How do you explain the Colorado caucus results?

[Alhena]

This Denver Post poll had the Colorado race being neck and neck between Obama and Hillary a week before the vote:

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_8089114

The Democratic caucuses hold more potential for high drama in the presidential race, with Colorado voters split evenly between Barack Obama at 34 percent and Hillary Rodham Clinton at 32 percent — well within the poll's 3.5 percentage-point margin of error.

- end quote -

Here are the actual results of the closed caucus:

Obama 79,344 66.57%
Clinton 38,587 32.38%

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/CO-D.phtml

How do you explain these results- can any Coloradans help me out on explaining this?

[DJ13]

1. O-mentum

Or bad polling.

[tyne]

2. A caucus

requires that you invest and commit around 3 to 4 hours of your time. It's easy to answer a telephone call....quite another to show up and go through that process.

IMO, it says alot about Obama supporters.

Same thing happened in Idaho.

[Strelnikov_]

12. Same thing in Iowa

One of the advantages of being a cult. :sarcasm:

[TheWraith]

3. After SC, ten days before ST, Obama was down in 20 out of 22 states.

On Super Tuesday, he won thirteen. If he'd had another week, he'd have won CA too. It's a simple matter of the campaign paying attention to them.

[tritsofme]

4. Caucuses are harder to poll for.

Its much easier to find a likely voter pool in a primary.

[islandmkl]

5. uhhh...1) the pollsters were either wrong or flawed or

2) more people chose Obama

[Krashkopf]

6. People LIE to pollsters . . .

just to "f" with the main stream media!

Actually, it was a better "ground game." Obama, came to Colorado and made us feel important. His campaign sent out really nice direct mail pieces on a weekly basis for at least a month before the Caucuses. And, he has had a dozen or more official campaign offices in the state for a couple of months before the caucuses.

Clinton didn't do ANY of that. She got out hustled.

[sandnsea]

11. Thank you

If Obama had been putting his campaign together for over 2 years, he'd have been completely unstoppable. Hillary should be ashamed at what she did with her $118 million and, well, the backing of so many people they had built on for 16 years. If she really cared about the people, she'd have reached out to people in every single state.

[Rageneau]

15. If Obama had started two years earlier, he'd be out of the running by now.

As cool and cute as he is, Obama is a fad -- not a movement. He is the American Idol of candidates, and for the moment is the darling of people who like the newest shiny thing (which is why so much of his base is so young).

IMHO, the current sizzle about BO will cool down over time, as people realize that he is a mere flawed mortal like all the rest of us.

[kevsand]

17. We've been watching him for about a decade here in Illinois,

and we're still all jazzed for him. So much for your theory...

[backscatter712]

7. People like us.

Not only did I go to the caucuses, but I brought a friend with me to register as a Democrat back in December, and to the caucuses on Tuesday.

The veterans there have never seen such crowds. One told me that he attended caucuses that had as few as 4 people in his precinct. Tuesday, in mine, there were 23. In some precincts, over a hundred showed up.

I think Americans are finally learning the lesson.

If you want government that actually works, you have to participate. Just sitting on your butt and watching on TV isn't enough.

Polls don't really mean much anymore - the margin of error is too high, the polls are frequently biased, and we're frequently only shown polls that have numbers the moguls in the media and the power elites want us to see, while other polls that contradict their message are kept secret.

[Alhena]

14. Would you mind telling me how the caucus process works?

What did you do, how long did it take, etc? Also, does everyone get to vote their mind, or is it a peer pressure kind of thing?

[treehuggnlibrul]

16. Here's how it worked where I caucused in CO

Arrived at 6:15 in the lunchroom at elementary school. Each precinct had a table.

Everyone crammed in. One guy at my table said that in 2006, there were a total of 6 people in the whole room; they estimated 400-500 this time.

At 7 p.m. the caucus leader stood up and brought the meeting to order, then read a list of rules. One person stood up on the table and said why he was voting for Obama. One person stood up and said why she was voting for Hillary. No one stood and spoke for the uncommitteds or Gravel, though the leaders called for anyone who wanted to do so. Very congenial atmosphere. They each had 2 minutes.

Then we broke into precincts. We had to have the presidential candidate numbers/delegates in by 8 p.m. We quickly selected a chair and a secretary. Counted how many of us there were (48) then they asked who wanted Obama. 37 people raised their hands. Hillary, 9. Uncommitted, 2. Then they figure out what the threshold is for delegates. A candidate must have 15 percent of the vote to get a delegate. So the threshold was 7.something. Anyone who wanted to talk about a candidate could. Then they took a final vote, and you could switch if you wanted to. One uncommited person actually changed and voted for Obama, but then one of the Obama people went to Hillary, making it 37 and 10. One person remained uncommitted.

So then we had to calculate delegates. They told us our precinct was allowed to have 4. Based on the number of votes, Obama got 3 and Clinton got 1. Then the two groups separated. The Obama group got to pick three delegates for the county convention, Clinton group picked one. Four people in the Obama group wanted to do it, so we had to vote on three by show of hands. And then we had to pick three alternates. The Clinton group chose one delegate and one alternate. They all will go to the county convention.

After that, people could present resolutions that they wanted taken to the county convention for consideration to be added to the party platform. We adjourned at 8:30. Some precincts were still going when we left.

[Alhena]

20. Very interesting- thanks

[backscatter712]

21. Hmm, I'll give you the quick, quick version.

We went to the caucus meeting place, which was in the cafeteria of a local high school for us.

We signed in at our precinct meeting place, and once everyone was in and it was the official start time, we had a quick straw poll for our choice of nominee. The precinct was small enough that the vote could be taken as a simple show of hands. Before we voted, caucusers had the chance to speak their minds, advocate for their candidates, so we had a few speaking up for Obama, and a few speaking up for Clinton. There's also a rule that if a candidate doesn't get 15% of the vote, he's eliminated, and his supporters need to vote for one of the remaining candidates. In our case, it was 16 votes for Obama, and 7 for Clinton.

Once that's done, we also voted on a couple other things, like our choice of nominee for Congressman in the House of Representatives. Then we choose delegates. Out of our precinct, we were allocated six delegates to go to the county assembly. We took volunteers, and since there were more volunteers than slots, we voted on delegates. Since the vote was 16 for Obama and 7 for Clinton, not too far from a 2-1 ratio, we decided that four of our six delegates would be Obama supporters, and two would be Clinton supporters, so we could have a fair representation of our choices.

On March 8th, our delegates (including me, I'm one of the chosen delegates!) go to the county assembly, where we choose who to send to the convention.

On top of the county delegates, we also chose a delegate to go to a separate, smaller assembly (a state assembly based on state Senate representation) who'll represent us there.

I think that's how it goes - I'm still confused on all the rules. It's quite exciting for me.

[Krashkopf]

27. I can top that story!

You said:

The veterans there have never seen such crowds. One told me that he attended caucuses that had as few as 4 people in his precinct. Tuesday, in mine, there were 23.

Back in 2006, I became "Precinct Captain" because I WAS THE ONLY ONE TO SHOW UP FOR MY PRECINCT'S CAUCUS! On Tuesday night we had 60 people show up!

It was heartening to see!

If the Democrats don't blow it, if they can harness all of that energy, we will sweep the GOP away in a tidal waive in November.

Centennial, CO

[TexasObserver]

8. many polls fail to accurately compose their samples

They measure likely voters by identifying who voted LAST time. They use landlines instead of cellphones. They create a model that is in error, and it tells them something untrue.

My guess is, they missed the young and new voters.

[Occam Bandage]

9. He did the same thing in Minnesota. He does very well in caucuses; his supporters are

far more willing to invest the time than Clinton supporters are.

[tyne]

19. Exactly

It is as simple as that. There is no other logical explanation.

[hlthe2b]

10. caucus goers are a very select group

Those who attend are both very motivated and knowledgable, since CO has not had a caucus in some time and certainly never this early... That bias would certainly show up in those polled-- most who may vote in the GE but not come to the caucuses, which take a lot more effort...Still, the record attendance speaks volumes to the excitement of CO dems and Obama as well...

[hfojvt]

13. there's something missing there

The poll said Obama 34% Clinton 32%. Uhm, that's only 66%. What were the other 34%? Undecided? Richardson? Edwards? Kucinich? Either they got lobbied to Obama, or Obama was always their second choice and they went there when their first choice was not viable.

Although I am not sure what you mean by "closed" caucus. No independents? Or voting by ballot instead of publicly?

[algol]

18. Obama campaign worked the phones

We were called at least 5 times by the Obama campaign, in the week prior, by real humans. The only other phone calls we got were several Romney robocalls. The Obama campaign were very knowledgeable about Barack's positions on issues, and even researched whether we could bring our children to the caucus. Very impressive organization.

[otohara]

22. Compared to 2004 - Turnout Was Huge -

which is puzzling to me, because 2004 was even more critical. There's a letter in today's Denver Post which expressed my question about turnout in 04. We had more than two people at my polling place in 04, but not much more. Tuesday night at my polling site was so packed they had to move many of us.


Letter to editor


WHERE WERE ALL YOU DEMOCRATS IN 2004

Boy, it’s real nice that all the Democrats came out in record numbers and overwhelmed their precincts. That’s really fine that they are flocking to the Obama or Clinton bandwagons.

But where were you folks in 2004? My Democratic precinct had exactly two people in attendance in 2004 - myself and one other person.

Where were all of you when it was crystal clear in 2004 that the Bush administration was intellectually and morally bankrupt?

It’s fine to say “Let’s move forward and not look back” while we are still in the process of destroying Iraq, facilitating the killing and maiming of civilians and soldiers and the corrupt Bush administration is, while we speak, getting away with trashing the Constitution, looting the Treasury and paralyzing the middle class. Democrats, you have much to atone for.

LH, Morrison, CO

[backscatter712]

23. I think Americans are finally learning their lesson...

To make government that works, instead of being run by idiots and assholes, you have to participate.

Maybe Bush got so arrogant that we the people finally snapped.

At least it's my hope that people are figuring out they need to participate.

But the turnout this year is a very, very, very good thing. I wish we had it earlier, but now we have it. Let's make things really happen this time.

[TeamJordan23]

24. Colorado is becoming a purple state. GoObama! nm

[algol]

25. Still some work to do, especially in ColoSpgs

On Wednesday, the Colorado Springs Gazette -- admittedly no friend to the thinking person -- thought it more important to report on Ted Haggard's escape from shyster rejuvenation indoctrination than on Obama's win.

[Tom Rinaldo]

26. I don't

The honest truth is that the more I come to understand how caucuses function, the more appreciation I have for primaries that employ the secret ballot.