Democratic Caucus

What a concept: 100 people or so gather in the local gym and then literally divide up by candidate and organize themselves enough to count heads. If you are from a caucusing state you might think it old hat, but me, I'm from Jersey and we have a primary there. Before this year I never picked a party, I always liked to maintain that I was independent, middle of the road, a free wheeling social commentator of no particular party (aside from the party that always seemed to generate wherever I happened to be drinking that day). But this year it was important to go and caucus, as a Democrat, because really I always voted straight down the Democratic side anyway except for that one time when I think I voted for Ross Perot -- is that even possible? What can I say? I really loved his budget pie charts.

Well this year I live in Maine and so I went with a few hundred of my fellow townspeople and those from neighboring towns to the middle school gym - which is a trip and a half by itself, it is so old timey! Here is how it looked - not the gym but the people there. There were about twice as many Barack people as Hillary people. The Barack people had lots of babies and children running around and I was sorry I didn't bring my kids to run around too. The Hillary people had a lot of "ladies" in sweater sets and then a lot of ladies traveling together as part of a set, if you get my drift. There were some speeches by volunteers and then the five towns represented split up into their respective areas of the room. My town had 98 people standing and somebody was to volunteer to be the caucus secretary. That's where I stood up - I was kidless and wanted to make the most of my civic duty. As secretary I took some notes, we did some caucusy stuff and then the caucus chairwoman said "Hillary people over here, Obama people move over there." And that was it. There were twice as many Obama people and for a few minutes everyone was watching them dicker around trying to agree on an easy head count method. Then I noticed the Hillary people quietly forming rows of 5 until they were counted with nary a word. Everyone laughed - the Obama people yelled that the Hillary people were so militant and the Hillary people yelled that they had gotten the job done fast.

It ended up that from my town, Hillary got just 3 delegates and Obama got 6 - as secretary it was my pleasure to record the names before taking my leave into the snowy, icy night. And that was the Democratic Caucus, mid-coast Maine style.