Boulder Dude

Dave's seemed to have gone quickly since he posted at 8:40pm....

History as it were:

I have been to every Caucus in Colorado since I was able to in '84, and I have gone to my current Precinct’s Caucus’ since ‘92. ‘92 was the best year for the Presidential Race since there were still three Candidates in the race by the time that the Colorado Caucus’ rolled around (Clinton, Tsongas (me) and Brown). At that point in time they were still held in peoples houses and such, which was nice since folks brough food and drink and it was a little party. ‘92 was also the previous high water mark for the Precinct numbers wise at 28 souls standing to make their opinions heard. ‘92 was the first time I went to the County Convention as a Delegate and a then on to State. I repeated this in ‘96, mostly to support my choice for Senator, Paul Weismann instead of the traitor Switchhorse-Campbell (R-Idiot). But alas, the rest of the State couldn’t get behind a “Boulder” Dem (Paul lives in Lafayette and use to Bartend at the Blue Parrot) and went with someone that could “Unify” the state.

Bah...suckers.

In ‘96 there were 16 people that showed.

In ‘00, 24 folks showed.

In ‘04, 6 people showed up.

The constant here is that the Delegates for the Precinct was a high of 8 in ‘92 and then 5 ever since then (X Delegates and an equal number of Alternates).

Starting in ‘00 they moved all of the Caucus’ to Central Locations based on the overlap of Congressional District, State Senate District and State House District, with the local High Schools being drafted to hold them since it works out geographically well that way. There were 200 total that showed up for the combined Caucus’ at Boulder High...the Auditorium holds 1000...plenty of room, and then were went to (20' x 20') classrooms to do the voting and such for each Precinct.

The main reason for the low turnouts was because by the time that the Caucus rolled around the Democratic Nominee had already been decided, and other than the State elections, there was no real reason to show up.

But this year the State got smart and Joined with 3 other Mountain States and moved all four of the states Primaries/Caucus’ to the same day, and to have it as early as legally possible (Sorry Florida and Michigan you broke party Rules, no votes for you, maybe you’ll learn your lesson next time).

The Now:

Traffic Coming into Boulder was FUBAR, so as the minutes ticked by I decided to just go to Boulder High and get a Parking Spot and sign up and all that good stuff. Parked and in the school by 5:50pm and walked into a madhouse. Signed in by 6:10pm and stood around to wait for the Actors rehearsing “Shakespeare in Love” to finish (a couple of them came out into the throng and did some acting and ticket sales begging), and then we were let into the Auditorium at 6:30pm.

And it kept filling...

And Filling...

And Filling...

And FILLING...

And then the Balcony was opened, and filled.

Finally they just sent the overflow to off to their classrooms.

We were supposed to start the ball rolling at 7:00pm, but did not get started until 7:30pm.

Speechifying in a quick fashion by the Candidates or their Reps, and off to Caucus by 8:00pm.

Woot!

Now, as I mentioned, the room was 20' x 20'. This was fine for the previous numbers all have their own seats (or two or three). Tonight 68 people crammed into that room to partake in Democracy. There were at least 10 times total (for the combined Caucus) amount of people that attended in ‘00.

**boggles**

Woot and HuZZAH!

To speed things along since the Precinct Captain did not show up, the two folks with the Packets were elected Captain and Secretary (I would have done the Captain thing having done before, but I am unable to talk for more than a minute before I try and cough up a lung).

Straw Poll (I had to explain the difference between Straw Poll and Preference Poll to those gathered since NONE of them had ever been to a Caucus before...I coughed a lot)

Strawpoll:

Clinton - 17
Kucinich - 3 (yeah me)
Obama - 45
Undecided - 3

Threshold - 10

Had to let people know that now was the time to work to convince the Undecideds and the Kucinich supporters to come over to their candidate.

Preference:

Clinton - 18 = 1 Delegate
Obama - 50 = 4 Delegates (me)

Vote on the Delegates to the County Convention (Off to county with them! And 5 Alternates)

Next up was Delegates for Open Colorado Senate Seat:

Udall - 4 (me)
Undecided - 1 (Undecided beat the other Candidate)

2nd CD:

Polis - 3 (me)
Fitzgarald - 1
Undecided - 1

And home by 9:30pm.

It was a great night and it was great to see so many folks up in arms over the past 7 years. So passionate about what needs to be done. So wanting to be involved and part of the process even though they did not know what was going on.

I hope this energy carries on through to November and no one is killed like Bobby Kennedy.

UPDATE: Amusing. This morning the Head of the Colorado Democratic Party said that she was expecting at least 3 times the amount that Caucused in '00 (5,000) for a total of 15,000. As of 11:00pm the total atteneding the Demcratic Caucus' was 117,656. 10 times the amount that she had hoped for.

Well done Colorado Dems!