Disenfranchised Caucus Voter
Ok... Ok.... calm down, pyrrho, don't curse.
I'm bein' oppressed...
I live in a state that caucused today, Hawaii. I have gone to Clark and Dean meetups. At the Dean meetup I got a list of the caucus meeting places by district and precinct. I had no idea what district or precinct I was in, so I went to the democratic state site to find a map. I did not find it there but I googled and found an old newspaper story that seemed to indicate my district and precinct. I went back to the party site and found the caucus locations. I looked up my district and precinct and sure enough the place was right in the little town where I live. It is an old plantation town with a few hundred people in it at most.
There was no address given, just a name and street, so I used the internet to look the place up. I used the online directory. I used the new phone book. No luck. No luck. I looked under each word in the name of the place. But the place is on a street I know. I have many times strolled that street. It's possibly a mile to a mile long; I'll find it. I could not think of which place it might be, as it's mostly just houses, but there are a few very small farms.
I called the state party information line just to make sure. They confirmed my district and precinct and the caucus location, but he also did not have the address. The man says sometimes in the small towns they like to hold the caucus early and get it over with. That would be fine I tell him if I had their number and could call to check it out. But actually that wouldn't be fine with me. You can't just hold an election a "little earlier". It's a caucus and the point is that you all have to be there at the same time.
So my wife leaves a child's birthday party early, in the name of democracy and our Democratic Primary, and we head home in time to reach the caucus. Up the road, down the road, all over town (takes all of three minutes), up the road again and in some semi-possibly-a-business places. It's all houses. It's all dark, not so much as a home with a few extra cars or a sign in the yard saying "Democratic Caucus Location". Of course they've been calling it a "Preference Poll", maybe there is a hidden meaning in that.
The two business-like places are not it. Does this place exist or is someone just getting to say how this town "votes"?
We have a Republican Governor in Hawaii now, these are very liberal voters on these islands but they don't like the political machine they've dealt with for fifty years. They will pay the price with Republican policies if they play this game long, but there is a point where people lose trust. (Patsy Mink on the other hand was deeply, deeply loved. Clinton came to her memorial.)
While I can retain a sense of humor, in reality, I am really very angry about this.