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February 10, 2008
Caucusing For Obama
 Yesterday, I took part in the Washington State primaries, casting my vote in our local caucus for Barack Obama.
My extreme admiration for Obama isn't the focus of this post, and, frankly, I'm not sure it's needed - his qualities are covered exhaustively by blogs and the media. Suffice to say that, to me, he's The Real Deal, and I can't wait to vote for him in November.
I'd never participated in a caucus before, and to say I was excited would be a massive understatement. A few notes from the process:
- To caucus in Washington, you have to know your legislative district (I'm in the 43rd), as well as your precinct. This information is available in a few different places, but in my case the 43rd district Dems have a Web site where you can look it up.
- The Obama campaign also offered a "guide to Washington Caucuses" with a Caucus Finder tool. Very slick, very easy. (Nice organization, folks!)
- Caucuses start at 1 PM, and our caucus location was the local community center. I went with a few friends from the neighborhood, and we tried to arrive early (12:30 or so) to avoid the anticipated mad crush of people.
- The mad crush pretty much appeared about 30 seconds after we did, and kept coming, and coming, and coming. The organizers were clearly overwhelmed with the sheer volume of bodies that wanted to caucus, and they had to keep breaking out precincts into new rooms. Initially, five or so precincts were in one room, ours among them. But the room filled, and filled - we took out tables and chairs, so we could fit more people in, and it went standing-room-only. Then, the organizers would swing by, announce that they'd located more space, and take a precinct or two away from our room. Eventually, it was just our precinct - and it was still pretty full.
- The energy was terrific. Friendly, excited - people of all ages and backgrounds, every one of them happy to be participating and eager to cast a vote. It's easy to be cynical about democracy, but when you see it up close and personal like this, it's actually very inspiring.
- Once we'd figured out who was supposed to be where, we all signed in - name, address, phone, and preference for President. These votes were tallied by volunteer organizers in front of the room.
- The initial vote was a landslide: of the 104 people in our precinct, 94 were for Obama, 8 for Clinton, and 2 undecided. (I was madly text-messaging with my Dad in Spokane and my friend Chris, who was at another caucus location here in Seattle. Both reported big Obama numbers.)
- One person then volunteered to represent for each candidate, and speak for a minute on their behalf. A guy got up for Obama, and a woman for Clinton. The crowd then began asking questions (and answering them), trying to change the minds of the undecideds and the folks on the other side.
- The conversation was fluid, smart - people clearly knew their candidates, knew their issues, and had good things to say. The room could clap after anyone made a speech - it was incredibly civil and polite.
- (For some reason, it didn't surprise Elaine at all when she found out that I'd spoken a couple times.)
- Eventually, the debate ceased and we re-counted. When all was said and done, both undecideds broke for Obama - 96 Obama, 8 Clinton. All 6 of our delegates went for Obama. I was also elected to be one of the delegates to go to the District convention on April 5 (!).
- Start to finish, the whole thing took about three hours.
It was amazing to be part of this process. While it was chaotic, crazy, and a little confusing, people stepped up to help and we all got through it. It felt so very ... civic. And wonderful.
(And, as it happens, Washington State broke two-for-one for Barack.)
Posted by Gavin Shearer at February 10, 2008 9:35 AM. Posted to Politics.
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Woohoo! Wonderful write-up, Gavin!
Our location had lots of energy too. And... A. and I are delegates to the Legislative District Caucus too!
Posted by: netsirk at February 10, 2008 11:12 AM
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