Making the Texas caucus scene

[gabosaurus]

My cousin David's wife Roxanne called me a bit earlier. She had just gotten back from one of those wild and wacky Texas caucuses. In suburban north Dallas.
Roxanne went with a couple of her neighbors, both of them older women. One woman said that there were about 25 at their 2000 Primary caucus and perhaps a dozen in 2004.
When they got to the caucus site, an elementary school, police were directing traffic. The parking lot of the school and nearby park were full, and people were parking in the streets and in residential yards.
Voting ended just after 7:30. The caucus didn't begin until almost an hour later. The Clinton and Obama camps both had "monitors" present, and they did a hellacious amount of arguing over everything imaginable.
Apparently the caucus "vote" came down to signing your name on a sheet, showing proof that you voted and then declaring who you voted for.
In Roxanne's precinct, Clinton got 75 percent of the delegate vote. It's a primarily affluent white neighborhood, and a great many had no qualms about stating that they did not want a black guy as president.

Sounds like a hellacious excuse for a party to me. :)

[Yurt]

i don't get how o'racist managed to win the caucus but lose the primary and i don't get how the votes for the caucus were only like 15K vs the hundreds of thousands for both in the primary.

who gets to vote in the caucus?

[hjmick]

WHAT?! Democrats who don't want a Black man as President?! Say it ain't so! I guess that means all Democrats are racists.

[Dilloduck]

i don't get how o'racist managed to win the caucus but lose the primary and i don't get how the votes for the caucus were only like 15K vs the hundreds of thousands for both in the primary.

who gets to vote in the caucus?

Only the ones who want to. My son called me sounding almost bewildered. He voted for Obama and signed up to vote in the caucus. He discovered that merely signing up to vote in the caucus WAS his vote for the Obama delegate. He had no clue what happened in the ensuing caucus where hundreds of chaotic voters were shouting at each other with no monitor--no microphone. Today he's going to ask his government professor what the hell he did. I'm curious to hear how he feels when he discovers Hillary won.

[Yurt]

Only the ones who want to. My son called me sounding almost bewildered. He voted for Obama and signed up to vote in the caucus. He discovered that merely signing up to vote in the caucus WAS his vote for the Obama delegate. He had no clue what happened in the ensuing caucus where hundreds of chaotic voters were shouting at each other with no monitor--no microphone. Today he's going to ask his government professor what the hell he did. I'm curious to hear how he feels when he discovers Hillary won.

she won the primary, he won the caucus -- actually got him around 70 delegates. i don't understand the two different votes and why only a small amount in the caucus. interested in his professors take on this.

[gabosaurus]

Roxanne did a lot of reading on this (if you are sitting around waiting to feed the baby, I guess you have time to read). I'm glad she understands it, because it confuses the hell out of me.

Texas splits its delegate vote. About two-thirds of the delegates are chosen by the popular vote. It's not winner take all. So Hillary got 51 percent of the popular vote delegates and Obama got 48 percent.
Everyone who voted in the primary was eligible to vote in the caucus. The caucus vote was decided by voters signing a sheet and declaring who they wishes to vote for.
The other part of the caucus was to decide who went as delegates to the upcoming caucuses -- area, city, regional, state and national. Very few people knew how this operated, since normally next to no one shows up, and there is no use to vote on caucus delegates.
So Hillary could win the popular vote, but since more Obama supporters apparently showed up at the caucuses, he got more caucus votes.

So, in answer to Dillo's question, his son DID manage to vote for Obama twice. Which makes no sense to me.

It should be one person, one vote. You shouldn't have to vote twice.

[avatar4321]

so what you're saying is they just voted again. they didnt really caucus.