Rusty John
Member
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2007
- Messages
- 221
Okay, I will get to the results in a second, but first want to tell you the story of my experience at the caucus- this was the first one I've ever been to. My precinct was selecting one delgate and one alternate. For those who aren't familiar with the WA state process, half of our delegates to the national convention are selected through caucus. Those delegate are selected by first choosing delegates at the county level, who vote for delegates at the state level, who vote for the national delegates. This was the county caucus.
Okay, so it was set to start at 1 PM. I got there at 12:30 and was the only one there for my precinct. The PCO never showed up! I thought, "Great- I'll vote for me for Ron Paul and go home!" Unfortunately another guy showed up- eventually 7 total appeared for my precinct. When we signed up we were asked to list our name, address, and presidential preference (this preference listing is what will be tallied for the straw poll). In our group of 7 we had 2 for Paul, 2 for McCain, 2 for Huckabee and 1 Romney supporter.
We chose nominees for delegates- only 3 people were nominated for the 2 spots. Two were Huckabee supporters and myself, a Paul supporter. The first voting for the delegate was split evenly at 3-3 Paul and Hucakbee with one guy (a McCain supporter) undecided. The one lady who supported Hucakbee said she was no longer interested in being a delegate so it was just me and the other Hucakbee guy trying to convince the McCain dude to come over to our side.
We both made our cases and the McCain guy says, I want to vote for McCain. The person we selected as PCO- originally a ROmney supporter- tried to explain, no, we aren't voting for a candidate, we are voting for delegates. Two are nomianted- one says he will support Huckabee and the other says he will support Paul. The guy again insisted that he wanted to vote for McCain. Our PCO asked him if he wanted to be a delegate. No, I want to vote for McCain.
After 10 or 15 minutes of this the guy finally figured out what we were doing and how a caucus works. We again made our points but Ilost the guy when I said, "We are spending billions of dollars overseas that we need to spend here" He asked, "Where are we spending money overseas?" I said, Well, in Korea for example. We are defending S. Korea even though they have a GDP 25 times bigger than N. Korea.
So the guy says, "So are you saying we should just abandon Korea?" Apparantly I was a cut and runner from a war decided 55 years ago.
Never mind that, I said, getting back to Dr. Paul's consistent and proven track record of no tax increases, balanced budgets, freedom, etc. Finally the McCain guy, again prefacing his comments with, "I really think we ought to vote for McCain" said "I'm voting for Huckabee, he won't cut and run." We then recorded the results and he left.
Myself and the other Paul supporters were like, "I can't believe we lost a delegate because of that moron."
In the end, Huckabee got the delegate and Paul got me, the alternate.
Overall, most of the other people there hated McCain- in my dsitrict, it was very much Huckabee and Paul.
Okay, so it was set to start at 1 PM. I got there at 12:30 and was the only one there for my precinct. The PCO never showed up! I thought, "Great- I'll vote for me for Ron Paul and go home!" Unfortunately another guy showed up- eventually 7 total appeared for my precinct. When we signed up we were asked to list our name, address, and presidential preference (this preference listing is what will be tallied for the straw poll). In our group of 7 we had 2 for Paul, 2 for McCain, 2 for Huckabee and 1 Romney supporter.
We chose nominees for delegates- only 3 people were nominated for the 2 spots. Two were Huckabee supporters and myself, a Paul supporter. The first voting for the delegate was split evenly at 3-3 Paul and Hucakbee with one guy (a McCain supporter) undecided. The one lady who supported Hucakbee said she was no longer interested in being a delegate so it was just me and the other Hucakbee guy trying to convince the McCain dude to come over to our side.
We both made our cases and the McCain guy says, I want to vote for McCain. The person we selected as PCO- originally a ROmney supporter- tried to explain, no, we aren't voting for a candidate, we are voting for delegates. Two are nomianted- one says he will support Huckabee and the other says he will support Paul. The guy again insisted that he wanted to vote for McCain. Our PCO asked him if he wanted to be a delegate. No, I want to vote for McCain.
After 10 or 15 minutes of this the guy finally figured out what we were doing and how a caucus works. We again made our points but Ilost the guy when I said, "We are spending billions of dollars overseas that we need to spend here" He asked, "Where are we spending money overseas?" I said, Well, in Korea for example. We are defending S. Korea even though they have a GDP 25 times bigger than N. Korea.
So the guy says, "So are you saying we should just abandon Korea?" Apparantly I was a cut and runner from a war decided 55 years ago.
Never mind that, I said, getting back to Dr. Paul's consistent and proven track record of no tax increases, balanced budgets, freedom, etc. Finally the McCain guy, again prefacing his comments with, "I really think we ought to vote for McCain" said "I'm voting for Huckabee, he won't cut and run." We then recorded the results and he left.
Myself and the other Paul supporters were like, "I can't believe we lost a delegate because of that moron."
In the end, Huckabee got the delegate and Paul got me, the alternate.
Overall, most of the other people there hated McCain- in my dsitrict, it was very much Huckabee and Paul.
