Comments on Tales from the 1861

what's up with the tivo, dude?

I would like to thank ECD for my stunning victory in Seattle. I know she tried to co-opt the vaginas of Washington for the Clinton Campaign, but I have nothing but admiration for this fine young lady and her mysterious ways.

*Sorry Erica, I meant ECB in the post above.

Hugs for my Clinton friends. Our lines went around the block in Fremont - hope everyone had fun!

I'm a first-time caucus goer from 43-1863 (Squire Park), and the result was 80% for Obama, 18% for Clinton, splitting the delegates 6-2. I'm one of the 6 Obama delegates. :D

I really hope we can get a similar crushing victory in our ceremonial upcoming primary, if not just to send a clear message that Obama can win caucuses AND primaries.

After my experiences today, I'm a huge fan of the caucus approach to voting. It is a human, almost visceral process. And with all the witnesses in the room, the possibility of vote-count irregularity is eliminated.

With the results we're seeing across the state, I can't believe the national race is so close. There was very little passion in our caucus room for Hillary from her supporters. Meanwhile, we had 8 people who wanted to be delegates for Obama, even though only 6 slots were available. We opted to do mini-speeches and voting to determine who would get to represent O. at the next caucus level.

Good times. Oh, and finally: When I phoned my mom, who lives in Moses Lake and detests all things Clinton and sort of supports Bush, to tell her that I am an Obama delegate, she cheered and said she and her husband would be voting for him. This illustrates one of the major reasons why I support Obama. I'm tired of polarizing Presidents. People love and hate Bush. People love and hate Clinton. People love or feel a slight disinterest in Obama. That's rather a good state of affairs, I think.

Hey man you don't have to call the Kucinich supporters nutbags. He won't win the nomination but it is important to show support for the candidate that you believe in, especially in caucus. I really think he might be the only sane person in politics. Give him a chance.

I live in Clark County, and our caucus turnouts were incredible. This was my first caucus, and it was so much fun. I hope we hold on to the caucus system in Washington. Anyway, my caucus site went about 70% Obama. I was in a really small precinct of older ladies, so our delegates split 3-3. But the younger, more crowded precincts were more than double Obama supporters.

1862 was hella disorganized too, people giving orders they thought were right...people being told it was ok to go after they signed in. my friend in west seattle had jim mcdermott as her caucus leader

My caucus pictures are not boring, Anthony Hecht. My pictures are, like, a slice of my life. They have a kind of live-as-it-is-lived honesty that you don't see out in media-land. My caucus pictures are as beautiful as my pet pictures and my baby pictures.

Maybe you're the one who is boring. Anthony. God.

Voting for Kucinich at this point would have been like rooting for the Seahawks in the super bowl. Those people ARE nutbags. Ron Paul supporters have more sense.

Your PCO sounds much better than ours. I don't know why, but he cut off the debate after two speeches for each candidate. And I was all psyched to listen for a while. Then he said, you have 2 minutes to circulate and try to convince people. But no one moved. I guess no one wanted to get too in your face. Plus, it wasn't clear who the uncommitteds were.

We had 100 people turn out for our precinct (against about 30 expected, and about 200 registered voters). We ended up breaking 66-32-2 (Obama-Clinton-uncommitted), which meant 3 delegates for Obama and 2 for Clinton, because of the rules. If the last two had gone for Obama, I think it would have been 4 to 1.

I'm confused. Caucusing made your hard drive bigger?

Our Caucus Site, Nalanda West Buddhist Center (Fremont/Wallingford) was great. Early on, it was a packed madhouse, but then two extra rooms magically opened up and we were able to to accommodate the 300+ people (4 precincts) pretty well. NWBC provided much needed water, coffee, and cookies.

Everyone who showed up was really nice, even if they were misdirected to the wrong site before reaching us. (The State had put our draft caucus sites on the State website before our final list came out so a lot of people got lost.)

I ran the site with our Chair and I really couldn't have asked for better Precinct Caucus Chairs. We really lucked out; all four were organized and professional even though they had no idea they would be chairing when they walked in that day. The 43rd has 214 precincts and only about 100 precinct Committee officers so people had to appointed on-site.

However, we could not have done it without the Obama volunteers that showed up early and helped organize. They were already trained, dogged, and it would have been a real mess without them.

wow. clinton should really be embarrassed about these three. i think this and tuesday are the turning point. no going back now.

obama v mccain.

11-1597 on Beacon Hill, at Mercer Middle School. I've been going to caucuses since 1970 when the Vietnam War was raging. I saw 34 Jerry Brown supporters overwhelm my living-room caucus in 1984. But I've never seen anything like today -- 87 voters in a precinct that sometimes doesn't even vote that many in regular elections!

Just amazing, and of course, the Delegate count was 10 for Obama, 2 for Clinton, about the same as everywhere else around greater Seattle.

There's something exciting going on out there, America, and I'm thrilled to be a part of it.

Oh, hey Fnarf, Anthony just means at his caucus site everybody got a Western Digital My DVR Expander. Not surprising in that area. Here in old Ballard of course we got a KitchenAid Tilt Head Stand Mixer. Not very high tech, but wonderful if you like to cook.

What did you get?

@8 -- it is okay to go after you sign in officially and write down your preference. That's all you have to do to be counted. What you give up is the swaying arguments, the re-vote and delegate elections.

We got bagels & cream cheese & muffins & pretzels & water & cookies at my caucus site. West Seattle knows how to take care of its own.