Great write-up, Will! There is usually no debate at this point, except for folks trying to woo non-viables to their side. It just isn’t the forum for it. You’re supposed to arrive ready to vote, not discuss, except for talking non-viables into jumping their first ship.
And Hillary people tried and tried for 4 more people - nada. In fact, a bunch of Hillary supporters were so firm, they left the caucus room, rather than endorse another candidate.
Obama is getting ready to speak now.
Okay, that speech was amazing to me. Very inspiring.
I’m still trying to find it . . .
Ok - I’m officially jealous of you guys.
I love local politics, and even though this is a national contest, it feels very local.
I’ve never been close to or paid much attention to the Iowa caucus. I never gave much credence to this. However, seeing this in action for your viewpoint makes me realize how local and accessible the candidates are there. They’ll loose that as they roll into the other primaries. That’s too bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQo8sRiahwE Part one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d85kIb3KCyU Part 2
So Kennedy-esque with Martin Luther King rhythms. Knocked me over!
Great coverage Will! In Ward 3, we had 125 people and all candidates except Gravel had representation. However, only Obama, Edwards and Clinton were viable. Unfortunately, the room we were in was way too small and poorly laid out. It was a library at the school so there were a lot of obstacles and dividers and the room was long and narrow. That really hurt the process because communication was poor between the groups and so was eye contact. So, little or no recruitment took place because the groups were too busy counting as the unviable people sort of wandered and picked on their own. So, some definate recruitment opportunities were missed to meet higher delegate thresholds. In the end, Hillary had enough representation for exactly 1 delegate, Edwards for 1.6 and Obama 2.3. This means that Obama received 47% and Edwards 33% of the raw vote, but we each received 2 delegates to look like a tie. That was disappointing. What a night!
Obama’s folks were confident and collected but not all were calm.
All the real anger directed at me came from their group (I counted in Obama’s group by the way - after starting with Biden). I offered a resolution to the platform committee for consideration to get rid of caucuses and have a real vote, secret ballot on a designated voting day.
[…] If anyone is curious, my friend Will wrote a fascinating account of the Democratic caucus he attended last night in Iowa. […]
Deborah, what don’t you like about the Caucus format?
in 4th ward i noticed the same thing about the obama crowd. they seemed to have it together with counting off, they looked more settled and organized. over at edwards we were a little messy and excitable or something.
it was pretty chaotic and fun over all. jeremy got into some discussions with a few obama supporters that were quite intense, but it’s nice to see people passionate about change. one of the highlights was the die hard kucinich supporter who would not change her choice for anything and made a statement that she was standing in protest for kucinich and particularly against edwards because “he doesn’t like kucinich” . i am wondering if she missed the statement from kucinich wanting all his supporters to go for obama.
it was nice to see the turn out. we had 244 people crammed into the senior center. man it was HOT!
Our Obama group at the fairgrounds was placed in an impossible location within the room for orderly counting—in the middle and hardly against the wall. The various non-viable candidates were given the corners…..why??
And yet we managed, largely thanks to Jennifer Hamilton’s amazing patience. Considering that Obama had over half the group’s population in it, it’d have been nice to have been sent to a corner with chairs. Our counting held everyone up, but everyone seemed to be good natured about it.
I just got confirmation (from a friend who claims to know the caucus rules and was at my precinct) on the screw up in our precinct.
At the end of round 1 the organizers stated that all groups except Obama and Edwards were not viable and so persons in those groups needed to find other groups.
During round 2 the Hillary and Richardson groups continued to try and sway people to their group and did not attempt to join Obama or Edwards. This was not legal, they no longer had viable groups and either had to join another group or not be counted.
To make this confusion worse, the organizers table was right between the Edwards and Hillary groups and watched, without any comment, while Hillary folks lured people from the Edwards group to their own.
So either the organizers were blind to what was going on, or they did not understand the rules. And frankly, no one I talked to seemed to understand the rules since we all stood around watching or participating as this was normal (i.e., that Hillary and Richardson were still viable).
So what sucks is that in the end, due to bad organization on the part of the Caucus leaders and Hillary’s captain, approximately 60-70 people were not counted in round 2 (having stood with Richardson or Hillary).
I’d love to get comment from the caucus organizers to confirm or deny or clarify what happened.
Something interesting to note from my caucus that backs up Will’s view on Hillary’s viability. At my precinct, when Richardson, Biden and Kucinich were declared inviable after round 1, most of their supporters went to Edwards and a few to Obama. I don’t think very many went to Hillary’s camp, if any at all. I think most were trying to bump up Edwards numbers to get 2 delegates. Being from a more progressive area, it also could have been the progressives supporting the most progressive candidate left.
Dan I have heard similar stories all day long. Hillary is not appearing to be even close to a rallying point for Democrats. And even though I believe this personally, I am shocked to see that view shared.
It could be that the press has done a very good job of promoting her but when it comes down to it people just are not motivated to rally around her.
The best thing about attending the Caucus was seeing Obama’s momentum building from his visits to Fairfield these past months and then last night. It’s exciting.
I showed up at the church in Packwood to lend my support to Edwards. There were 48 people, and Hillary was not viable. In the end, one Hillary supporter stayed with Hillary, 23 were in the Obama group, and 24 were in the Edwards group. With the media attempting to dictate that this be an Obama vs. Hillary race, I fully expected to find myself in an inviable Edwards group. It felt good to be a part of that huge turnout and give Edwards a second place finish, despite the media practically ignoring him.
yes, I did screw up on caucus night, mostly by not being clear about the rules. I thought I understood it from our training and being at the last 3 in Iowa but was quite confusing. Actually, during the realigning during the second round, any nonviable groups can still try and lure people to their group to become viable or join another group to be counted until the time is over. The candidate precinct chairpeople are supposed to know the rules and urge people to get people or join a different group. In the case of Hillary’s group, they needed 1 more person and thought they were getting it. I had already called for the count and 1 candidate chairperson took that to mean second round was over and wouldn’t allow anyone to leave and realign even though their count wasn’t over. (This is the first time I’ve caucused where groups took a very inflexible approach - that’s reflecting deep passion for their candidate I know but this didn’t happen in other wards - I’m told- where in order to be viable the chairperson let every person realign to be counted that wanted to without opposition from anyone) . This led to a fight and several phone calls to Democratic Headqtrs.We weren’t ignoring what was happening but trying to clarify the rules. Each candidate precinct person “knew” different rules so had to have it all verified at headqtrs. Dem headqtrs also had to have a small conference to figure it out and in the end, said the people who moved to Edwards were not allowed to because it was right at the 8 o’clock point (remember we got half an hour). All the captains had to sign off on this. Yes, a huge disappointment for the Hillary people who thought they were getting that extra person. So 43 people didn’t get their vote counted. This is why I prefer a primary - each person gets a vote. Another reason for a primary on a voting day is so all the people that want to vote get to vote. For instance, the wonderful custodian of Washington school was working, cleaning the school and helping get our room ready and he could not go over to his caucus to vote though he wanted to very much. Many people work at night, late, or can’t get babysitters or rides and therefore, cannot vote. Remember the “organizers” are just citizens volunteering do this. Responding to a phone call of help, we can’t get anyone to chair this caucus - apparently several people dropped out of this position after attending the training. Also had 3 times the number of people in that space - 4 years ago needed just 16 people per group and was easy to talk and caucus and see what was going on with each group.
Deborah I’m still confused - lol! Now I want to read the rules as they sound very unclear. It sounds like it isn’t as straightforward and simple as it should be.
I should also point out, in the defense of the organizers, that there were at least two people who were taking it upon themselves to give out instructions counter to what was being announced. I know their names but will keep that secret ;)
One of them was telling people they can go join other groups after you had just announced time on the first round.
So there was a lot of elements contributing to the confusion.
I still like the Caucus format, but they need simple, step by step instructions that are posted on a huge sign so everyone is clear.
Will, you should seriously train for precinct captain next time. You have the intelligence and passion to get it right.
Holly, Will was just as confused as everyone else and plus he would be trying to take pictures while giving instructions- it would just be crazy.
There probably should be a special training for the organizer who has Bert in their precinct.
Absolutely you should volunteer for this. Can’t imagine having this much excitement over an election again anytime soon. Or at least I hope the leadership is better the next 4 years and we aren’t so desperate for a change. There’s not much training though. A pretend caucus from county and reading the instructions. I have the rule booklet, you are welcome to come over and get it. Also, they were posted on Iowa Democratic web site that caucus goers were expected to read. I’m saving the book for you.
Oh no you don’t Deborah! LOL. You have over 4 years to try and pawn that book onto someone! ;-)
I thought you did the best that could of been done in that circumstance. Thank-you for taking it on.
I wouldn’t beat yourself up. It was a loud. tight and hot space. Not easy to manage.
Ultimately I don’t think it mattered because I assume the Hillary people would have split evenly between leaving and going to Edwards and Obama, which would mean the delegate count would have ended up the same as it did with the confusion.
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