidates' supporters try to convince others to switch votes. Those 8 people had to pick someone. And who knows, someone might change their mind. It started with the stump speeches. A guy from the crowd stood up on a chair and told us why we should vote for Obama. Apparently, Hillary is going to lose to McCain, and some other things that I couldn't hear because the precinct next to us got really rowdy all of a sudden. Those guys were really getting into it. Whatever it was. Couldn't figure it out while trying to hear the Obama guy. And then his minute was up. Whatever he said must have been good because he got a nice round of applause.

The Hillary lady stood up on a chair and though it looked like she was hollerin' pretty good, she was even harder to hear than the first guy. I caught the words Arkansas, Clinton, and Want. She got a good amount of applause when she was done.

Then an undecided voter stood up to support the "Undecided" point of view. Now this one I was really interested in hearing. I haven't heard much regarding Undecided's positions on the issues. Due to the rowdy precinct next to us I still haven't. I have no idea what she said. Not sure anyone else did either due to the uncertain bit of clapping when she finished.

So now we had 5 minutes to find the Undecideds among us and get them to vote for our guy. Or gal. Only one problem: which of the eight of us were they? Remember, this is Seattle, it's not like we'd want to put anyone on the spot by turning to the guy standing right here and asking "Who did you vote for? Are you undecided?"
oh, the horror.

After a few moments of uncomfortable silence the guy in charge spoke up, "OK, how 'bout this: if there's anyone who is Undecided and feels comfortable identifying himself, um, or herself, ah, could you maybe raise your hand?"

Two of the eight Undecideds raised their hands.

Five minutes of milling about ensued while the rowdy precinct with the yellow balloons whooped it up on the other side of the church. The floor shook. Maybe it's the balloons, I thought. Theirs are yellow. Our balloons are gray.

Finally the five minutes were up and the second tally commenced. The results: 64 votes for Obama, 16 votes for Hillary and 0 for Undecided. Four of our precinct delegates were awarded to Obama, the fifth for Hillary. Nobody had to get chopped in two. Hooray.

We had a brief intermission from the interactive phase in which we listened to a good old-fashioned Anti-Bush stump speech This was cheerfully interrupted with editorial comments from the precinct-turned-peanut-gallery. Once we got all fired up we were buffaloed into an auction for donations to the Democratic Party. Who's going to give $10 to the party today? Five people will give 10, will five give $20? Oh, jeez.

Our buzz now thoroughly killed, we broke into the Obama group and the Hillary group to decide who would be our Delegates at the Legislative District Caucus in April. See, this is just the first step. At the April caucus, the districts get together and do all this all over again and winnow their numbers down to 2000 delegates, who then go on to the Congressional District Caucuses in May and winnow themselves down to a grand total of 97 Delegates for the state. Those 97 then get to go to the Democratic National Convention in August where our collected and distilled votes will be cast for the Democratic Presidential Candidate and finally counted.

The crowd had thinned out. Six people volunteered for our precinct's four Obama Delegates. So we got to vote again. 3x5 cards and pens made the rounds. The "candidates" wrote their names on cards and held them over their heads. They also got to say a few words...

• Sarah was super happy to participate and passionate about the Democratic Party.
• Michael was a Delegate four years ago for John Kerry and he regrets it – he'll do better this time.
• Aviva was for Obama and very pretty – that's about it.
• Carolee campaigned in Iowa for Obama and she's really excited about the whole process.
• Neal is voting for his first time and everyone in his school thinks Hillary's the one that can beat McCain even though they all like Obama better. He thinks that's stupid and that you should vote for who you want to win.
• Tom is a hard-core member of the Democratic faithful. He's been a Delegate before but would happily give up a seat to someone young and enthusiastic like Neal or Carolyn.

Cards collected, tallied and the results: Sarah, Carolee, Neal and Tom got our votes. They've made it to round two of the nominating process and will be representing us at the Legislative District Caucus in April.

Michael, Aviva and two others from the remaining smattering of folks volunteered to be the four Alternates (just in case one of our Delegates calls in sick or something). And that was that. We were done with our business. It took about an hour. Most of the other precincts were already done - including the yellow rowdies.

I got a red-white&blue popsicle on my way out the door. Thanks for being a good Democrat! It was overcast, cold, and starting to rain on the way home. I sucked on my popsicle and I started to wonder about what happens next. It might be interesting to participate in the next level of caucus. Watch the delegates turn into votes and get distilled again into fewer delegates and get sent on to the next level…

But not this year. Maybe next time. It'll probably be less crowded.