Well, I had an interesting caucus meeting up here in Seattle. There were about 10 precincts at my son's school, and it was PACKED. They said they made twice as many signup sheets as they expected they'd need, and had to get volunteers to go to Kinko's and copy more when they ran out. It was literally standing room only. So they opened the movable wall to the gym and doubled our space, but it was STILL crowded. Then they read us the rules, yadda, yadda, and sent 4 of the precincts off to different places, while we stayed in the gym.
Now began the stupidity. The problem was that our chair was an idiot. He obviously hadn't done any prior research into the way a caucus is conducted, and sorta stood in the middle of us staring at the rules in his hand. After what seemed like an eternity of watching him struggle to find a way to begin, the inmates started running the asylum. We decided it was time for speeches and whatnot, and a guy next to me stood up and started speaking for Kucinich. The chair told him he was out of order - he said we couldn't discuss this until after we chose delegates. He objected, and the chair held up the rules and asked the guy if he'd read them (!). I told him that made no sense, and a few of us pointed out the part of the rules that proved he was wrong, and he admitted it and grumbled away. Why did we get stuck with this goddamn idiot?
Now, I haven't told you what the initial count was yet, because at this point we still didn't know. So some smart person went and got the grand-ueber poobah lady to tell us what to do. Finally we got the count:
Dean 12
Kerry 9
Kucinich 4
Edwards 4
Uncommitted 3
Now the Kucinich guy makes his speech again, because the preceding chaos drowned him out. Then his wife made a speech for Edwards. The Dean people didn't say much, but sat there festooned in Dean stickers. So Kucinich and Edwards were getting no delegates at that point, but 1 uncommitted was swayed to go to Kucinich. Now, it was gonna be Dean 2, Kerry 2, Kucinich 1. I then addressed the group and asked if either of the uncommitted people were going to go to Edwards and give him a delegate. If not, I said, I might be willing to go to Edwards to give him a delegate. My idea was, we could take a delegate from Kerry and not hurt Dean, and I wanted Edwards to get a delegate anyway, as long as both uncommiteds didn't go to Kerry. At that point, the loopy chair told me I had to make a decision there and now. I appealed to grand poobah lady, who said that wasn't true. He then glared at me and told me he wasn't going to make my decision for me, whatever the fuck that meant. So I told him I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about (I was actually more diplomatic than that, but that was the essence of my reply), and I just wanted to see what the uncommitted people had to say. One said he'd go Edwards, and I withdrew my offer.
So we Dean people got together and they asked for volunteers willing to be a delegate. As far as we knew, it was 2 Dean, and 1 each for the rest. I volunteered along with 1 other person the be a delegate, and the slips were being handed out, and everyone was asking me my name, when an Edwards lady came by and said there had been a miscount, and Edwards only had 4. There were 2 uncommiteds, not 3, and the other one went to Kucinich, too. I went over to them and asked where they'd go if they didn't get delegates and 3 said Kerry and 1 said Kucinich. That would give Kerry another delegate, and Edwards none.
I didn't like this, and told my group so. The Edwards lady was asking me if I'd still be willing to switch, and I considered it. Some of the Dean people got mad at me, and I explained that if one of us goes Edwards, we keep Kerry from gaining a delegate and do nothing to hurt Dean. It was a defensive move. There was much controversy, with most of the people there liking my idea and a couple hating me for it (one guy just wanted to leave). But dammit, this is politics, and I'm playing politics, I said. We asked the poobah lady if this could happen and she said yes. So I went to the Edwards group. I was going to be voted a delegate by the Dean group, but not now after going Edwards.
But it made sense, and the Kucinich and Edwards people thought I was a hero, especially the Kucinich guy whose wife went Edwards. Another guy got voted delegate, so I had thrown myself on my sword to help Dean AND Edwards. I am a martyr for Dean.
So it ended up Dean 2, Kerry, Kucinich, and Edwards 1 each. I singlehandedly stole a delegate from Kerry. Woo-hoo!
One Dean lady asked me if I was elected delegate, and I said no. She said, "Good! I don't trust you." She said she thought Dean should have 3 delegates. I pointed out that that wasn't going to happen, and I calculated it all out and wouldn't have jumped ship if it made any difference at all to Dean. She still said she didn't trust me and said I was just like Richard Hatch (from Survivor, not Battlestar Galactica). So I was having fun with it and told her I was a really nice guy and used to be a boy scout and gave her a cheesy grin. She just glared at me. So I grabbed my old friend Karen, who to my surprise had moved to within a block of my house, and told her to tell this lady what a great guy I was, which she did. I put my hand on her shoulder and looked very mock-seriously at her and said, "See, I'm a good guy. I want you to see that. It's very important to me." She just laughed and said it didn't matter what we did anyway, at which point I asked why the hell she came in the first place. She walked away. I guess she just decided that what I did seemed unconventional, I must have had some dastardly plan, even if she didn't know what it was. Meanwhile, everyone else told me they thought my idea was cool. They acted like I was fucking Machiavelli. I guess this is what passes for hard core politckin' at the precinct level. It was a brokered caucus! Or something like that.
All this crap was taking place as we stood over the chair while he filled out the form because none of us trusted him to fill out the right numbers of delegates. Goddamn moron. And after all this, I'm not sure if we followed all the rules properly or not. Christ, pure chaos. Definitely a Democratic caucus.
