I came, I slipped, I caucused....

Wow.

Last night was crazy. From the amount of people to the media EVERYWHERE, it was a circus.
So a quick run down of the night.
Martine and I met up to grab a little snix-snack before the big caucus event. Made it over to the middle school where we were slated to go and the place was packed. 2 precincts were using the same building so there was 4 caucuses going on at the same time (2 precincts, Donkey & Elephant). Parked like 3 blocks away and Martine almost biffed it on the sidewalk, and I almost made it worse trying to keep her from biffing it. Seems they were all over traffic control but had failed at sidewalk control. Packed snow, icy patches and a 7 month pregnant woman don't mix well.
But she was fine. No permanent damage. Made our way up to the school to see the big CNN bus parked out front. And walked into organized chaos. A plasma screen that CNN had set up with feeds from each of the 4 caucus rooms. Lines everywhere people shouting about where to go and people in costumes. Seriously.





I still don't understand what this guy was about. And there was another guy in a purple monkey suit. Martine figured he was supposed to be George W. Finally made it up to the sign in table. All the while mocking the fact that the lines for the democratic room were almost out the door and the peeps at the republican table were sitting there looking bored as no one was registering for their caucus. I had to mock them a little. At least to the other people waiting in line with me.

Make it into the cafeteria, which was where our precinct was meeting. People everywhere, more media, random observers running around with hand-held cameras capturing the whole thing for YouTube. Nutso. For those of you that don't know caucusing is not really like voting. Its more like, well, the opposite of voting. You sit in areas of the room for your candidate out in the open and there are two round of counting. Each precinct has a pre-set number of delegates that you can send to the county caucus, which then has a number for the state caucus, which then determines who gets the votes at the convention later in the year. We had 7 delegates. There were like, 8(?) candidates and based on the number of registered people they work out how many people at a minimum need to affiliate with a given candidate to be viable -- meaning to get at least one of the delegates.
Sounds cool right? To a degree it is. But, like much of government, it consisted of a lot of sitting around. A lot. Making random conversation with the people around you -- who in theory are your neighbors because it is all based on your home address. And in some cases, you get interviewed by the CBS affiliate out of SALT LAKE CITY???
Yep, shout out to my peeps in Utah. I am sure some production assistant told the guy the wrong room and he was looking for Mitt supporters, but whatever.
After the first round, Biden, Richardson, Kucinich and Gravel were not viable. So then the other groups went around trying to court them to their side to get additional delegates.
At the end of the night -- we got there at about 6:15 and left about 9 -- the final tally for the Democratic Caucus Precinct 71 was 3 for Obama, 2 for Clinton, 1 for Edwards and 1 for Richardson.
At that point, we took off. Neither Martine or I was interested in getting nominated to be a delegate at the county caucus. Dropped Martine off and headed to meet up with some peeps for some post-caucus rallys.
We were going to try and hit Hillary, but by the time we got everyone together, she had already started her speech on TV, looking pissed BTW. So we headed over to the Obama rally.
In a word, packed.
In another word, hot
And in a third word, stinky. My God, when we finally found a place that was close, relatively speaking of course, it happened to be by this kid that just reeked of BO.
G-R-O-S-S
We did get to see Obama give his speech. He really is a dynamic speaker. Place went crazy for him. Someone reported seeing Scarlett Johnanson there, but never confirmed. Managed to get felt up by not one, but two secret service guys as we were trying to get up front for some pictures. And of course, I had left my camera at home, so all my pics (they will be uploaded tonight or tomorrow) are with my cell phone, so be kind.
And ps to the Secret Service -- I know that you had a hell of a job on your hands and the logistics of keeping people safe in an environment like that has to be insane, but do you have to be assholes about it? And for the record, by felt up, I mean elbowed and pushed around. I wanted to yank those little curly ear pieces right out just to spite them.
Did have a celebrity sighting -- Bobby Cannavale. Took me a minute to recognize him, but I did and Liz got a picture with him.
What for else? All in all, a good night.
Like I said, I will get pics out over the weekend. And be kind, again -- it was a cell phone taking the pics. :)

Now Listening: Tourist by St. Germain