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Blog Entry 23 of 39 The Donnanator Report
My favorite article topics have been soccer and healthcare issues related to my profession. I'm likely to keep focusing on those, and throw in social commentary and satire as necessary. There are plenty of health, nutrition and food behaviors just screaming for the kind of commentary possible with a blog, and who better to write those than a nutrition professional? I'm a big proponent of taking personal responsibility for health, and that philosophy will definitely influence my analysis of healthcare and health insurance issues. As for soccer, I've written about high school soccer, because that's what makes for good headlines, but clearly mainstream news organizations in the US need to improve coverage and analysis of all soccer, from local clubs to the World Cup.

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~TheDonnanator

What I Learned While Caucusing
Contributed by: Donna Feldman   on 2/6/2008

At 6:45 on Tuesday evening, when the Democratic caucuses were supposed to begin, the line for registration still snaked all the way down the hall and out the front door of Louisville Elementary. The gym was filling up with registered participants as volunteers hauled extra chairs, and neighbors visited with each other to pass the time. The mood was definitely upbeat and cheerful, with political change in the air. The crowd ranged in age from pre-voter infants in strollers to retirees, a Boulder County crowd dressed for comfort and function rather than fashion.

The caucuses began just after 7, with some announcements. The man running the event thanked everyone for showing up in great number, and everyone cheered for themselves for showing up in great number. Then he described the logistics: the eight precincts-worth of voters packed into the gym were going to march out of the gym and down the hall to their designated classrooms, where they would caucus, and vote to allocate their delegates to particular candidates. But before that, one person for each candidate had 2 minutes to make a speech to the SRO crowd.

First up, a woman who spoke in support of Hillary Clinton claimed the election was about human rights. After a round of applause and cheers, John Edwards' supporters got a turn. Wait, didn't he drop out? No matter, He's entitled to a speech and even delegates. It's a caucus thing, don't ask. Non-candidate Edwards, who "forced everyone else to have a healthcare plan" was followed by non-candidate Gravel, whose supporter got the most cheers when he mentioned George McGovern's doomed candidacy in 1972. Another drop-out, Dennis Kucinich was promoted by someone who warned that Mitt Romney had purchased Clear Channel over the weekend and was firing all the liberal employees. Could I possibly have heard this wrong? Well, he claimed it was on the Internet, so it must be true. Finally, the rock star of the evening, Barak Obama, was described as "electable", "pure" and "electable in November". I'd say Obama had slightly more applause than Hillary, definitely more whistles.

As the crowd filed out behind their precinct signs, participants were asked to "Please respect each other". This being Boulder County, I wasn't expecting pitched battles, just a lot of defacto political correctness. I did overhear a second grader tell her mother that Hillary Clinton was crazy. Well, she got that from one of her classmates, not the Internet, so maybe it's not true.

Ninety people crowded into the small classroom for my precinct and listened to some more logistics. We were supposed to elect a new precinct captain, but everyone just decided to keep the old one. Moving right alone, a straw poll was conducted to see which candidates missed out on the dreaded 15% vote threshhold. Let's see, 15% of 90? Clinton made the cut, but the drop-out candidates didn't. Nor did that other mysterious candidate, UnCommitted. This is another caucus thing - it's good to be uncommitted because apparently you can demand stuff from the more powerful candidates. So the drop-out supporters decided to band together and all become UnCommitted and demand stuff. However, they never did have a discussion about exactly which stuff to demand, so I'm wondering if they discovered they weren't entirely in agreement on that.

Meanwhile Obama cleaned up in the straw poll, with support across the board, even the infants. Then it was time for the Real Vote, which would allocate delegates according to complex mathematical formulas that spread our 90 votes over 6 delegates. Voting involved raising one's hand for one's candidate and then counting off until all the hands were down. There was occasional confusion as two people counted off at once. I heard "Didn't that guy vote 3 times?" mumbled next to me. It was hard to tell. After voting was over, Obama, Clinton and UnCommitted had all won. The precinct leaders huddled together doing the math and finally announced that we had 1 delegate for Clinton, 1 for UnCommitted and 4 for Obama. People started leaving, thinking the Big Event was over, forgetting that actual people had to be chosen to be those delegates to yet another meeting in Boulder County, which entitled you to vote to send delegates to some other meeting somewhere in Colorado in the spring. Fortunately, some people volunteered for this chore, and the caucuses were over. Except that apparently we were also supposed to vote on delegates for the Senate and House elections, too.

The whole process took 2-1/2 hours. Voting in a primary would probably have taken 1/2 hour? So why do we have caucuses? Someone suggested because they're cheaper to run. Maybe so, but they are more social than voting booths. I saw lots of old friends and caught up on news while waiting around in the gym. Not a terrible way to spend an evening.




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Showing 1 of 1 comments
Submitted By: Karin Malchow
posted on 2/10/2008 @ 3:54:13 PM
Rated Blog Entry
Although the lines to vote have also been good places to socialize in the last few elections.
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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Donna Feldman

Louisville , CO

Donna Feldman has posted 39 blog entries and 0 comments since joining on 9/14/2005. Donna Feldman 's average blog rating is 4.65.
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