What a day. At Barbara's at 10:30 to get things set up, at the caucus site at 11:45, and the staff person at Northgate Community Center showed me the two extra rooms that would be available if we needed them. We already had a few people sitting in the comfy chairs waiting for the room to be available. I think they all helped set up the chairs, asking for direction, and generally super-helpful.
We got the sign-in tables set up, and the sign-in sheets out. By 12:10, people were starting to arrive, and by 1:00 we had a full house. And I mean full. 429 people showed up for 6 precincts. I have no idea what the fire code said. (At Olympic View Church up the street, the fire code on the lower room said the limit was around 200 people, and Larry Smith had 510. They sent the largest precinct (123 people) up to the chapel. And that wasn't the largest in the district.)
Back to the story. What does this have to do with John McCain? Read on!
I had my laptop out, looking up people's precincts. We also had a large map on the wall, and a set of smaller maps. When the lines started getting really, really long for a few precincts (like 2373, with 127 people), I started handing blank sign-in forms back down the line yelling for people with pens with them to raise their hands.
Then someone manning the table for 2325 noticed that someone had signed in for John McCain. The gentleman had a very interesting look on his face, mostly amused and bemused. The table captain came to get me, and told me the situation. Seems he hadn't gotten the information from the King County GOP on where to go, and saw the sign outside the community center saying "Caucus at 1:00pm", so he came inside.
Thanks to Metroblogs, this was an easy problem to solve. I pulled up the search form on the King County GOP website, saw that 2325 (GOP) was meeting at Nathan Hale. I asked him if he knew where that was, and he left our building with the address, a map and a smile. I hope he made it in time, because this was right around 1:30, and just before I started to try and quiet things down.
First step, to get people revved.
"Hillary people, are you ready to lead?!"
"What do you mean are we ready to leave?!??"
"No, no, are you ready to LEAD?"
A few people said yes.
"Obama people, are you fired up and ready to go?!"
I couldn't even finish the sentence. They were ready for me.
"Ok, let's try this again. Hillary people, are you ready to lead?!"
That got a response.
To heck with the script. It was time to jump and fly.
Full turnout results are available on the 46th District Website. Holy Smokes.