Caucus is fun to say.

[bubbles83]

I caucused! WOOO! It was my first time, so I was a little nervous. I had no idea what went on at a caucus. Did you have to drink the blood of puppies? Sign your soul to the Democrats forever?* Declare your alliegence to dead gay headmasters? I didn't know. Well, they didn't make me do any of that. This is what I did have to do.


Our caucus was held at a local high school. My mom and I got there and there were a bunch of tables set up. We found the table for our precinct and sat down. (Actually there were over 40 people there just for our precinct, so it was a few tables) After you do that, you sign in. Name, date of birth, yadda yadda, and which democratic candidate you were supporting. After everyone has shown up and signed in, the votes for each candidate are tallied up. Then people give speeches. They're short, just one minute or so. About why you think people should vote for whoever you voted for. Then the sign in sheet goes around again and you can change your choice if you wish. The new votes are tallied and the results determine how many delegates each candidate gets from your precinct.

For example, In my precinct (571 REPRESENT!!!) the vote went 21 Obama, 20 Clinton, 0 uncommitted. One person from each side gave a speech and we voted again. The results were the same, so we split our 8 delegates evenly.

After you've determined how many delegates each candidate gets, everyone splits up into groups depending on who you supported. In those groups you decide who you want the delegates to be. Those delegates then go to the county caucus where they do... I don't know. Something. I think they decide who gets to go to the state level. And then at the state level you decide who goes to the national convention in Denver. I'm not a delegate. I'm not even an alternate. I was going to be one, but we had 5 volunteers and only 4 spaces, so I dropped out. If you want to know what goes on at the other places, you'll have to ask someone else.

Anyway, after that there's something with people bringing resolutions that go to the county caucus. Then you go home. The whole process takes about an hour and isn't too painful or anything. I don't think it's the best system ever. My personal opinion is that we should have an open primary (PS: If you want to be really confused, Washington does have a primary election as well, but the Democrats don't get any of their delegates from it. The Republicans do though. They split their primary and caucus results to get delegates. Don't ask me how it works, I have no idea. Also don't ask me why Dems vote in an election that we get nothing out of. It's called a Beauty Election [or something like that], and I have no clue what the point of it is), but I do think caucuses(cauci?) are kind of neat.

I liked getting to meet all the people there (THERE WERE A LOT! GO DEMOCRACY! WOO!) and hearing what they had to say. I happily wore my Obama sticker to the grocery store later, and stuck my sign in the car window for the ride home.

This sounds dorky(not that I've ever cared about being dorky[what's with all the parentheses in this entry?]), but it made my day brighter to know that I was part of the process. That I did my civic duty.

But, hey, it's probably not as dorky as my Yay-I-Got-My-Ballot dance, when my ballot came in the mail in 2004. And WAY less dorky than my I-Just-Voted-WOO-WOO dance that I did after I voted for Kerry.

ETA: HA HA. Guys, I typed this entry up in Semagic HOURS ago and thought I posted it, but apparently not. Anyway, here it is now. And in case anyone was curious and didn't already know, Obama won in Washington, Louisiana, and Nebraska today!


*I proabably would have been okay with that.

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[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

Caucuses make me think of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and probably always will ...