Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Super Tuesday

Caucuses! Aren't they awesome? I get all fired up every time an election comes around. I think I'd be one of those over zealous types that lives for politics if I didn't value my non-school/non-work time so much. Anyway, the entire process amazes me.

The power that the individual has in this process is pretty cool. You can recommend changes to the party platform, elect delegates, and pitch your candidate of choice to the group. Where else can you throw your thoughts out there and have as much weight put on them as in the caucus? And since hardly anyone shows up for them compared to a general election your vote counts several times as much!

Funny caucus story - Everyone seemed to bring their kids to this thing. I guess whoever invented daycare forgot to also invent nightcare. Anyway, one of the kids was sick and puked in the garbage at the start of our precinct meeting. One of the first things we did was to take the vote everyone had come for, for the presidential nominee. The votes were tallied by counters nominated from our group, and the two came back with the final numbers. One of them asked if the original ballots were needed as the other casually threw them into the trash. Everyone looked on in horror as the ballets fell into the puke filled trash can. They pulled them out, puke and all, and put them in the envelope with a warning about the contents. Yuck!

Now where else can you get a great story like that, have influence on the direction of the nation, and feel like you're making a difference? Long live the caucus!