Obama and the Democratic party here in MN both had an outstanding night. In 2004, the energy from Howard Dean's campaign brought out a record crowd, with just over 50,000 people showing up.
The state party was expecting at most double that to show up this year, so they prepped for about 75,000 - 100,000 to show up. From what I heard this morning, there were over 200,000 people that showed up this year... just for the Dems.
The GOPers here in MN also had record turnout, but it wasn't even close to that of the Dems. They had about 25,000 turn out in 2004. Last night, they had about 60,000. An impressive increase, but nothing even close to the 4x number that the Dems had.
My precinct caucus location was at a Jr. High school located right smack in the middle of the twin cities in St. Paul. I heard from someone last night that they estimated almost 10,000 people had turned out just at thoat one location. This is a heavy, heavy democratic area that has big turnout most years anyway. The caucus location was also about a block from Macalester college, a big lefty politico school (most famous graduate is Kofi Annan), which was ground zero for both the Obama campaign and the Dean campaign 4 years ago.
They were letting people in two doors and the main entrance had a line stretching down and around the block. I had to wait in line about 20 minutes to get in. I also parked about a mile away and walked because their was bumper to bumper traffic for blocks. We were supposed to start doing walking subcaucuses for delegates at 7:30 and the line was still out the door and around the block, so they moved on to other business and were going to come back to it.
MN is a hybrid system, where you cast a ballot for president and caucus for convention delegates. Most people were just casting their ballots for president and then left. I stayed for awhile fully intending to do the walking subcaucus. It bacame obvious we weren't going to get out of there for a long, long time so I went out to the restroom. When I came back, I couldn't even get in the door to the library where my precinct was meeting because there were so many people pushing in to register to vote. I had a sick wife at home, so I actually ended up leaving and not even trying to do the subcaucusing. I'm sure it lasted really late.
In terms of support, the crowd at my location was overwhelmingly in support of Obama. I saw just a few people with Hillary stickers on. They were in my precinct meeting, which is an older, whiter, wealthier precinct than many meeting at that location.
Overall, a very impressive showing for both Obama and the state Dem party. Given the way the whole thing unfolded in MN, I wonder what Hillary's campaign was thinking. I was a state convention delegate two years in a row. I never received a single call (that I know of) from her campaign. I never saw one add on TV. I never got one flier. They totally wrote the state off. Obama was all over it and it payed big dividends obviously. Was this a strategy on Hillary's part or is she having money troubles?