Caucus

papiostud · Post by **papiostud** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 1:07 pm

Did anyone have any trouble caucusing? Sarpy county was a joke. They shoulda known the turn out was gonna be huge. At noon there were cars backed up from 108th to 84th. Papillion South HS was the only location. By 1220 there was no parking and the cops blocked the entrance. So much for our democratic process.

jsheets · Post by **jsheets** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:31 pm

I was at Papio South for the caucus. Besides the underestimation (which was quite large) I thought they did a TERRIFIC job! They were as organized as you could expect a bunch of volunteers who were told to expect a few hundred but received nearly 4000 by my estimation. These volunteers did an excellent job! Of course, they now know to have more sites in the future, but from the inside it was very upbeat and exciting with spontaneous "Obama" and "Hillary" chants in the gym.

A very good experience, and a great day to switch from an independent to cast my vote!

omahastylee459 · Post by **omahastylee459** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 5:58 pm

I caucused at norris middle school, and it was busy, but things went smoothly. A lot of people are acting negatively towards the large crowds, but you have to understand this is the first time doing this, it is not going to be perfect the first time, and throughout election cycles the kinks will get ironed out. The coverage on it by media outlets, local and national, has been horrible though.

papiostud · Post by **papiostud** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 7:58 pm

I was all about the big turn outs...which was expected, thats what bugged me the most...after all the heavy democratic turnouts nationwide why would they assume 300 in sarpy to 3000 which actually showed up. I don't get why Lincoln had 50 locations but Douglas county 15 and Sarpy 1. They'll get it right next time I'm sure. I'm just bummed I didnt get to make it...having the flu didnt help out either. =/

OBAMA 08'!!

j4nu · Post by **j4nu** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 9:22 pm

omahastylee459 wrote:I caucused at norris middle school, and it was busy, but things went smoothly. A lot of people are acting negatively towards the large crowds, but you have to understand this is the first time doing this, it is not going to be perfect the first time, and throughout election cycles the kinks will get ironed out. The coverage on it by media outlets, local and national, has been horrible though.

I was one of the volunteers down at Norris today and the turnout was just below 1400 and they were expecting 1200 so it was right about. Although a month or so ago we were expecting 3000 in the county and they had to ramp up quickly.

We definitely learned alot today and will have an even better event next time. That being said, we had a great time and the energy was a fantastic. Thanks for everyone that came out.

StreetsOfOmaha · Post by **StreetsOfOmaha** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 8:02 pm

papiostud wrote:I don't get why Lincoln had 50 locations but Douglas county 15 and Sarpy 1.

Exactly what I was wondering. What the F?

annad · Post by **annad** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 10:45 pm

I caucused at Monroe Middle School, along with 1400 other people, which had to be twice what they were expecting, considering the size of the gymnasium there. The Obama camp mistakenly collected probably 1/3 of their supporters' blue voting cards too early, which all had to be redistributed to the right people...it was seriously mass chaos for probably an hour. Due to the huge turnout, they switched to "emergency measures" and everyone dropped their blue cards in boxes outside, since not even close to all the attendees could fit in the gym. With the exception of the blue card crisis, I thought party officials/volunteers did a pretty good job of handling the overwhelming numbers of people. My friend and I stuck around for county delegate designation/election, which felt more like true caucusing, or at least more what I had expected.

Harpoon · Post by **Harpoon** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 11:14 pm

My caucus site had 94 people and was very organized. Clinton advocates sat on one side of the room, Obama on the other. After a lively discussion we chose delegates and went home. The entire process took about an hour.

HskrFanMike · Post by **HskrFanMike** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 12:38 pm

Harpoon wrote:My caucus site had 94 people and was very organized. Clinton advocates sat on one side of the room, Obama on the other. After a lively discussion we chose delegates and went home. The entire process took about an hour.

I think that's how a caucus is supposed to work. However, nobody knew whether 100 or 1000 (or maybe 10,000 in Sarpy County) were going to show up. And that was the problem.

omahastylee459 · Post by **omahastylee459** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:15 pm

HskrFanMike wrote:
Harpoon wrote:My caucus site had 94 people and was very organized. Clinton advocates sat on one side of the room, Obama on the other. After a lively discussion we chose delegates and went home. The entire process took about an hour.
I think that's how a caucus is supposed to work. However, nobody knew whether 100 or 1000 (or maybe 10,000 in Sarpy County) were going to show up. And that was the problem.

You are right, caucuses are supposed to involve a discussion about the candidates. People split up into (in the Nebraska case) either Clinton or Obama, or they may remain uncommitted. Each side elects a leader to speak and state why their candidate should win. Then people can switch sides, and the uncommitteds can go to whomever they want. Then the leaders speak to the uncommitteds again and then there is a second realignment. Finally everyone is counted and delegates are awarded accordingly. Unfortunately with some of the big crowds, it was impossible to have these discussions and alignments, some people only filled out a voting card and left.

Swift · Post by **Swift** » Sun Feb 17, 2008 11:48 am

I caucused at Norris Middle School. They expected like 500 people to show up and like 1500 actually showed up. It was nuts, but fun.