Caucusing in WA

Let me tell you first off that I am a feminist, but that doesn't stop me from supporting HRC. So off I went yesterday to caucus for my candidate at a local elementary school. I'd signed up to be a precinct caption so I'd gotten a few pointers the night before from a dial in conference call. I had my clipboard, I had my agenda, I had my game plan. I scored a Hillary sticker from the table set up by the wall of the school gymnasium and looked around for a way to help the very stressed looking PCO (gal in charge - not sure what PCO stands for). I ended up signing in throngs of people at the tables set up near the entrance. Hostile and grouchy BO supporters surrounded me on either side. I smiled and was pleasant and helpful to everyone, though I was clearly in the minority with my Hillary sticker.

I had to navigate my way through crowds of BO supporters who glared at me when I and another HRC supporter spontaneously started up a HILL-AR-Y chant. I apologized and meekly took my place with my precinct. We had been advised on the conference call that our precinct may not have an elected captain, which was indeed the case in our precinct, and in that event, I could put myself forward for that position. It turned out that the BO supporters claimed to have already nominated a captain for our precinct, before we had even begun the caucus. Since no one really knew what was going on there was no way to challenge them, and I volunteered to be the secretary instead and was elected. We had to wait a long time for our sign in sheets to be sent over to us so we could start to tally the votes. I tried to identify the other HRC supporters in our group, and also try and see if there were any who were still undecided. As I asked around, I got a quite a bit of vitriol from the BO people, not so much about Hillary, but about Bill's hanky panky in the White House. I smiled and said that he wasn't the candidate this time. Finally our tally sheets were returned to us. Someone for each candidate got to speak to the whole district for two minutes, and then we split off into our precincts to get down to business.

The initial tally for our precinct was 2 to 1 for BO with about 10% undecided. After the tally, we went outside and each got to speak for a minute about our candidate. For the most part, we each listened politely to what the other had to say, although the precinct captain did cut in several times to try and sway the undecided voters over to BO. Finally, we convinced her to follow the rules and stick to one minute each. All the time I was thinking: this is my chance, I will finally understand the BO appeal, I will finally get it! I listened intently to the BO supporters, waiting to inspired, waiting to be ignited with passion. They spoke about BO and how he had inspired them. They spoke about BO and how he was going to change things. I waited with bated breath...

But that was it. That was all there was. How was he going to change things? They didn't know. What was he going to do? They couldn't say. They said they believed in him because he had voted against the war. They didn't know that he wasn't even a Senator until 2005, 3 years after that vote took place. There weren't many of us speaking for Hillary, but those of us who did talked about how we believed that she could do what she said she could do. How she could make things happen. I said that when I listened to her in the debates, I not only thought she could do what she said she could do, I believed it. I believed her, and I believed in her. Oddly enough, for all the "change" and "inspiration" hype that you hear about on the media, we HRC supporters were actually much more passionate about our candidate than the BO supporters.

In the end, we HRC supporters brought all the undecided voters to our side, and one of the BO supporters. One of ours left to go over to the BO side. Each side got 2 delegates. I left feeling exhilarated, excited, but still perplexed, and a little frustrated. I still didn't get the BO thing. More research was needed.