Thronging Democracy

`What is a Caucus-race?’ said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.

`Why,’ said the Dodo, `the best way to explain it is to do it.’ (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)

First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (`the exact shape doesn’t matter,’ it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no `One, two, three, and away,’ but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out `The race is over!’ and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, `But who has won?’

— Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 

I knew I was in trouble when I hit traffic.

The Democratic Caucus started at 7. Folks were encouraged to get there before 6:30p. I knew Newton Middle School was about 5 minutes away, so I left at 6:22p.

At 6:55p, having crawled up Holly, and then crawled along Arapahoe, rejecting both the school parking lots, and parking a couple of blocks north of the school, I joined a massive line entering the school building.

“I had no idea,” said the lady I was standing beside, “there were so many Democrats in Arapahoe County.” I heard that comment more than once.

Mercifully, Margie had reminded me of my precinct number, so I didn’t have to forge my way to the stations where folks were doing lookups. Instead, I could just … try to find my precinct number, which, conveniently, was not posted outside the room we were meeting.

Fortunately, the guy holding a precinct number outside that room told me there were four precincts meeting inside, including mine, so I entered.

Now, most choir rooms are fairly good-sized. This was no exception.

It was not, however, good-sized for the 150-200 people actually in the room.

I did notice something very quickly, once I signed in. Obama buttons, stickers, etc., were everywhere. And not a Clinton one in sight.

We finally started at about 7:30p, and listened to one of the precinct captains tell the four groups in the room (poorly and confusingly) what we would be doing (within each precinct). To wit:

1. Decide on a precinct chairman (the precinct captains all volunteered and were accepted) and a secretary.(generally speaking, the guy standing next to the precinct captain).
2. Take a straw pool to see who were the viable candidates. “Viable,” as defined, was having 15% or more of the vote. That could include write-ins and undecideds. We came up with 31 for Obama, 15 for Clinton, 1 undecided.
3. Anyone who was not in a viable category had to decide, which meant wooing him/her to one camp or another. Several people spoke up in favor of Clinton or Obama, not saying anything new, but saying it with passion. I nearly spoke, but someone got a beat on me, and I didn’t feel it necessary to repeat what others said. Our 1 undecided finally went for Obama.
4. Do a final preference poll. All the Clinton supporters went over to that corner of our quadrant of the room, all the Obama supporters in the opposite corner. Final tally was 33 for Obama, 15 for Clinton. The extra came from someone who had t run outside to move her car because we were informed over the PA that the Arapahoe Co. Sheriff was having illegally-parked cars towed. Nice.
5. Figure out the proportion of our precinct delegate count went to each candidate. Colorado’s a proportional state. We had five delegates, so we ended up with 3 Obama, 2 Clinton, per the little worksheet.
6. Accept volunteers from each camp to be delegates (or alternates) to the county convention (late Feb/early Mar). Accept volunteers to be precinct representatives (which sounded like it involved 2 years worth of meetings and phone canvasses). 
7. Go home.

So we did, and I did.

It was confusing, poorly organized, crowded, stuffy, difficult to follow (if you are considering being a precinct captain, please make sure your voice can actually carry in a crowded room more than three feet), and utterly glorious.

I kind of ragged on the Iowa caucus process back when that was going on, but, y’know, there really is something to be said for the whole thing. Being there, with others who are of a similar mind (at least on some level), discussing (at least briefly) issues, and standing in solidarity both with a candidate and with the electoral process — it really does move one in a way that clicking on a web page or squeezing in a dash to a polling place on the way home from work doesn’t. Voting is a solitary act, and very powerful for all that. Caucusing is a communal act, and very powerful for all that, too.

Glad I went.