OBAMArama vs. tHrILLARY

Or . . . How we rocked it with our caucus out! With the Washington caucuses actually meaning something this election cycle Bridget and I headed to the carpenters union hall for our Democratic precinct meeting. I had never been through a caucus before and since Bridget is from Iowa she is more familiar with the process. It's a lot different from simply going into the voting booth and flicking some switches. It's more vocal, at times heated and impassioned and much, much messier.

Our precint met in a large room with several other precincts. The party organizers who were able to maintain some semblence of control said they sat out three times as many chairs than they did four years ago but there still weren't enough seats for everybody.

Twenty people showed up for our precinct and we quickly elected a chairman, secretary and tally clerk. Next, everyone signed in and wrote down either the name of their preferred candidate or "uncommitted." The tally clerk then counted the votes and calculated the initial division of precinct delegates. The votes were seventeen for Obama and three for Clinton and meant that our precinct's three delegates were initially allotted to Obama. A dispute then arose over the initial allottment of delegates when a Clinton voter argued that Hillary should be allotted one of the delegates. After much debate on how to calculate the delgate allottment and even calling over one of the organizers the Clinton supporter felt he wasn't being permitted the opportunity to explain his case and so he got up and left. Political drama at its best!

He should have stuck around since the next step was to allow each side one minute to convince any uncommitted voters or opponent's voters to switch their votes. Had the angered Clinton supporter stayed and been able to sway one Obama voter to change his or her vote Hillary would have scored a delegate. In the end, no one changed the way they voted leaving the final tally the same as the initial count and Obama receiving all three delegates.

We then moved on to choosing our three delegates for the Legislative District caucus in April. This is where I decided to throw my hat into the ring and was chosen as one of the delegates. It wasn't pretty but it sure was fun.