Raucus Caucus Part Deux

On Saturday, while The Spouse was watching The Child's volleyball team hold their undefeated record, I was at the Legislative district caucus. You'll remember that I was elected as an alternate at the February caucus. Washington has a 3 tiered system: precinct caucuses, then legislative, then state. As we move up each tier the pool of delegates is consolidated until we have our final 97 delegates (13 alternates) who will represent their candidate(s) at the national convention in June.

I will not bore you with the details of how this all breaks down. Suffice to say, I had a headache by the time I left. You're welcome.

As an alternate, I wasn't even sure if it mattered if I went on Saturday. But I got a call on Thursday from a woman who was a former state representative, who's working on the Obama campaign, and she said it was important, especially as she hadn't successfully contacted all the other delegates from my precinct. She told me that if I wasn't seated I could leave.

So I went. There were probably 1000 people, filling the gym of the neighborhood high school. Call to order was at 10; it didn't happen til 10:45 because they were still signing in people. Then there were lots of speeches and procedural Roberts Rules of Order stuff, all of which was made bearable by the fact that my friend David (of David and Stina) was a delegate so we were hanging together.

There were some highly enjoyable moments, not the least of which was when a city councilwoman got up to tell us how great it was that we were all there and she didn't care who we were supporting "as long as it's Hillary", at which point the over 600 Obama delegates started chanting "O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma!". Then her mike went out so she couldn't respond and some woman ran up and slapped an Obama sticker on her. It was all in good fun. Like when the chair was talking about how we'd eventually be dividing up into our sub caucuses, with the Obama people staying in the gym "and" whispered David, "the Clinton people going to the teacher's lounge".

Right. There were over 600 Obama delegates, as I mentioned, and about 100+ Clinton delegates. Which meant that the rest of the folks in the room were alternates, like me, waiting to see if they would be seated. And what, you ask, did that mean?

If a delegate from my precinct didn't show, I'd be seated in his or her place.

And why would that matter, you ask again? Persistent little bugger, aren't you, I say. It was important because if a delegate didn't show and no one was there to fill in, Obama would lose that delegate in the count.

OH! says you. We wouldn't want that.

And that's why I sat in an overcrowded gym for 3 hours waiting to find out if I was needed. Dedicated much?

Finally all the recording and counting was done and 80 alternates would be seated. They announced the names precinct by precinct. My percinct number is up there. So I waited. As we got closer David started saying, "You're coming up! Oh, I'm so excited!" and other silly things. Then she called my name and David threw up his arms and cheered. There was much laughter in response. I whispered to him, "I think I'll just wait here for a bit". Had to let the blushing subside, don'tcha know.

Right, so then I go to get my credentials and who should be handing them out but Chickypoo. That's right. Little miss "I hate politics and think this whole process is stupid" was not only a delegate that day but working behind the scenes. So much for hating politics, eh? But she recognized me and was all excited that I was now a delegate. Whoo hoo. Whatev.

Funny thing is, by now it was 1 o'clock. We'd been there since 9. We waited for the final delegate count (there was a 10 minute "switch period" during which delegates could inform the chair that they were going over to the other camp...which I don't think happened) which was 684 Obama, 139 Clinton.

Now it was time for the pools of delegates to go to their corners, as it were, and decide who would be advancing on to the state level. Clinton people had to decide on 8 (4 alternates), Obama people had to decide on 37 (19 alternates). And what that meant was that we were going to have to listen to 30 second speeches by all the people who wanted to be delegates to the next round and then vote on them.

Dave and I were out. We'd done our part, assuring our candidate got his full complement of votes. We didn't care who was going to represent him at the next level. Unless it was us. Which it wasn't going to be because there were people with leaflets and cookies and tshirts etc. etc. campaigning for themselves to be delegates. Hard core. We hadn't even prepared speeches, let alone made bumper stickers. And with our raging headaches enduring what was likely to be at least an hour more of speeches, was simply out of the question.

So we went to his house and had sandwiches and Cokes with Stina. And my headache went away.