(gold, I tells ya)
Today is caucus day for both parties in Washington state. What is caucusing? It's intended to be the opportunity for people to argue the merrits of their preferred candidate, and for undecided voters to learn more from their neighbors about how the candidates will address key issues.
Below is an excerpt of a note I wrote to my friend Jeannie, who helped me learn more about my choice, Obama:
I [...] got myself in fighting spirit, and went to the caucus.
The line simply to get into the building was unbelievable; the poor caucus volunteers looked kinda freaked out.
Eventually we all found our caucus rooms and signed in with our vote. My precinct had 7 delegates, 5 went to Obama and 2 went to Clinton. Woo Hoo!!
Paul and I then took off, as the sides were pretty set at that point.
This caucus was so much larger and unruly than the last one I went to, where there was actual opportunity to talk with people and discuss - really, this was just a vote where you had to be present and go through a bunch of inconvenient hoops. To my satisfaction, a woman had brought with her a proposal to make Democratic party primary votes count. I hope it passes at the state level!
Anyway, I thought your little reporter soul would like to know how it went for my precinct. I even managed to talk Paul into going, who was initially resistant.(He called it an interesting experience in arcane democracy.)
In the 2004 caucus, there were still so many candidates (Kerry, Edwards, Kucinich, Clark, Sharpton, and probably 1-2 others I can't remember) that there was functional value in caucusing. This time around, though, it's hard to imagine too many people having so little preference as to consider voting for the other guy/gal.
I'm just pleased that my precinct went the same way I did; more often than not I feel like odd man out, so this was a nice change.
And then there's this take on things:
Sex advice columnist and editor of The Stranger Dan Savage reports from his caucus location in Seattle:
Maybe the caucus system works--when precincts have at most 10 people in them and no one gives a fuck about the election. But it's total pandemonium right now at Stevens Elementary. The lines to sign in--for for precinct--stretches all the way across the gymnasium. Lines to sign in for other precincts intersect with our line and no one is keeping order. Thank God for our neighbor: She commandeered a dozen sign-in sheet from the table and brought them to the end of the line so we could register our preferences and get the hell out. Here's hoping our sign-in sheets got back up to the precinct table: we didn't hang around long enough to find out.
Note to the Washington State Democrats: Please don't put us through that bullshit again. Don't waste our time. Let us vote in a primary. Yeah, yeah: The caucus system is supposed to build community, or something, since we're all supposed to gather together with our neighbors and talk about who we're supporting and why, and make appeals to the braindeads--excuse me, the undecideds--blah blah blah. But the only thing neighbors at Stevens are discussing right now is what a bullshit waste of time this is. You're going to need smaller precincts, and a lot more precinct sites, and a lot more workers, or you're going to need to go to a primary system.
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