What an awesome experience!
I arrived at Jefferson School in Davenport at 6 p.m. and found that one of the three parking lots was already full. (By the time I came out all three were full and there were cars on the street.) The check in line was to the door and stayed that way until 7. There were several lines for people who were already registered but I had to get in the one line to re-register and declare a party. That was a very long line. I was glad I had downloaded the registration form and filled it out in advance. That meant I only had to get in that line once. (Other people were kicking themselves that they hadn’t thought of it.)
The whole scene was about what you’d expect. There were young and old and people of several ethnicities. Several people brought their kids. Clinton, Edwards, Obama, and Biden had campaign workers there. (They were all given big red signs to wear so that they could not be counted.) In the end, the caucus had 180 people in attendance! I did not hear anything official but people who had been there before said that it was about double the last one! When she called for a show of hands for first-time caucus-goers from my vantage point it appeared to be about half, but it could have been more because the room (school gym) was really full. There were lots of cheers from party regulars about the turn-out. We all felt proud to be a part of it.
The temporary chair began to do some of the preliminary business before 7. We finally got to dividing up into groups at 7:05. I was in a small Biden group. The campaign worker tried to explain how we could grab people from not only the small groups but also from the larger groups who would not be able to get enough for another delegate. The process was fascinating but I think it would have been better if it were a bigger space. There just was no room to move! In the end, when it was obvious we would not have enough on the second round, the campaign worker advised us which candidates would hurt Joe less and we realigned. Our precinct had 7 delegates. In the end we had 3 for Obama, 3 for Clinton, and 1 for Edwards. I left before they got into the delegates for the county convention and the platform. I couldn’t wait to get home to post and I really don’t need more meetings right now. (Maybe another year.)
I won’t say who I went with in the end because I don’t want this to be about a candidate. This process is the coolest thing I have ever done politically, except when I drove in Geraldine Ferraro’s motorcade. I have been voting for over 30 years and have never felt so good. My guy didn’t win, but I did!