More reminiscing

I wrote a pretty detailed post in the immediate aftermath of the 2004 caucus. It discussed the insanity of "caucus math" and I was surprised that it brought back my worries about this years organizers.

Things to watch out for:

• No matter what the campaign tells you, you may need to politick the room. If your candidate has gone negative in the most recent weeks of the campaign, that will make this more difficult.
• Sadly, getting shnookered into volunteering with the caucus dirty work (sign-in, chairpersonship, registration) leaves you unable to work the room on behalf of your candidate. Ideally, these jobs should be divvied up between campaigns.
• No matter how large a group is, it should not get its own room, thus isolating themselves from politicking (and protecting their caucusers). Any attempt on the part of a precinct captain to garner such a privilege should be met with hooting and outrage at this undemocratic display of insecurity of their candidate's appeal.
• Take a calculator so that you can figure out just how many caucusers you need in order to pick up that last delegate. Read the caucus math rules carefully so that you know how this is calculated, as it is not especially intuitive.

And, uh, lets take this moment to name the names that I didn't four years ago. The Kerry captain for our precinct was Mary Mascher, our easy-seat-holding state representative. After she got away with the "special room" treatment for the Kerry squad, the sole pleasure in the evening for me was watching her fume when she realized she had lost a delegate in her attempt to screw the Dean folks. This time she is, predictably, backing Hilary. I'd love to see her get that pissed off again.

Caucusing. Older.

This time, four years ago, about the time I started the blog, the caucuses were around the corner, and we were caught up in all things Dean! Dean! Dean!

Four years doesn't seem that long ago. The blog posts are more scattered, and this year, I am one of those most loathed of attention whores, the undecided caucus voter. But, I did get to meet a couple more local characters. Fortunately for me, I guess, the University has purchased up almost all the empty space in the downtown mall, so the presence of campaign offices have been less of a distraction for me. If they had all set up in one place, so I could window shop the candidates, I wonder if I would have fallen in love with one of them like I did last time.

Candidates seen:
* Obama, Edwards, Clinton
Candidate met:
* Dodd