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Originally posted by: jatki99
So do the delegates divided up between them by percentage? I mean it was so close, seems to me they should called it pretty much a tie. I didn't see anything on that.
BTW Hey Forky, you going to give us the scoop on how your caucus for Bernie went? interesting to hear the nuts and bolts of how it all works. Thanks.
Thanks for asking! First, I need to announce MY election - as a Bernie alternate delegate to the Clark County Democratic Convention. I'd like to thank all of my supporters who made this possible. This is your victory too. Okay, now about the caucus. There is a nature preserve between my home and the caucus location, and I thought it would be great symbolism to hike a couple miles to vote, courtesy of my local politicians and the Bureau of Land Management. But I decided against it. Anyway, my wife and I got to the high school where the caucus took place at about 11 AM, an hour early because I guessed that there might be Bernie people checking people in so they would know which stragglers to call. That wasn't feasible, because the location handled eleven precincts and there were hundreds of people in line waiting to register.
(There were no busloads of illegal immigrants waiting to vote; us Democrats save that for the general election. And we cleverly have them register as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Dick Butkus, to avoid raising any suspicions. And it works - amazingly no one in history has ever pulled out a phone to take a picture of the busloads.)
Anyway, I was immediately annoyed that there were Bernie people holding up Bernie signs. I mean, what was the point? No one who goes through the caucus ordeal is persuadable on the first ballot, and since there were only two candidates there wasn't going to be a re-vote. They could have been phone banking and reminding people to show up, relaxing, napping, or staring at their phones. Maybe they imagined they were on teevee, like at a national convention. I also saw equally pointless Hillary people holding up Hillary signs to no discernible effect.
It took about an hour to get to the front of the line and registered, and we were told which classroom the precinct was located in. I decided not to go in immediately because inside Bernie and Hillary people were debating each other as if it mattered. It didn't, for reasons I indicated above. And we all had to wait about another hour, because anyone who was in the back of the line by noon was entitled to participate. When I finally went into the classroom some Bernie guy was arguing that Senator Clinton had changed her vote on a Senate bill after getting a large corporate donation. But he couldn't remember the subject of the bill, and the Hillary people weren't buying it. So to put myself out of my misery I decided to speak up and said, "It was the bankruptcy bill." The Bernie guy looked at me with gratitude and agreed loudly. At that point I plugged in the earbuds and listened to an audiobook until the action started. My wife concentrated on Words With Friends.
Finally the temporary chair of the caucus came in, read us a bunch of rules, and said we would be voting soon. But he was the temporary chair of another caucus and had to split for that one for a while. After about fifteen minutes he said it was time to elect a permanent caucus chair, he nominated himself, and we all voted "Aye," except my wife who was getting beat at Scrabble and getting pissed off because it was all taking so long. Then we elected a secretary whose job it was to write stuff down. Based on the number of people in attendance, he said that a candidate would have to get five votes to be "viable," that is, be awarded delegates. At the caucus I attended in 2008, the John Edwards vote did not reach the viability level, and they were told to vote for Hillary or Barack if they wanted to on a second ballot. That was not applicable this year.
We voted by first moving to our designated side of the room and then raising our hands, and there were 19 for Bernie and 16 for Hillary. So based on the formula, Bernie received five delegates to the Clark County Democratic Convention, and Hillary four. These are NOT at all close to being national delegates. Our caucus sends delegates to the county convention, the Clark County convention produces delegates to the state convention, and only then will the national delegates be chosen. Slowly, four people announced they would like to be Bernie delegates to the all-day county convention, and after a pause, I said I would be an alternate, or be an actual delegate if know one else volunteered. I'd actually like to be a delegate, but I knew there were serious Berniacs there who, unlike me, had volunteered for the campaign, so I figured I shouldn't be greedy. Eventually someone else spoke up, making me an alternate, and we were all elected unanimously. I'm sure the same procedure happened on the Hillary side of the room, but I wasn't paying attention.
As the meeting ended, I happily announced that the early returns on my phone showed Bernie ahead by .2%, but I'm not surprised at the result. My door was knocked on three times to Hillary people to once for Bernie, and Bernie's canvassers came in a group of three. I'm thinking they could have split up and accomplished about three times as much work. I'm pretty sure not too many Hillary people would do that; they've been through these wars before.
I'd caucus again, but I wouldn't show up early since there's no payoff. And I think it's a great example of town hall democracy. Except that those who have to work don't get democracy. And many of those in our armed forces don't get democracy. And those who lack transportation, or who are ill, and so on, don't get democracy. Caucuses are fundamentally undemocratic and need to die. And it took way too long. But it was kind of cool.
