Last Sunday I participated in the Democratic caucuses. I also participated in 2008, but that was a very different experience. In 2008, I lived in Ferndale for 5 days of the week, and was here on weekends. It was in the midst of the primary between Obama and Clinton, so TOPPS school was packed to overflowing with people there to participate. I had to be back in Whatcom county the day of the caucus, so I couldn’t stay for the whole thing. I stayed long enough to register my preference for Clinton, but couldn’t stay longer.
This year, with only Obama on the ballot, participating was quite a bit lower. My precinct caucus was in the Montlake Community Center. Precinct 43-2001 had only three participants. Me and two women who had never participated in a caucus before. One had been working in France for a decade and had to vote absentee. The other was an Obama campaign volunteer whose parents were American and German, and she’d been living in Germany as a young girl during World War II.
They asked me to be precinct caucus chair, since this is my third caucus. So we all voted for Obama, and then had to select delegates to the county convention and the District 43 caucus. Due to votes in previous elections, 43-2001 had 7 delegates allocated to it. The other two participants could only attend the District 43 caucus. nevertheless, we voted all three of us as delegates.
We also got to propose resolutions that eventually could be made part of the Democratic platform. Those are not debated or voted on at the precinct caucus level. Every resolution proposed is forwarded to the county convention. I assume the organizers combine similar resolutions to avoid duplication at that level. The older woman had seen a resolution on auditing the Department of Defense, but had forgotten to bring it and couldn’t remember the lengthy wording (or any detail at all). So I proposed a short broadly worded resolution for her in the hopes that someone in another caucus was proposing the resolution the woman wanted, and the organizers would combine them. There was a global warming resolution being passed around, and we put it on our list too. I added a resolution that the Democratic party support marriage equality and the referendum on marriage equality that will likely be on the ballot this November.
The district caucuses and the King County Convention are next weekend at 10 a.m. (one event each day). At the point, I’m planning on attending both, if I can find out where they are. The locations were undetermined as of the caucuses last weekend.