Insider view of the caucuses

[frogcycle]

http://blog.joebiden.com/?p=1677

Stacy - Des Moines Says:
January 4th, 2008 at 10:46 am

Our caucus had 545 people with many Independents and Republicans in attendance. Obama had 231 in the first round. Edwards and Clinton were tied at 103. Biden started with 46 and was not vialble. Our group went to work and immediatly Dodd’s 13 people came with us and part of the Richardson group. After round two we were up to 68, still short of the 83 we needed for viability. But we did not give up. We had the former Lieutent Governor coming over trying to convince us to go to Clinton, Edwards people trying to tell us about Edwards (like we didn’t know) and Obama people circling like a pack of wolves.

The way the caucuses work, the Obama campaign could have given us enough people to make Joe viable without losing a delegate. We ask them several times and they flatly refused. We argued that Joe deserved to go on and that it would take a delegate from Clinton or Edwards. They still refused and we didn’t budge. Finally we got the 5 minute warning and told the Obama mob that unless they made us viable we would go to Clinton. They basically said, screw you — so we ulltimately went over to the Clinton camp. This was a move none of us ever intended on making. Many of us had Obama as our second choice, but the group was so rude, aggresive and operated with an ugly bully mentality because of their numbers that many of us just couldn’t stomach giving them our vote. My husband, who has consistenly said that Obama was his second choice now says that he will never vote for Obama now. We have 11 months till the election so that may change.

One scary note: my husband heard a couple in the Obama group say to one another, “This is great, the Republicans can beat Obama.” This is disgraceful, Republican plants there to make sure we ended up with a weak nominee.

[frogcycle]

1. A caller to Randi's show

this afternoon - Sam Seder is sitting in - raised the issue of republicans crossing over to influence the outcome. Seder pooh-poohed it - said he did not believe that sort of thing would really happen. I was afraid he was going to say "not here in America." I wanted to call and scream "wake up!" Do you actually think Rove is the only slimeball on their side - and do you actually think he is not still active?

I read another post by a caucuser who said a group of republicans who had caucused for Obama were in a bar afterwards joking about how easy it had been to re-register at the door and just go in and vote.

Does anybody want to break down that 94% increase in "Democratic" turnout and figure out what REALLY happened?

One thing that appears to have occurred at least a few places is that the "conventional" process of trading to help make candidates viable did not occur. I know that the campaign staff was educating precinct captains on doing so, with the expectation that it would be possible, as it has been in the past.

Ah well, I guess we've turned the page on that quaint approach to politics. We wouldn't want to investigate it and expose it, lest it reflect poorly on its beneficiary.

[Adelante]

4. 3% of caucus goers were Republican

They didn't have much to do with Obama's vote or anybody else's.

[spooky3]

9. where is everyone getting the data as to which voters were

Republican, Indep. or Dem. and for whom they voted?

Several posts have made claims, but no one has included a link so that we can check the quality of evidence for ourselves.

Thanks.

[sandnsea]

2. Pssst... other people attend caucuses

Even DUers. In fact, there was even one televised.

[Adelante]

3. Out of almost 1800 caucuses there are always stories like this

It was the same in 2004. I'm sorry if Obama supporters in your particular caucus or others were unkind. I personally think they should have bolstered Joe if they could have. But, honestly, there are assholes everywhere. If you're not going to vote for somebody, don't, fine, but this is not a good reason. Caucuses don't go everybody's way, it's the nature of the beast.

[suziedemocrat]

5. That's very sad!!! I loved Biden and I'm just sick that he's out of the race.

[maximusveritas]

6. Once again. Who cares? Do you think they're smarter than us?

If not, why should we care who some Republicans think they can beat?
They're probably just thinking simplistically about his race and name.

Oh, and John Edwards got more conservative votes than Obama and just slightly less Republican votes, so I'm sure there were a few of these in his camp as well.

[frogcycle]

7. yes, I am sure that is exactly how they are thinking

are they smarter? no, they are idiots. But there are a lot of them. And they think they have a strategery.

My point was not that they are smarter, but that the crowing about how Obama "trounced" the others may be overstated.

[rusty fender]

8. Three-way tie!

Hellow--it's a virtual tie, in terms of delegates: Obama-18; Edwards-17; Clinton-16. What's all this "trouncing" about?