We never dreamed this night would finally arrive. After a year of constant bombardment the end has come. It is an evil portent of what it will be like next time. We Iowans joke that we never decide who to vote for till we have had each of the Presidential candidates over for dinner at least 3 times. For the last month, all the commercials around the newscasts have been political. “I am Barack Obama and I have approved this message”. The worst is the phone calls. Towards the end we were getting in excess of 20 calls a day. The good part is that we have “caller ID” and you can tell which are the political calls which we never answer. The bad is that sometimes they leave taped messages on the phone and you have to listen to the drone till you can get to the answering machine and stop it.
After seeing the hopefuls last year (documented in this blog) we liked them all and would be happy to vote for even the worst one against any Republican. So to pick one was very difficult. Each has their own appeal but in the end, we felt that Edwards was the best pick.
In the caucus process the participants gather in groups for the candidate they support. To go on in the process, a candidate must be viable, which means they have to have at least 15% of the people attending. In our caucus that meant 44 people. Those participants that don’t have enough supporters to make their candidate viable can realign themselves with another candidate or group together to form a viable “undecided” group. The undecided option didn’t happen at our precinct. For us, everyone was eliminated except Obama, Edwards, and Clinton. In the end, we will be sending 10 delegates to the county convention; probably 4 for Obama and 3 each for Edwards and Clinton.
All through the finally arrived day in Iowa, I kept thinking about you guys and what you were having to do with it. I still don’t understand it, but what do I know…I’m just a NW guppie trying to keep from drowning up here.
I always thought you were a Democrat….Where’d I get that idea?
LT
I participated in the Cedar Rapids caucuses in a big way. I was the temporary and permanent chair for my precinct at Hope Lutheran Church on the corner of 29th Ave and Bowling St SW.
It was an electrifying experience. We had twice the number of participants we had in 2004 for a total of nearly 300 and we registered many new voters. It was standing room only. I was also very happy that my fellow caucus goers were very tolerant of the close quarters, and I’m very happy to say that my son, my daughter-in-law, and my mom were all there to help with registration, etc. (among many other great helpers).
As I told the crowd when I did just a little speechifying, “This is true democracy. This is where your voice really does count.”