Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Caucused!

So - this weekend I went out to the Washington State Democratic Caucus. This is how Washington decides who gets the delegates in the presidential primary. I've usually just voted in the primary in previous elections, so I decided to give the caucus a try.
Well, the caucus was lame. Here's how mine went: I got there a few minutes early, I needed to sign in for my precinct... Bad Tev forgot to look up his precinct number before going so I had to go to the wall and try to decipher the precinct map located there (while 20 other people were doing the same thing). Once I got my precinct I then found that our signup line was the longest in the place (at least my neighbors are active!). After about 10 minutes in line I finally got to sign up and realized that I was supposed to declare a candidate. What!?! I thought that was why I was here so I could hear more about the candidates. Well, I decided to put down Obama, even though my worthless primary ballot said Clinton. Whatever.
So, then we are told that we need to go to a room in the school, all 113 of us. Ok. When we get there I feel like a GIANT because of all the small chairs and tables, at least that was fun. Then we get 10 minutes of "the rules" after which whoever wanted to could talk about their candidate for 1 minute. Well, 1 minute is not much, but there were a few people who had good things to say. Truthfully it was basically just an Obama lovefest in there (except for the 3 women talking for Hillary). After several of these 1 minute talks, we were given the opportunity to change our vote if anyone had swayed it. Well, a few of the undecideds became decided (all Obama) and then it was pretty much done. No, WAIT! Now all the people who voted the same way had to get together and decide on who would actually be the delegate for the State caucus. Well, while being a delegate sounds like it might be cool, I really couldn't be arsed enough to bother, so I left at that point.
So - what did I think of the whole process? I think it's lame. I'd much rather do my own research and vote for who I want to in the comfort of my own home or the ballot box. I wonder how many people's votes were actually swayed by the 1 minute speeches? I'm going to write to the Washington State Dems and tell them to switch back to the Primary system, it just makes more sense.

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