The doors opened at 10 and the doings were supposed to start at 10:45, but it was actually after 11:00 before everybody got through the registration line. Part of that process included declaring your preference among the candidates.
We started out with about 600 delegates & alternates in attendance -- plus quite a few little kids who had showed up with mom or Grandma. While caucus officials checked to find out which delegates hadn't showed and assign alternates to replace them (another hour to hour & a half), we heard some rousing speeches by state senator Claudia Kauffman and state reps Geoff Simpson and Pat Sullivan.
There were no credentials challenges. So we moved on to the business of the caucus.
First, allocating the delegate count for selecting delegates to the next caucus level (the CD caucuses). They did a preliminary allocation based on our declared preferences as we had entered. There were some minor math mishaps, one of which I pointed out, thus fulfilling my sacred civic duty as a math teacher. Adjustments were made, and then came the part where we all had an opportunity to change our votes.
There were a couple of questions/mild objections to the effect of "Why are we talking about changing votes when we are supposed to be pledged delegates." The chair (Obama guy) explained that under Dem rules, a delegate's obligation is always to represent the best interests of his or her constituents. The presumption is that you will vote the way the people who selected you voted, but "sometimes things change."
The "Uncommitted" delegation (7 individuals, far less than the 80+ needed to reach the 15% minimum for obtaining any delegates) asked that a rep of each camp be allowed to speak before people made up their minds. When it came time to hear from the Uncommitteds, their speaker made a valiant case for why choosing to be uncommitted is a great benefit, but I think the mood of the party has moved pretty far beyond "keeping options open," so he didn't win over any adherents.
The Clinton speaker attempted to capitalize on the meme that "Obama hasn't been vetted; we don't know WHAT kind of horrible slime the R's will find on him," but she got booed down, so she changed tacks.
After all vote changes and math corrections, the vote totals were:
8th Dist: O 350, C 151, Uncomm 1
9th Dist: O 34, C 17, Uncomm 1
which resulted in a final delegate allocation of:
8th: O 24, C 10
9th: O 3, C 1
and percentages of:
O: 69.3%
C: 30.3%
The original (Feb. 9th) vote percentages for LD47 were
O 64%
C 33%
(remainder Kucinich & Uncommitted).
So Obama's net over Hillary increased since Feb. 9th from +31% to +39%. According to the caucus chair, this represented a gain of 3 delegates. He said the gain was due to Hillary delegates and alternates not showing up. To be clear, there were a lot of delegates and alternates for both candidates who didn't show up, but the numbers hurt Hillary more. And I think more of the Uncommitted folks broke for Obama, too.
NOTE: These delegate numbers are still a couple of levels removed from the final delegate #s to be determined at the State Convention June 13-14. So they don't signify any immediate change in the official delegate count toward the nomination. However, each of the accounts I've read of yesterday's LD caucuses included a slight gain for Obama. So chances look good that Obama may pick up a few more WA delegates at the state onvention (beyond his original margin of about 2-1).
The next step was to break up into our individual caucuses (8th O, 8th C, 9th O, 9th C) to choose our delegates to the next level. I was in by far the biggest group, 8th Obama. 44 men and about 30 women competed for 12 male and 12 female slots. We listened to 74 impassioned "1-minute" speeches (most of which actually went over by a few seconds).
I only cried once -- listening to a young woman, a Pakistani immigrant, whose last name sounds very "Hussein-ish." She obtained citizenship in time to vote enthusiastically in the 2000 election. Then came 9/11. In the wake of her experiences thereafter -- rejection by neighbors, being seen as "the other" -- she dropped the "American" from her previous self-designation as Pakistani-American, and has spent the past few years fairly embittered. She is supporting Obama because she believes that he will lead this country to a place where she will no longer feel that she is "the other." I'm not doing justice to the emotional impact of her talk, but she got a rousing ovation from the crowd.
We also heard from the African-american woman who, 40 years ago, was picking cotton in Mississippi, who took to heart her grandmother's words that education was the way out, and went on to obtain her Master's degree. We heard from the white guy who defined loneliness for us: Loneliness is being a Democrat when you're a cop. We listened to the retired caucasian local government employee who told us of how much MLK had moved him 40 years ago, and said that until Obama, no other man has been able to move him like that. We heard from the young African-American mom who wants Obama in the White House because she wants her 5-year-old daughter to believe that she can reach whatever goal she chooses in life.
And after listening and voting, we waited. And then we waited, and afterwards we waited some more. During that time, I had the chance to talk with some other Obama supporters. I was sitting by a couple of 60-ish African-American women. One of them showed me pictures of her 3 granddaughers, each the progeny of mixed marriages. One of her son's children has very dark coloring that clearly shows her African roots. The other looks for all intents and purposes caucasian -- long, light blond hair, green eyes. I asked if the two girls have trouble convincing people they are sisters.
She said sometimes, but that her blond granddaughter is very proud of her African-American heritage. She gets into arguments all the time when she tells people she is black, and they think she is just fantasizing or doesn't really understand what she's talking about. She angrily tells them that she knows what she is.
Her third granddaughter looks Latina, she thinks, even though the two parents are black and caucasian (Anglo). The other grandma I was sitting by said that yeah, her granddaughter, whose parents are African-American and Filipino, also looks Latina.
After about an hour and a half of waiting, our conversations deteriorated into a lot of whining about how long it was taking, how tired and hungry we were (I made the mistake of not bringing any cash, so the vending machines of food and drink tanatialized and mocked me incessantly). I considered going home, since I hadn't put myself in the running for a delegate position, but I stayed out of a sense of duty because the next item on the agenda was to vote for alternates, and the crowd had dwindled to a point where I was concerned they might not have a quorum.
Ultimately, the ending of the caucus was extremely anti-climactic for me. I went ouside to smoke a cigarette (yeah, I know), and while I was outside they announced the winners, and decided by acclamation to take the next 11 vote-getters as alternates.
Overall, it was a fascinating experience in participatory democracy. I will probably do it again. I really enjoyed meeting and hearing from so many people who shared so many of my values and longings. I was amused at the extent to which the Hillary delegates I met so uniformly represented her key demographic: every single one of them was a white woman in her 60's. And the diversity among the Obama delegates was something to celebrate and marvel at. It felt good to be an American yesterday.
UPDATE: After reading oscarsmom's diary about her experience at the 43rd LD caucus, I want to echo her experience with the "cheers." As I was initially surveying the group, it appeared to me that Obama delegates far outnumbered the Clintonites. But when the Clinton delegation cheered, I thought -- wow, that's loud; maybe we don't really outnumber them. That concern was laid neatly to rest by the reverberating roar from the Obama crowd.
