This afternoon I went to the 2nd caucus I've ever been to. Today is the day Washington state figures out how many delegates it'll be giving the presidential candidates.
I'm in the 46th district, in a teeny-tiny precinct, so we only got 2 delegates to go on to the next level. This meant we weren't able to split our vote very realistically. The popular vote was about 76%/24% (with about 60-70 people present) split in favor of Obama (reflecting almost exactly the rest of the state) but with only 2 delegates, we had to give one to Hillary and one to Obama. We sure have a weird electoral system in this country.
There were heated debates across the line drawn in the proverbial sand - of our 13 undecideds coming into the caucus, 2 went to Hillary's camp and the remaining 11 sided with Obama. Age, sex, experience (both the pros and the cons of having it), health care, electability, hope inspiration, the Iraq war, and polls all came into the discussion between the two sides. Each side firmly believed that their candidate was the only one who could beat McCain in November. Both sides also made weak arguments as well as strong ones.
Overall it was definitely more heated and exciting than the caucus in 2004 - which was pretty boring, as far as I can remember. Back then there were a few people trying to persuade others to change their vote - but nothing like today. Maybe that's a good sign.
On another, semi-related note, our precinct gathered in the library of Daniel Bagley Elementary School, which allowed me to reminisce about awesome youth literature while listening to the boring caucus rules.
P.S. Thanks to PL for lending me the 10D... I even got a comment that it's a "beautiful camera"!
Update 02/10/08... Upon chatting with a friend I've come to the idea that perhaps there were more precincts of the 46th district at our caucus back in 2004. This would explain why it didn't seem that much more crowded than the last time...
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