Chepooka

Raucous Caucus

I cut out early yesterday to participate in my very first Democratic Caucus, whoo! My friend Polly picked Brian and I up around 4:30—plenty of time to zip across town (about 10 miles) and orient ourselves to the whole situation. Brian, being the political maverick that he is, had registered as an independent (which in AK is a party, not an undeclared status which was his intention) so he needed to get there early to change his party affiliation.

I’d never participated in a caucus before so I was pretty excited, I had no idea what to expect. Two hours later, that’s two. hours. later., after sitting in gridlock where we frantically attempted to call every radio station, television station, the democratic party and candidate headquarters to let them know there were hundreds of us on our way but stuck in traffic, we finally found a parking space a mere 4 blocks away in 5 thousand degrees below zero weather.

Once inside, I bought some t-shirts such as Frostbite: a small price to pay for democracy and I caucused in the Alaska: They hate us for our frostbite.

Bad, sorry.

But seriously, on the one hand it was a huge clusterfuck: we spent hours getting there, then at least another hour wandering around in confusion. At one point I had to re-register to vote after being told not to do that seven times by five different volunteers, then, after I was double registered, was told I needed to “sign in” if I was already registered, all so I could get my little green slip of paper. Then. I didn’t need the green slip of paper after all.

I was tired, hungry, cranky and irritated.

The democratic party underestimated the turnout by an obscene amount. It was colder outside than it’s been in years, and my heart broke a little for all the people that couldn’t get through that traffic, for the elderly citizens with canes walking in the slippery freezing icy conditions, and the disabled people in wheelchairs trying to navigate around as we were deemed “over capacity” and told to relocate up and down stairs and into unfamiliar rooms. Hell, I’m a healthy, relatively young and fit person and I almost died getting there and moving around in the madness.

Yet on the other hand, I was so glad I went. This might all sound like a complaint but it’s not. All of this, the people who braved those conditions in historic numbers, the disorganization and ill-prepared planners—they were all part of this beautiful beautiful clusterfuck. The electricity of hope and pride was strong in that building and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

It was so crazy, they are still talking about it on our progressive radio station today, the ”Raucous Caucus” they’ve coined it.

Once I was counted, I raced out of there like a bat out of hell. I wasn’t going to get stuck in traffic for another two hours. I’m a good citizen but let’s not get crazy. Four hours door to door just to vote seemed wrong enough.

Anyway. I caucused for Dennis Kucinich. It was reminiscent of that game we played in Kindergarden, remember The Farmer in the Dell? “The cheese stands alone, the cheese stands alone, high ho the merryo the cheese ...”

There were 11 of us in that group so we weren’t viable. But it felt good to stand there and stand for something even if only 10 other people agreed. We then were instructed to chose between the two viable candidates and I (and I’m pretty sure the other ten) went to the Obama side. The crowd ROARED and that was pretty cool, my friend Polly welcomed me over there and gave me a big hug. Haha good times.

I have never been over the moon excited about him, but the idea is growing on me.

Posted by chepooka on 02/06 at 03:53 PM