I caucus therefore I am
Jan. 4th, 2008 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ericcolemanI do have to say that Will Rogers is still right almost a 100 years later. It was a mighty cluster ... ahem ... pardon me for my almost bad language.
275 people crowded into a smallish lunchroom at a local school. When we were told to break up into groups everyone ran for the corners, and there were two in the undecided middle, myself and a young woman ... my ... if I was a 100 years younger. She made up her mind quickly, I decided to hang out for awhile, which made the evening as interesting as I wanted it to be.
Oh, first, in the early explanation part of the evening, there was a young woman who kept talking, and talking, and talking ... loudly, to people around her. I think, and I am only partially kidding about this, that she was a right wing stooge. She took over the Clinton group and things got a little weird as the evening went along. More about that later. First, my conversations with representatives from the various factions.
A very lovely, curvy, young blonde woman (can you tell where my brain is at lately?) came to talk to me about Obama. Here is what I said, more or less, to her.
Obama is going to make a great president in 8 years. Now he can't even face up to members of his own party in a debate, whoever gets the republican nomination is going to hand him his ass in a debate. He talks in platitudes, and says almost nothing. Now that can certainly be sold, and it seems to be working (he won last night after all), and he looked darn presidential last night during his victory speech, but I still have serious doubts. She responded well, with mostly positive comments about Obama. She did go into one very false line of questioning, that being who would I vote for, Obama or Huckabee in a very accusatory sort of way. I told her that was beneath her, and it was a very Faux News sort of question. I mean really, I was in the democratic caucus, did she really think that if I had doubts about Obama and he won the nomination that I would jump to the other side?
While I was talking to the young woman, a guy from the Edwards camp came and interrupted. And I mean interrupted. He started bad-mouthing Obama and I cut him off cold. That was a REAL Faux News moment. Attacking, rather than coming and telling me what Edwards had to offer. I tried to get him to tell me what Edwards stood for (I do know actually, but I wanted to see what he had to say, I was leaning towards Edwards anyway) but he kept bad-mouthing Obama. I finally cut him off and told him to go play somewhere else ... yes my exact words. He stomped off in a pout.
So back to Clinton. I think she would make a fine president, I do. But the problem is the election. If she gets the nomination, it is going to be the ugliest election ever. The right wing and the media are going to go after her with everything they can make up. I already see it on my friends list, where someone calls her a criminal repeatedly, but doesn't say how she is a criminal. It's good to see the big lie campaign is already out there.
I would love to see Richardson as president. But since he is by far the most qualified out there, he stands no chance of winning.
In the end I went to the Edwards camp, the gerbil who talked at me earlier was nowhere to be seen. In the end there were only 3 viable groups, like this was a surprise.
The count started, and three counts in a row came up with more than there were in the room. Finally the guy in charge simply marched everyone out of the room group by group, counting heads. The final count was Obama 92, Edwards 92, and Hillary 89. The funny thing was, the Edwards count remained the same throughout, while both the Obama and Clinton people had quite a few more in earlier counts, especially the Clinton group.
Delegates were chosen. As this precinct had 13, each viable candidate got 4, and the extra was given to Obama with a coin toss.
It was a great experience, as caucuses always are. It was interesting how much closer we were than the final count statewide. I also found it interesting that the democrat's caucuses outdrew the republicans by almost 2-1.
One fun headline on one of the local TV stations websites at the moment
Ron Paul Calls Iowa "Just The Beginning".
Yeah, just the beginning of you not getting the nomination. He says he is going to abolish the IRS, I still want to know how he plans on doing this.
275 people crowded into a smallish lunchroom at a local school. When we were told to break up into groups everyone ran for the corners, and there were two in the undecided middle, myself and a young woman ... my ... if I was a 100 years younger. She made up her mind quickly, I decided to hang out for awhile, which made the evening as interesting as I wanted it to be.
Oh, first, in the early explanation part of the evening, there was a young woman who kept talking, and talking, and talking ... loudly, to people around her. I think, and I am only partially kidding about this, that she was a right wing stooge. She took over the Clinton group and things got a little weird as the evening went along. More about that later. First, my conversations with representatives from the various factions.
A very lovely, curvy, young blonde woman (can you tell where my brain is at lately?) came to talk to me about Obama. Here is what I said, more or less, to her.
Obama is going to make a great president in 8 years. Now he can't even face up to members of his own party in a debate, whoever gets the republican nomination is going to hand him his ass in a debate. He talks in platitudes, and says almost nothing. Now that can certainly be sold, and it seems to be working (he won last night after all), and he looked darn presidential last night during his victory speech, but I still have serious doubts. She responded well, with mostly positive comments about Obama. She did go into one very false line of questioning, that being who would I vote for, Obama or Huckabee in a very accusatory sort of way. I told her that was beneath her, and it was a very Faux News sort of question. I mean really, I was in the democratic caucus, did she really think that if I had doubts about Obama and he won the nomination that I would jump to the other side?
While I was talking to the young woman, a guy from the Edwards camp came and interrupted. And I mean interrupted. He started bad-mouthing Obama and I cut him off cold. That was a REAL Faux News moment. Attacking, rather than coming and telling me what Edwards had to offer. I tried to get him to tell me what Edwards stood for (I do know actually, but I wanted to see what he had to say, I was leaning towards Edwards anyway) but he kept bad-mouthing Obama. I finally cut him off and told him to go play somewhere else ... yes my exact words. He stomped off in a pout.
So back to Clinton. I think she would make a fine president, I do. But the problem is the election. If she gets the nomination, it is going to be the ugliest election ever. The right wing and the media are going to go after her with everything they can make up. I already see it on my friends list, where someone calls her a criminal repeatedly, but doesn't say how she is a criminal. It's good to see the big lie campaign is already out there.
I would love to see Richardson as president. But since he is by far the most qualified out there, he stands no chance of winning.
In the end I went to the Edwards camp, the gerbil who talked at me earlier was nowhere to be seen. In the end there were only 3 viable groups, like this was a surprise.
The count started, and three counts in a row came up with more than there were in the room. Finally the guy in charge simply marched everyone out of the room group by group, counting heads. The final count was Obama 92, Edwards 92, and Hillary 89. The funny thing was, the Edwards count remained the same throughout, while both the Obama and Clinton people had quite a few more in earlier counts, especially the Clinton group.
Delegates were chosen. As this precinct had 13, each viable candidate got 4, and the extra was given to Obama with a coin toss.
It was a great experience, as caucuses always are. It was interesting how much closer we were than the final count statewide. I also found it interesting that the democrat's caucuses outdrew the republicans by almost 2-1.
One fun headline on one of the local TV stations websites at the moment
Ron Paul Calls Iowa "Just The Beginning".
Yeah, just the beginning of you not getting the nomination. He says he is going to abolish the IRS, I still want to know how he plans on doing this.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 06:20 pm (UTC)Remeber: If you're a politition, you are a crook that has yet to be caught. ;)
no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 06:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 06:28 pm (UTC)It was just weird. It'd be like Mr.T standing behind Clinton.
Now, if Charles Bronson stood behind a canidate, I might have to do some blind voting! ;)
no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 07:27 pm (UTC)That would be a little ugly right about now ...
no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 06:49 pm (UTC)(It looks like Huckabee's no cleaner, based on what I'm seeing around. It seems to be Arkansas' particular form of corruption, much like the corruption we have in Illinois.)
One of the defining moments for Hillary was the whole White House travel office mess. It was clear that Clinton, as President, had the right to replace the folks in the travel office, since they serve at his pleasure. The folks who were there, though, had been there through many administrations and simply firing them to bring in your buddies would look bad, since you were campaigning as a goo-goo. (Good government sort, in case you're not familiar with the term.)
So they trumped up a corruption case against the head of the office to justify firing him. The case didn't hold water, as I recall, but the guy's life was pretty much ruined.
Given what they did to that poor mook, I must admit that I view the whole Whitewater investigation as a case of what goes around, comes around. Bad karma will getcha...
no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 08:55 pm (UTC)I don't want bipartisanship. I want to completely reverse the disaster than was the Gingrich Congress and is the Bush administration. If that means that a few children get their hate on, so be it.
I want adults in charge. Any of the Dems will do and none of the goppies. Zero tolerance for Republicans!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-05 01:51 am (UTC)Wow, I never knew you felt that way about me. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-01-05 04:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-05 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-05 07:09 pm (UTC)Never met a man I didn't like?
Sucker born every minute?
no subject
Date: 2008-01-05 07:34 pm (UTC)I don't belong to any organized political party, I'm a Democrat
no subject
Date: 2008-01-05 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-06 01:46 am (UTC)Were we in the same room?
Date: 2008-01-06 02:04 am (UTC)I agree on Hillary. The right wing radio mob has had 16 years or so to work themselves into a froth about her. I used to have coworkers that listened to that junk, and they /hate/ Hillary (the radio jerks).
The most annoying bit of the evening was the group of Biden supporters, who were never viable, refusing to be absorbed into anything else - they had a few bleed off, but there were a core group that stuck with their leader (his niece, from out of state). Not that there's anything wrong w/ loyalty, but when you don't get really counted, you might as well not have shown up. One thing I like about a caucus is the ability to have a sort of instant run-off. If your guy isn't viable, join your next favorite's faction.
In the end our main numbers looked very similar: 98 ea for Obama and Edwards and high 80's for Clinton. By the rounding rules it ended up w/ 2 delegates each, but Edwards ended up getting the extra in a coin toss. THe school we were in had 3 other caucuses running in various rooms, and parking was very scarce. It was insane. THere was a lot of uncomfortable waiting around, but all in all I enjoyed it in a kind of "look at how the sausage is made kids..." kind of way.