Numine.com: Seattle working-class blog

by Kat

Justin and I attended the Washington State Primary's Democratic caucus at 1 PM on Saturday.

The caucus was required in order to cast a vote in the primary because WA state democrats are protesting and refuse to count the state primary ballot. I somehow had neglected to learn this by osmosis until late the night before we were set to vote. It was almost a major clusterf*ck:

The next morning, we went online to find our caucus location and the only tool we could locate with google was completely overrun by traffic and nonfunctional. We hit refresh and tried again... and again...

With the time to vote fast approaching, we tried the caucus hotline and got a "mailbox full" message telling us to use their (broken) online tool or call their offices. Their office line was constantly busy. Finally, their tool stopped responding even to refresh requests. We figured that we (and probably tons of other potential voters) were just going to get screwed out of caucusing due to a completely unprepared grassroots organization and underpaid (probably volunteer) web programmers.

Thankfully, their site came back up with links to a number of other, more functional caucus locator tools and we were set. The massive takedown of their website and phone lines was the first indicator we'd seen of what a huge response there would be to the caucus "call to action."

As we drove to our caucus location, we passed several other venues, and people were just STREAMING in from all directions to vote at their precincts. There was a line down and around the block at ours.

Once we got into the building, we were shepherded into the gymnasium where members of our precinct and six others were congregating. It was packed far over capacity, which was both inspiring and utterly frustrating. We were expected to caucus at tiny tables with no discernible signage to differentiate precinct. Some brilliant person had taped sheets of paper with precinct numbers on them to the edge of each table... leg-level, which was blocked by throngs of people.

We found our table and signed in to indicate voter preference, which was effectively all we needed to do before we could leave, but we decided to stay for the whole process just to see what it was like.

The best way I can describe the local precinct caucus experience is "very loosely organized chaos." The crowd was remarkably responsive to direction. There were 96 people in our precinct and 7 precincts in the auditorium, so my guess is that there were roughly 650 people to corral in 7 different directions. Somehow we managed to get it done, and in close quarters.

Obama took our precinct, and the others in the room by a landslide. We had 6 people undecided, 10 for Clinton, and 80 for Obama. After various participants stood up and campaigned/debated in 1 minute speeches for their candidate of preference, the undecided had a chance to change their votes. Then we elected delegates for each party-- Obama received 5 and Clinton 1.

We were encouraged to volunteer either as a delegate or alternate if we wanted to participate in further caucuses at the local, state, and national levels. Originally, I didn't have much interest in volunteering-- I am very eager to back Obama but I have enough trouble managing my time as is. However, when I saw that the only volunteers were men, and mostly white, middle-aged men, I had to sign myself up. As they were trying to convince people to put themselves down as alternates to avoid having to "elect" delegates, I signed up as an alternate.

Once we had signed up, there were still too many volunteers for delegates to simply hand out cards and call it good-- we had to have an "election." (Yay democratic process!) We were all called to the front, again it was all men and me, and then the alternates were told to be seated.

When I sat down I started having second thoughts about signing up as an alternate. I suddenly felt much more heavily obligated to represent myself as a delegate. I was about to say this to Justin when someone in the room shouted "I think we need to have that woman back up there as a delegate rather than an alternate," to a chorus of "yeah!"s.

So I got back up there, we each talked a little bit about ourselves and our interests in being a delegate. I said that this was my third presidential election and my first caucus. I said I knew that during the last election it was going to get worse before it got better, and that volunteering to be a delegate was the best way I knew to help make things better. I said that I had previously spoken in favor of Obama despite his lack of experience because I believe that experience is less valuable than motivation, skill, and the ability to take a job and run with it and that I hoped they would grant me the opportunity and experience of being a delegate.

I realize I was a sho-in, and for the somewhat silly reason that I have breasts, but nevertheless I am proud to say that I got the most votes. I am really quite eager to see this through, despite the 5 or 6 Saturday commitment, and I hope that I can remain a delegate all the way through to the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August (even though it is only a little over a week before our wedding). I'm really looking forward to being a part of the political process in a way that I never have been, to seeing new things and meeting new people, and hopefully learning a lot more along the way. Wish me luck!

Posted on February 11, 2008 @ 10:39 PM | 2 comments

Comments:

Awesome! Good luck!

By inkandpen, at 10:23 AM, February 12, 2008

Self-Improvement
By Tony Hoagland

Just before she flew off like a swan
to her wealthy parents' summer home,
Bruce's college girlfriend asked him
to improve his expertise at oral sex,
and offered him some technical advice:

Use nothing but his tonguetip
to flick the light switch in his room
on and off a hundred times a day
until he grew fluent at the nuances
of force and latitude.

Imagine him at practice every evening,
more inspired than he ever was at algebra,
beads of sweat sprouting on his brow,
thinking, thirty-seven, thirty eight,
seeing, in the tunnel vision of his mind's eye,
the quadratic equation of her climax
yield to the logic
of his simple math.

Maybe he unscrewed
the bulb from his apartment ceiling
so that passersby would not believe
a giant firefly was pulsing
its electric abdomen in 13 B.

Maybe, as he stood
two inches from the wall,
in darkness, fogging the old plaster
with his breath, he visualized the future
as a mansion standing on the shore
that he was rowing to
with his tongue's exhausted oar.

Of course, the girlfriend dumped him:
met someone, après-ski, who,
using nothing but his nose
could identify the vintage of a Cabernet.

Sometimes we are asked
to get good at something we have
no talent for,
or we excel at something we will never
have the opportunity to prove.

Often we ask ourselves
to make absolute sense
out of what just happens,
and in this way, what we are practicing

is suffering,
which everybody practices,
but strangely few of us
grow graceful in.

The climaxes of suffering are complex,
costly, beautiful, but secret.
Bruce never played the light switch again.

So the avenues we walk down,
full of bodies wearing faces,
are full of hidden talent:
enough to make pianos moan,
sidewalks split,
streetlights deliriously flicker.

Anonymous, at 8:45 PM, February 17, 2008