The Caucus-Race

As I attended the first caucus in my life Tuesday night, I was amused to remember this quote from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The scene
occurs just after a frustrated, giant Alice’s excessive tears have caused everyone to have to swim to dry land:

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" 'What I was going to say,’ said the Dodo in an offended tone, ‘was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.’

‘What is a Caucus-race?’ said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and
no one else seemed inclined to say anything.

‘Why,’ said the Dodo, ‘the best way to explain it is to do it.’ (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)

First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (‘the exact shape doesn’t matter,’ it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no ‘One, two, three, and away,’ but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out ‘The race is over!’ and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, ‘But who has won?’

This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, ‘everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’ "

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It was standing room only in the Creekside Elementary gym. Dire warnings about exceeding capacity were uttered and all those who weren't registered to vote were asked to leave, with no noticeable impact. Babies cried, young people gave up their seats to the elderly. Familiar-looking neighbors (although I am name-challenged), young and old, stood shoulder to shoulder, all clutching their white or blue registration cards for the Colorado Democratic caucus.

The cold winter’s night with snow on the ground and ice on the sidewalks did not deter these voters, who were finally motivated to have a say in a year when the caucus was held early enough to make a difference.

In my precinct, which I am told has a total of perhaps 330 registered Democratic voters, an unprecedented 129 people had Shown Up. The amazed old hands who have been showing up for years said that prior to this they had seen turnouts ranging from 8-30. A few straw polls and subsequent binding votes and a few impassioned statements from various participants later, we had 99 for Obama and 29 for Clinton, resulting in 5 county delegates for Obama, and 1 for Clinton.

I voted for Hillary, and was interested to see how hard it was for me to be in the minority. I even screwed up the courage to say a few words to try to sway my neighbors, with no observed affect other than causing my heart to beat very fast for a few minutes. It was a fascinating, messy, but ultimately productive process managed totally by dedicated volunteers who got the job done by 8:45 pm. Barack carried the State of Colorado, but I have faith in Hillary and we are in early days still. See future blogs for more on this.