I am writing from the caucus floor, the all purpose room of our children’s old elementary school. Right now the groups with delegates are choosing their delegates and alternates (two per delegate), so I have a breathing space.
Tall Papa was one of the caucus aides and helped register people. He checked in people who were already registered as Democrats; he was one of four people. Another four were registering new voters and new Democrats. Our caucus had 241 people altogether, of whom 74 were either newly registered voters or new to the Democratic Party.
Before the caucus proper started people were encouraged to sign candidates’ petitions, the ones needed to run. The walls are papered with letters from our elected officials and from people running as Democrats. During this time I and other O’Malley people shmoozed and made our informal cases for him, and we picked up a few people.
The caucus opened with a review from the temporary chair of the agenda for the evening and his election as permanent chair. Then we had the candidate speeches. The Hillary speech was given by a senior chemistry professor. Hillary is the most experienced, she’s a woman, she will fight for us.
I gave the speech for O’Malley and Tall Papa recorded most of it; I’ll upload it shortly.
Two people gave short speeches for Sanders. The older speaker said he wanted to repeat the cry from the Sixties: No more business as usual! The younger speaker was a student who was recruited in the caucus room. Sanders is passionate. We need sweeping change. He’ll work for single payer. He knows that climate change is important. He’ll fight against income inequality.
With the speeches over, the first division was held.
- HRC: 120
- BS: 104
- MO’M: 12
- Uncommitted: 2
With those numbers there was no incentive for the two leading candidates to send any people over to O’Malley so several people from those groups came over to try to persuade our people to move. A passionate young black man said that for fairness we should move to Sanders because it would ensure an even delegate split, which would represent the room best (in fact, we were not needed for the second delegate). The Clinton people said that only Clinton could beat the Republicans.
Since we were not viable I released our folks to suit their consciences. The second division was:
- HRC: 127
- BS: 109
- MO’M: 3
- Uncommitted: 2
Our three were myself, Tall Papa, and a young Latina who said she would not caucus with Sanders because he wouldn’t answer a question from her about immigration, and she liked O’Malley’s state DREAM act. The final delegate allocation was Clinton, two and Sanders, two. If we three had moved to either group it would not have changed those numbers.
My take was that the Sanders and Clinton people were both enthusiastic if not about each other.
It was worth it! Video to follow, deo volans.
A caucus recipe: folks often bring some food and I brought these pumpkin gems.
Pumpkin Bread and Muffins
Prep time:
5 mins
Cook time:
20 mins
Total time:
25 mins
Simple pumpkin muffins made with coconut flour and pumpkin (I used butternut squash) for a healthy and nutritious breakfast.
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
5 Eggs
1 cup of pumpkin puree (pumpkin only... check the ingredients)
¼ cup coconut oil or butter (softened)
½ cup coconut flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon (alternative: use ¼ cup cocoa for chocolate muffins. Mmmm.)
¼ cup honey or equivalent sweetener - agave syrup is low glycemic and works well
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Put all ingredients in medium sized bowl
Using strong whisk, immersion blender or food processor (recommend!), mix until smooth and well incorporated. If batter is too thick, add a little coconut milk or water to thin, but don’t let it get runny at all.
Put into greased muffin tins or an 8x8 baking dish (a regular loaf pan doesn't work well)- For muffins, I use a ¼ cup measure to make pretty even sized. Batter will be somewhat thick. Gems can be made with a mini muffin tin, and this recipe yields about 36 gems.
Bake for 13-18 minutes (muffins), 11-13 minutes for gems, or 20-25 minutes (bread) until lightly browned and set in middle.
Optional topping: finely grind almonds or pecans and mix with butter or coconut oil to make a crumble topping.