Caucus Frenzy

The Craziness of the Iowa Caucus has come and gone, maybe the TV commercials and the phone calls will quit for a few months.




I attended the Story County Precinct 2.1 Democratic Caucus last evening. This is my second Caucus experience, as I caucused in 2004 for Howard Dean. I must say, that the whole process is on the chaotic side, and multiply that by 99 counties and it's just nuts! We had 550 people attend our caucus, It was standing room only.

This is how the evening proceeded.

1st we stood in line about 1/2 hour to check in, and waited for everyone else to check in.
2nd we were all asked to group up with the others that supported the same candidate. That was called the first alignment. At this point we had about 40 people the were uncommitted to a certain candidate.
3rd we were given 30 minutes "woo" others to our candidate. Then the second counting began. Have you ever tried to count pigs? That's what it felt like to me. The count does not feel very accurate. Finally the Obama group filed into a room and we were counted on our way out, kind of like pigs.....
Keep in mind that all the candidate groups are doing the same thing at the same time, hence the chaos.

The final results from our precinct were Obama 176, Clinton 132, Edwards 117, Richardson 88.
After a bit of crazy math, the number of delegates sent to the state convention were decided. The Obama crowd is still a little confused by the math, but Obama and Clinton ended with the same number of delegates. I was never good at math....

My current thoughts about why I supported Obama;
He is a young, fresh face to politics
He seems to be a person who unites, not divides
He has worked in the inner city and understands issue of poverty and health care
I liked his Christmas Commercial with his family ( I know, Lame reason, but it caught my attention.
It was exciting to be on the winning team. We will have to see if he can take this all the way. Thanks for listening. Rosalie

The photos were taken by my neighbor Sue Ellen Tuttle, owner of One Small Dog Photography. Her camera is never far away. Thanks Sue Ellen!