I went to my first caucus on Saturday at the local elementary school. I brought my 8-year old son along so that he too could experience it. My children and friends see me actively involved in politics. I find that especially important for my children. I often hear folks say they don't feel their one voice will make any difference and so they don't participate. I think they feel cynical and disheartened, and so it can be easy to forget that it the collective of our one voices that can effect change.
I didn't know how many folks would show up. Happy to report the turnout was fantastic! We exceeded the gym capacity of 600 so some precincts had to move to other areas of the school. I expected the format of the caucus to be debates, maybe a few short speeches, and voting. However, our precinct captain said folks could say something for about a minute. Wha? I'm afraid I hijacked the proceedings a bit for our precinct as I felt folks should be able to ask questions and speak their mind, within reason. We had 5 delegates for our precinct and the initial vote was 36 Obama, 16 Clinton, 4 undecided. So if the 4 undecided went to Clinton, we'd be sending 3 delegates for Obama and 2 for Clinton. My goal was to get the undecideds to go for Obama!
Some of the questions were interesting. A young woman of 23 said her main area of concern was jobs and who did everyone think would handle that better. I must say I didn't expect that to be a point of concern from a young woman and was pleased to see it. Another was concerned about national security. Everyone was concerned about the war.
One thing I did notice was that most of the 50+ year old crowd was for Clinton. The rest of us were for Obama. I've heard speculation on what that means, and we'll see how that all plays out. I also noticed that all the Clinton supporters gave her experience 'credit' for being the first lady of Arkansas and the US. I believe she did have experience in those areas, but I also believe that you can't give her the credit as if she were also President but in areas where Bill Clinton fell down, not give her those dings as well.
We were able to have one Clinton supporter change her vote to Obama and all the undecideds went to Obama. Hence, we sent 4 for Obama and 1 for Clinton. That ratio pretty much held in all the precincts and from what I saw on the state level as well.
I've heard some folks say the caucus methodology is terrible. There may be less votes cast overall versus a primary. However, the one thing I really enjoyed about the caucus was the ability to discuss politics openly with others, debate politics, and possibly even change minds. I feel it helps to mitigate media sound bites. Overall, I enjoyed the process and so did my son.
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