I'm going to the Iowa Caucuses and you're not.

About the same with 83% reporting.

Looking forward to Swimpy's report!! (9:00 her time/ my time now...)

Waiting/watching for Swimpy.
Interesting results so far.

Its over ... blow-by-blow startsHere , if anyone's interested. I can't wait for Swimpy to check in; I really want to get her take.

This is sooo interesting!

Swimpy made that comment about Kerry and I was kinda, hmmm. OK. I am now extremely happy to see him so far in the lead, and I can't put my finger on why. I am, though.

I told E.G. that, asked him if he'd read the story about Kerry meeting the guy he'd rescued in Vietnam after all of these years. He said no, then said "But that has nothing to do with..." I said, I know, I know. Then after a pause I said, actually, it does -- it has to do with whether he can beat Bush. And that is a huge consideration for me. Not the only. I won't vote someone into office I don't believe in. But huge.

Anyway, don't mean to drag this into yet another discussion of who should be the democratic nominee. Interesting process, interesting results, interested in what Swimp has to say about it.

Oh, a 1-2-3 statement of interest. (All typing at the same time I think.)

OK, I'm back. What an interesting night. I'm going to type up my comments and post in a few minutes.

I arrived at my precinct caucus a little late but they were still registering people. The turn out was a record 68 people. By 7:00 two people had bailed out, so we were 66. Considering we were up against Bingo at the local Catholic church, that was pretty good!

The caucus was held at the elementary school in my neighborhood, which is pretty blue collar. There was open gym tonight, so there were people playing basketball until 7:30. That meant we had to crowd into a conference room to hear the candidate's representatives give their speeches. And when I say representatives, I mean whomever wanted to talk from the people aligned with each candidate. One lady, who was a Dean supporter got up. She had no prepared statement and just spoke from her heart. She was not educated and obviously nervous. She stood up and spoke so passionately, that if she had been running herself, she would have had my vote.

After the speeches, we gathered in our groups to count. We knew from the registration that there were only two viable groups. Kerry had 26 people and Gephardt had 11 (I think). A candidate needed 15% of the attendees to be viable. For my precinct that was 10. Dean had 9. Edwards had 4 and Kucinich had 1. Several were undecided. So the arm-twisting began. The edwards, Dean and Kucinich camps had 30 minutes to convince those who were either undecided or non-viable to join them.

As it turned out the undecideds split between Dean and Kerry. Edwards folded. Those remaining loyal to him left the caucus.

Kerry got four delegates, of which I am one. Gephardt got two and Dean one. We reflected the statewide results.

Nuevo Mexicanos, Boss . . . as far as the natives are concerned, the "Anglos" don't count . . .

Thanks for the meeting minutes swimpy! Sounds very cool....

Frankly it was a bit disorganized and lasted longer than it needed to, but that's grassroots politics for ya!

Thanks!! Fascinating.

hot DAMN!

<nimh was working the past five hours or so, and hadnt checked the web anymore ...>

Daaaammmnnn ....

Indeed!!

Lookin' forward to your analysis, there...

Nice report, Swimpy, thanks. From my experience, that is exactly what grass-roots politics is like ... on a good night. You ever been to a small town board meeting?

I think Swimpy read my post and mobilized his troops.
Do I win something?

Excellent report, Swimpy! We Washingtonians have a caucus system, too. They will be held on Feb. 7, a Saturday, which suggests that they may drag on for many hours. A system like this must accentuate the impact of hard-core followers of candidates, since I doubt that many lukewarm folks would choose to spend their weekend this way.

Especially at caucuses like ours, which lack the glamour of Iowa's!

Timber, yes I have been to small town board meetings. There is a similarity.

man of yellow, You must have a chrystal ball there! (BTW, Swimpy be a she )

D'art, I don't know about the glamour, maybe clammor is right description. It will be interesting to go to the County Convention. It's on a Saturday, I'm sure for the reason you stated.

Thanks, Swimpy.

Here you go ... <smiles>:

Which Democratic candidate will/do your support?

(I actually responded there first 'fore I saw this...)