Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Colorado Caucus

Well I participated in my first caucus. The two hour exercise produced a single vote (actually 5 because we voted for county delegates and a state office). I'm reminded of the quote attributed to Will Rogers; I don't belong to an organized political party;. I'm a Democrat. Our caucus was like herding cats.

It starts with a straw pole for one of three options; Hilary, Obama, and none of the above. For an option to count, it must get at least 15% of the total vote. None of the above didn't make the cut, so the remaining folks then had the opportunity to try convincing the uncommitted voters to switch to one of the other two candidates. What was remarkable is that the Obama supporters spoke what was good about Obama. The Hilary voters, on the other hand, whined about how Hilary was under-appreciated and that it just wasn't fair. Their arguments didn't win over any of the undecided voters and in the end Obama won the vote 2 to 1.

2 comments:

K T Cat said...

Thanks for posting this. I had wondered what it was like to be in a caucus. I'll go throw you a link.

It's pretty telling that Hillary's folks couldn't express their support any other way.

Kelly the little black dog said...

Ya, I thought so. It was really striking how they reflected what I don't like about her.