Last night was a very interesting evening from the perspective of learning about the political process. I was completely amazed that the Democratic caucus workers at our precinct location were completely unprepared for the heavy turnout, given the previous month of heavy turnout in other states. They ended up moving one precinct out of the gym to the cafeteria after there were more than enough people to violate fire code for the gymnasium.
That being said, I did learn some things about the process. First was that, in Colorado, the precinct numbers actually tell you quite a bit. They are in the form of vwwxxyyzzz where v is the US House District (in my case 7), ww is the State Senate District (in my case 20), xx is the State House District (in my case 24), yy is the county (Jefferson is 30), and zzz is the precinct within the county. The process was very convoluted and was not well organized at all. All of the votes were conducted with a show of hands. In my precinct, there were 57 people and we split 34-23 for Obama. We then polled on the candidates for US Senate where Mark Udall was the unanimous choice over Mark Benner whom no one in our precinct had ever heard of before.
We the elected delegates to the Jefferson County Democratic Convention on March 15. Based on the Presidential preference poll, we ended up with 8 delegates for Obama and 5 for Clinton. I ended up being a delegate for Obama and Andrea is a delegate for Clinton. The rest of the night consisted of some minor business. Our precinct, rather stupidly, voted down the party resolution on health care as not being a strong enough statement for universal health care, but approved the statement opposing the so-called “Right to Work” amendment that is proposed for the Colorado Constitution. The precinct caucus then ended about 8:30, but we spent most of the next half hour cleaning up before we left around 9.
Our precinct largely mirrored the State of Colorado where Obama won 67% of the vote compared to 32% for Clinton. The next step in the process is the Jefferson County Convention that Andrea and I will be attending on March 15, and voting on opposite sides yet again.
