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Texas caucus – The view from one precinct in Austin
“I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.”
-Will Rogers
That disorganization was certainly evident tonight in my precinct Democratic Party caucus. The photo above shows the most organized part of the evening, when people filed into the combination cafeteria/gym. There were questions about party rules regarding whether voters had to remain after signing in for their preferred candidate, and the Obama volunteers were loudly insisting their supporters remain so they could dominate the debate because the Clinton volunteers were supposedly going to challenge the vote count for delegates to the county convention.
It has been reported that the Clinton campaign was behind the curve in organizing for the caucuses in Texas, and that was evident in the lower numbers of Clinton volunteers than Obama volunteers, well out of proportion to the ratio of supporters of each candidate at the caucus. Unfortunately, the Obama volunteers were rather obnoxious, and the ill manners were not limited to the young cohort.
Eventually, after much commotion in setting up tables so that the disabled and those who had small children could have a shorter line to wait in before signing in their preference, a quasi-organization arose out of the confusion, and the registration of the caucus proceeded with reasonable smoothness. Although I have been hard on the Democratic Party organizers of the caucus, some acknowledgment must be made that at least ten times as many voters came to the caucus this year as compared to four years ago. Still, some better planning would have reduced the confusion.
Overall, it was an interesting experience, reminding me of how much I hate the inside maneuvering that is inherent in party politics.
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Cross-posted to Random Fate.
7 Responses to “Texas caucus – The view from one precinct in Austin”
[...] the albany project wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptTexas caucus – The view from one precinct in Austin March 4th, 2008 by JACK GRANT “I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.” -Will Rogers That disorganization was certainly evident tonight in my precinct Democratic Party caucus. The photo above shows the most organized part of the evening, when people filed into the combination cafeteria/gym. There were questions about party rules regarding whether voters had to remain after signing in for their preferred candidate, and the Ob [...]
[...] Hugo Schwyzer wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptTexas caucus – The view from one precinct in Austin March 4th, 2008 by JACK GRANT “I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.” -Will Rogers That disorganization was certainly evident tonight in my precinct Democratic Party caucus. The photo above shows the most organized part of the evening, when people filed into the combination cafeteria/gym. There were questions about party rules regarding whether voters had to remain after signing in for their preferred candidate, and the Ob [...]
Jack,
I was at Precinct 251, a limousine liberal community in Austin. Our story is similar to yours. 468 people came to the caucus and it only took a bit over an hour to process them. 354 for Obama, 114 for Clinton. In an additional hour we elected leaders, chose delegates (including me) and alternates to the County Convention March 29, and voted on a list of progressive resolution that are to be moved along to the County Convention.
It was an inspiring demonstration of neighbors coming together in an almost flawless exercise of bringing order to potential chaos. We cheered ourselves!
Jack and Paul –
I'm just back from Precinct 304 in conservative Katy. We had 223 people — 83 for Clinton and 140 for Obama. Chaos ruled at our place, though. Much trouble letting people in, so they stood in line for over an hour.
On the good news side — everyone was extremely nice. Bar none.
:>
And after much of the day at the election site followed by the caucus, I'm toast…
My understanding is that chaos has been the norm all across the nation at these caucuses. My state of Hawaii went from 5,000 attendees in 2004 to 37,000 in 2008. Ballots ended up on scraps of paper, etc. Ah, democracy.
In my district in San Antonio they only had four voting machines and three poll workers. It took an hour and half for them to process 3/4 of the people that were locked into the gym at 7pm. When they announced that the caucuses would start at least one hour late roughly 20% of the people left. Then when someone complained about how long it was taking the guy in charge of the caucus (who is also in charge of the local senate convention) said,”Well this is what happens when you people don't participate for years and then all show up at once.”
I left.
I want to add that some folks anticipating the restless crowd brought popcorn and candy. We all agreed to let people with urgent obligations get processed first. And David Richards, Ann Richards' son, was elected as Caucus secretary.
One of the resolutions we passed was for Public Financing of Elections.