I grew up in a primary state, so I was unfamiliar with the caucus format, until my friend Liz explained it to me; she also let me know that anyone can participate in a caucus. For some reason I thought it was reserved to party leaders and organizers, who meet in smokey back-rooms. But since it was open to everybody, and with my patriotic leanings, I decided to be a part of the event tonight.
First question though was which party to support? Minnesota does not require you to register with either party, so I could attend either. My heart has always been in the Democratic camp (though my brain does not know why). The question really came down to impact - where would my vote matter most.
One little known fact about my voting history I will share is this: I have never, ever, voted for a Presidential winner yet. Ever. Every vote has been for the loser. The closest I have ever gotten to voting for the winner was back in '04 when I voted for Kerry. He won Minnesota, which marks the first time I had ever voted for a candidate who won my state. I took that as a small victory, but voting Democrat in Minnesota has been almost a sure thing for 80 years. Since 1932, a Democratic candidate has always won here, except once. 1972 Nixon won Minnesota, along with every other state in the Union. Minnesota was the lone state voting for its favorite son Walter Mondale, who was crushed by Reagan.
Among the Democrats, my vote would probably go to Hillary. There are things about her I don't like (i.e. Bill), but I do defer to brains and ability. On the Republican side, I am very pro-McCain; integrity matters.
I was torn. Do I go to the Party I want to win, or knowing my voting history as a perfect anti-bellwether, do I go to the other party's caucus in the attempt to sabotage them? I am not sure who won - head or heart - but I ended up going to the Republican Caucus, mainly because I figured there would be fewer people and I could possibly end up as a delegate to the state.
I got to the Government Building and my perceptions of the smokey, back room, dealings between power-brokers caucus were wrong.
Very wrong.
It was like all the people who hang out during the day in a Government Building just moved from the waiting room to the caucus room. It smelled. Really bad. It was like an indoor bus terminal, but with no chance of anyone ever leaving. Surprisingly for Republican, it had a high FNW quotient (Freaks 'n Weirdos).
I got there early, and the room we were in was starting to fill up. There were people sitting at various tables reading bus schedules, a woman with thick glasses and pigtails running around frantically, and a guy with a ponytail and beard who appeared to be the one in charge. I had to double check my notes and make sure that, yes, I was at the Republican Party Caucus, not the Democratic one.
First thing I noticed was the incredible lack of any organization. I would soon learn why. I eventually figured out where I was supposed to go. This facility was for Ward 7, Precincts 6-10. I am in Precinct 8, or W7 P8 as I would learn the lingo. At about 7pm a older gent named Bill came over to our table to start us up. There were about 100 people in the room, about 50 crowded around our table. We found out that this was the biggest turnout in years, and Bill apologized for the disorganization. In 2004, 6 people showed up for all four Precincts. That is 6 in total, mind you. As in, some precincts had 1 person. Did I mention that I live in a very Blue county in a very Blue state?
My precinct is very small - maybe a few square miles. I could walk from one side to the other in probibly 15 minutes. The purpose of the caucus is to represent the candidate who will best serve me and my neighbors. My neighbors. Humm. I didn't see one person here I knew. At the last presidential election, I saw a bunch of people I knew. In fact, I had to call one of them in another voting booth to help me with picks for the city council. Looking at my Precinct, the stereotypes about the Republican Party are still alive and well. Of the 50 people, 6 were woman and we had one minority. The rest were a bunch of white dudes. Interestingly, a lot of young people in my Precinct were here.
First order of business was the Pledge of Allegiance. I liked this. It has been a while since I have given it and it made me swell with pride. It reminded me of visiting the National Archives in DC and looking at the Declaration of Independence and getting misty eyed. This time I attributed the misty eyes to the smell, but still, it was a nice way to start up.
Bill spend a lot of time on the rules, and this being Minnesota, we all sat quietly and paid attention. First order of business was waiting for 15 minutes for latecomers before we could actually start. So we waited and learned about the other orders of business.
There were two votes going on actually - our votes for President and our votes for delegates to the state conference. Actually, we were not sending delegates, but sending people who would vote on our delegates. These people we elect tonight would not actually vote for the presidential candidate but would vote for those who would vote for Minnesota in the Republican National Convention in St Paul this summer. This seemed fairly straight forward once it was explained the first, second and third times, but apparently it just didn't register with folks. I double checked and yes, I was not at the Democratic Party Caucus.
Our chairperson and the secretary were both nominated, and then we got to the open nominations for delegates. A lot of the younger folks came forward to nominate themselves. Candidates had to introduce themselves, say where they live, tell about their background and explain why they were qualified to represent the neighborhood. Of the dozen or so young folks here, they all seemed to be attending St. Thomas Law school, which is only a few blocks away, and they all were supporting Ron Paul. Two things I will never understand is why first year law students have to be so verbose and two, why do they support Ron Paul? One of the more talkative law students who was named "Adolph" I think, spend a good 10 minutes on his resume and ended it with an impassioned plea to crush the Democrats. My heart is giving me the evil eye.
Once we get through the nominations of Delegates and we confirm (again) that they would only be voting on our state representatives at the National Convention and that no, they would not in fact be going to the National Convention, we got to the discussion of the candidates. One of the first to speak was a retired City Councilman, who was a Democrat, but chose to speak here in favor of Mitt Romney. He liked his policy of building a big wall to keep out the Mexicans and was impressed with his ability to run big companies, whose name he can't remember now. I like old people. I get along well with the older generations, but they really do need an off-switch or a mute button that can be operated remotely. Let them keep their dignity before they ramble off into oblivian.
Of the 6 women in attendance, two were active campaigners. One for Ron Paul (groan) and one for John McCain (woo hoo!). Unfortunately, the McCain supporter didn't have any real notes, but decided to wing it. Hadn't she been to a wedding and seen someone try to wing a toast and see the disastrous results? She should have known better. Other people spoke, though most were not very intersting. A guy who served in the Navy, and had two tours in Iraq, spoke well about the need for character and integrity, which is why he was voting for McCain. When he sat down I noticed he had a Rainbow Coalition pin on his Navy hat. I guess that technically counts as a minority in the Republican Party. Another young man spoke, who we found out grew up during the war in Bosnia, and got his citizenship last year felt that we needed a strong military president and one who will kick out illegal immigrants, which is why he feels that Ron Paul is the only choice. Next the young republicans from the Law School all take it in turn to pontificate on the reason Paul should be, nay, MUST be the vote of D7 P8. Ahh, my neighbors!
It soon became apparent that Ron Paul might actually win here. I was going in as a McCain supporter, and thought his only challange would be Romney, but it started seeming like it would be very close. I then remembered my old voting history, and I thought the curse may take effect. Again. Eventually, someone called for a motion to vote, which was seconded by half the Precinct.
The "ballots" were little slips of irregularly cut paper, which were passed out in mass to the room. There was no accounting for the number of ballets that went out, nor any verification that those in the room were even registered in this District or Precinct. It was very informal and made quite a few of the non-Paul supporters nervous. Stuffing the ballot box would have been easy, but this is Minnesota and we simply don't do that here.
While the votes were being counted, they opened the floor to resolutions. Another old guy set forth a motion asking for our support in rejection of the pro-abortion ruling by the Minnesota courts. Why do all the nut-jobs in the Abortion and Anti-Abortion movement make it so tough to understand what they are asking us to support (or reject). I am fairly certain that by voting against his resolution you were pro-choice. But by the few number of "Yeas" and "Nays" I think most everyone was confused. A few other resolutions came forward which were shot down. Someone proposed a more formal system in the future, which we all agreed to. I was about to step forward with a resolution that the Republican Party of Minnesota should be Pro-Norwegian and Anti-Swedish, but I remembered that politicos, especially young Republicans, have absolutely no sense of humor.
The final votes were tallied and recounted twice; the results for W7 P8 were:
Huckabee: 3 votes
Keys: 0
McCain: 18
Romney: 13
Paul: 16
McCain was our winner and everyone who was a non-Paul supporter breathed a sigh of relief. Adolph stood and emphasized the need to support our candiadate to the very end. He had infiltrated the Obama rally this past weekend and said there were over 20,000 supporters, lined up on our borders and we need to be prepared to take the breathing room we need to preserve our way of life.
We formally closed the meeting after another resolution, seconding and voting. On my way back to my car, I replayed the results - McCain 18; Paul 16.
My vote almost mattered.
God Bless the Democratic Process!
No comments:
Post a Comment