Texas Circus - Field Visit report

simba
Wed, 05 Mar 2008 12:12:00 +0000

Yesterday, I did attend the Texas Circus. I had a pre-conceived notion that caucuses are stupid, unfair to people who do not have plenty of time on their hand, unfair to older people, can be stacked in your favor, are undemocratic and just plain boring.

Attending one of them has not changed my mind.

About 700 people voted in my precinct on Tuesday and about 300 in early voting. The circus was supposed to start at 7:30. We went around 7:15, and it turned out that the circus place was the patio of our sub-division club house. It was cold in Houston, no place to sit and a total of 124 people showed up.

We began around 8:15 with sign in lines. Those who wanted to just indicate their candidate preference could just sign (of course with proof of voting in Democrat primary earlier), write their address, phone number and candidate preference and then can go home. Bizarre – they already did it by voting.

Wife unit and I stayed. Then there was an election for Caucus Chair and Secretary. I nominated my self, but was defeated a unanimously. A sharply dressed criminal lawyer won the Caucus Chair and a semi attractive woman became the secretary.

Then there was vote counting. Hillary received 77 and Obama 47 votes. So she got to send 7 delegates to the local senate convention and Obama got 5. (It seems delegates from our precinct don’t count as much as other precincts).

By this time about 25 out of 124 had remained. The rest had already gone home. Then we had couple of resolution that we voted.

Next Clinton and Obama group separated to elect the delegates. I threw my name again. We needed 7, but 9 people wanted to be delegates. Clinton group had about 15 people. We voted, and I won the delegate election by 1 vote – from wife unit + other 10.

We came home around 9:45 – spent about two and a half hours in cold.

Come March 29, I will be a Clinton Delegate and will report on that circus.