My First Caucus

Hillary Clinton

I'm new to Nevada and I had no idea what a caucus is about. Apparently, no one in Nevada knows what it is supposed to be about either, including the people running the caucus. I'm glad I went and I'm glad that I saw the political process in action, but the verdict on the caucus is- I prefer a primary.

We got there about ten minute to 11:00 (the assigned time) and there was a huge line out the door. There was one table inside with one woman checking people in. Because so many people had to register to vote at the caucus the line was at standstill and there were people freezing (it was 50 degrees-but that's cold for Las Vegans) and there was much complaining out the door. About 11:15 we were moved inside and the organizers tried to make the line move a little faster by splitting us into groups, what an idea, eh? At 11:45 there were still people waiting in line. They also ran out of official preference forms and people had to write on scraps of paper. Or in the dirt or whatever....(kidding).

Then we were all asked to move into the designated corners of the candidate we supported, which meant I had to finally make a decision. I had been undecided because I really supported Bill Richardson and he did not have supporters there. Edwards was also an option I was considering, but he failed to have a showing at our caucus either. Basically we had to choose between Hillary and Obama. We did two rounds and after all the undecideds aligned with one of the two candidates the preference slips were counted. Unfortunately, the slips had to match the head count of physical bodies in the room and some people had left, so this took a bunch of counting and re-counting. The Obama people were very obnoxious and refused to let the Hillary people count their votes and so there was a little fighting for the amusement of the bored caucus-ers. Finally the slips and counts were tallied and it came out Obama 5 delegates and Hillary 4 delegates. The campaigns then asked people to volunteer to be delegates and at long last we were allowed to leave. The process took about two hours.

It was disorganized, it felt weird to be out in public, rather than in an anonymous booth voting, and it was more like a big party than a serious political event. It was kind of fun to talk politics with our "neighbors", but the level of disorganization was a bit discouraging.

So, maybe you want to know who my candidate is...well at this point I am aligned with Hillary. I think that it is important and profound to have a woman running. If Obama is the "change" candidate (which I don't know, since apparently Ron Paul is the candidate with the most supporters that own iPhones), than I guess Hillary is the "experience" candidate and hopefully she will want to leave a positive legacy in a historic presidency. Ultimately, I will vote for either of the candidates when the final election takes place.

So I survived my first caucus and I think I deserve a Bloody Mary. Word has it that Mitt Romney took the Republican caucus and his home state of Nevada by storm...