Too crowded to caucus

[barondave]

Obama supporter at the Minnesota caucus, Mpls
Super Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2008CE

By 6:15 the line was long, and that was just to sign in. Sticking to the rules, no one could vote until 6:30, and we only had the choices for president. The slate of Democrats was long and included people who dropped out a long time ago (in political terms). ( I guess the Republicans were in another place.) They were unprepared; I gave them two of my pens (from the bus company). People were still arriving at 7:00 when they declared the actual caucus to be in the next building. At first, the Convener said they wouldn't start until 8 (when the whole thing was supposed to be over), but she started the process of electing caucus officials about 7:15. Still, people were trickling in and it was obvious the main event would go on for a long time. I didn't stick around.

I talked to several interesting local voters, including an Imam from Somalia and a student originally from Bangladesh who lives in my building.

Comments

MN Caucus

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Wow.

B

Re: MN Caucus

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I've been watching turnout more than the results, and it looks like a decade of stolen elections has backfired on the Republicans. We shall see if the excitement continues to the general election.

[joshuwain.livejournal.com]

Same where I was, only I got shanhaied into being the Chair...! GAH!

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Good for you! It's a thankless job. Does that mean you'll be the convener of the next caucus, or can you delegate that job?

[joshuwain.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... Maybe I'm using the wrong word. I had to chair the meeting last night; I'm not doing the whole "2-year long" thing.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

The VOTING had to be over by 8pm, not the caucus. You couldn't really start the caucus while people were still in line, because there were people in the line that wanted to run for delegate. Also, since the voting/sign-in table was in the back of our caucus room, it was too noisy to do anything useful until the voting line was cleared, which was almost 8pm at our caucus. So our Convener made a rare good decision and spent the time from 7-8 taking resolutions (which is not even remotely useful, imho, but has to be done). We couldn't hear half the resolutions with all the racket, but that was kind of a blessing.

"the slate of Democrats was long and included people who dropped out a long time ago..."

???? Did your caucus have BALLOTS? We just had little pieces of yellow paper. They didn't give us a list of candidates at all. Almost everybody voted for Hillary or Barak. I'm still not sure if the one vote for Al Franken was from a wise ass or somebody who didn't understand that it was a presidential preference poll.

"I talked to several interesting local voters, including an Imam from Somalia and a student originally from Bangladesh who lives in my building."

That's what makes it fun. I chatted with the woman behind me in line, who I hadn't met before, and one of my neighbors recognized me and came over to say hello. I'll see him again at the District Convention.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

The VOTING had to be over by 8pm, not the caucus.

I guess. The signs weren't clear, and apparently the people running the voting weren't clear either. In any event, I left before 8, as the room was crowding up.

We didn't have "ballots" so much as hastily printed sheets of paper with names and lines next to the names. The people at the table were busily cutting the paper into eight or 12 (or whatever) ballots. It looked like they were running out, or had hastily printed more on the fly. As I said, they ran out of pens. Good thing I had my usual compliment of cheapo writing instruments at hand. I never did reclaim the two I donated to the cause.

I gave my card to the Imam, a gentleman older than us who barely spoke English. ("Peas is good for everyone! You can sleep in Peas") Don't know if I'll hear from him, but I have seen him around, I think. All these people are my neighbors, in some sense of the word.