Yesterday I attended my local precinct's caucus to elect delegates for a presidential candidate. I'd never been to a caucus before, or even really paid that much attention to the process of narrowing down the candidates to the final two. But this year was different, for whatever reason I'm a lot more interested and I decided that I should go and just see what it meant to caucus.
The first word that comes to mind regarding my first caucus ever is LONG!! I'm quite sure the process could have been seriously streamlined. For example, the 30 minutes of listening to a lady say nothing at all.
But other than that, there were some cool things. The first is the act of walking to the local public school and watching my neighbors stream there as well, then standing in a room with a bunch of the people from my neighborhood, chatting and getting to know each other. One thing I totally miss about living in Seattle is the sense of community, and for once I felt it a bit yesterday.
I also like the feeling of trully having a say. When you go into the caucus you sign in and write down your initial candidate (or you can be undecided), then you go to your local precinct's room and they take a first round tally. After that people are allowed to stand up and talk for 1 minute about their support for this or that candidate. There were some really strong opinions in the room, but people were really polite about it. Everyone got a round of applause at the end of their speech, no matter how wacky they sounded. It was a good thing that the speech's were timed to one minute, however, because I'm sure some of those people could have spoken for a very, very long time. The 1 minute maximum kept this part moving right along, and it was by far my favorite part of the experience. It's cool to hear what people have to say and to feel like you can stand up at any moment and share your own views.
After the speeches, we all wrote down our candidate preference again and then the tally person tallied it up again. The results were quite different from the first round, so several people had been moved by the speeches. Next delegates were assigned in proportion to the tallies. My precinct has 5 delegates, and we voted as a neighborhood who they would be. It was pretty cool to see ordinary people have the chance to go to the next round (County Caucus) and represent our neighborhood. It really did feel like the government was by the people at this stage in the elections.
In all, the caucus was the most intimate feeling of voting that I've ever experienced. I felt that my vote really counted, and that my opinions mattered, as did those of my neighbors. Once the process leaves this neighborhood level of elections that feeling of intimacy leaves. Big numbers take over and my vote gets mixed in with the multitude. But, I'm glad for the experience and the ability to participate in this American tradition of elections. I like sitting with my neighbors and chatting about houses, pets and jobs as well as having a sense of common purpose. I think we all need more opportunities to experience this.
Did anyone else go to a caucus?
I finally finished it! 2 months late for Christmas, but at least it'll be delivered before the winter is over. Here's hoping it'll fit Leif, who apparently just doesn't stop growing. 
