Report from Clark County, WA precinct 424

[Taco John]

Frankly, I'm disgusted. The canvassers identified 16 people in our precinct who would nominate themselves as delegates or alternates. If they would have shown up, we would have dominated the caucus. As it was, there were 5 of us who were there for the delegate election. We were dominated by Romney and Santorum supporters. They conspired to nominate 3 from each of their camps as delegates. Things were going south and it didn't look like we were going to get even a single alternate, but I was secretary and did the math and pulled a maneuver that allowed us to get 3 alternates elected. Some of the Paul supporters there didn't understand why I did what I did, but if I hadn't had done it we would have walked out of there empty handed.


The Straw poll went as follows:

Romney 9
Santorum 9
Paul 6
Gingrich 4


People: SHOW UP! I can't believe the opportunity we missed by having people not show up. We would have dominated and filled all 6 seats. The other supporters were floored that Paul didn't take our precinct. They expected to show up to lose, and they walked away with the delegates.

 

[doronster195]

nice work!

 

[GregVernon]

Frankly, I'm disgusted. The canvassers identified 16 people in our precinct who would nominate themselves as delegates or alternates. If they would have shown up, we would have dominated the caucus. As it was, there were 5 of us who were there for the delegate election. We were dominated by Romney and Santorum supporters. They conspired to nominate 3 from each of their camps as delegates. Things were going south and it didn't look like we were going to get even a single alternate, but I was secretary and did the math and pulled a maneuver that allowed us to get 3 alternates elected. Some of the Paul supporters there didn't understand why I did what I did, but if I hadn't had done it we would have walked out of there empty handed.


The Straw poll went as follows:

Romney 9
Santorum 9
Paul 6
Gingrich 4

The poll results are not so great, but, the three alternates might make it all the way to Florida! Or we can hope

 

[SCOTUSman]

Ron Paul supporters are some of the flakiest, laziest people I know. Seriously, they say they can be DELEGATES, yet they don't even bother to show up to even vote in the caucus straw poll? Definite liars. They are willing to give multiple weekends for all the conventions, yet they don't even show up for two hours.

 

[BUSHLIED]

Ron Paul supporters are some of the flakiest, laziest people I know. Seriously, they say they can be DELEGATES, yet they don't even bother to show up to even vote in the caucus straw poll? Definite liars. They are willing to give multiple weekends for all the conventions, yet they don't even show up for two hours.

may have not been supporters after all...you never know

 

[Taco John]

Oh, I forgot to note some shenanigans... As anyone who has participated in a caucus knows, it's chaos. Someone turned in our form before any of the Paul delages were listed on it. I had to go through the party leaders to retrieve our form and get the names listed. It took some wrangling, but I managed to get our names on the list.

 

[tsai3904]

Also remember that PCOs are AUTOMATIC delegates.

The filing period to be a PCO for the next two years (too late for this caucus) begins June 7.

 

[RabbitMan]

Caucuses are chaos, but it was a lot of fun! Everyone was very respectful and understanding, we discussed our differences with the candidates and as the chair, I set the whole tone of the meeting as very informal and I think everyone enjoyed that. We lost our precinct from a similar to the OP's Santo-Romney coalition, but I did get nominated as an alternate and a lot of the other precincts won with the one or two people who showed up.

 

[shirgall]

However, over in 505th Precinct, we got 2 delegates and 2 alternates (I'm one of the delegates).

 

[ross11988]

Ron Paul supporters are some of the flakiest, laziest people I know. Seriously, they say they can be DELEGATES, yet they don't even bother to show up to even vote in the caucus straw poll? Definite liars. They are willing to give multiple weekends for all the conventions, yet they don't even show up for two hours.

Thats how Ron Paul supporters are, either they are 100% down ready to take a bullet for Ron Paul or they don't want to do anything and just act like they support the guy. There is no in-between, and you know what? They might as well be the person with the gun because THEY ARE KILLING US!

 

[NoOneButPaul]

Thats how Ron Paul supporters are, either they are 100% down ready to take a bullet for Ron Paul or they don't want to do anything and just act like they support the guy. There is no in-between, and you know what? They might as well be the person with the gun because THEY ARE KILLING US!

It's beyond sad...

Even sadder than if we are actually losing to voter fraud.

 

[dante]

It's beyond sad...

Even sadder than if we are actually losing to voter fraud.

Other campaigns have the same issue - I think the myth of Paul supporters having better turn out has been smashed.

 

[Muwahid]

Other campaigns have the same issue - I think the myth of Paul supporters having better turn out has been smashed.

not really, the bulk of gop supporters are go-with-the-flow establishment voters. the only one with core support is probably santorum among evangelicals and im sure they show up to vote anyway. most paul supporters i know were apathetic to politics and although they support they might not get into the fray

 

[PolicyReader]

Paul voters turn out pretty well but not well enough. Here's the thing when up to 40% (in some areas) of the vote comes from those who decide last minute and they in turn base it on who the MSM says is doing the best (mostly, for "exceptions" see Newt after SC debate) & there are cases of Romney/Santorum supporters collaborating to elect each other and block Paul we need SOLID supporter turn out not just good supporter turn out.

End of the day if the people who'd agreed to show had shown up (in several states thus far) we'd have more wins (of whatever kinds) going into the next phase. Paul suffers from two groups of voters, those who won't vote for him "because he can't win" and those who don't bother to vote for him "because we've got such great support he can't lose". Both perceptions are frankly utterly false, and sadly they both lead toward the same time of unfortunate results.

GOTV is key to our efforts, I think WA did well but only time will tell if they had the support to work the system they put in place. Either way it's a good system and I hope to see it spread into other states so we can get better turnouts. Every additional vote, every additional vote helps.

 

[Inkblots]

People: SHOW UP! I can't believe the opportunity we missed by having people not show up. We would have dominated and filled all 6 seats. The other supporters were floored that Paul didn't take our precinct. They expected to show up to lose, and they walked away with the delegates.

Yep. 90% of success in these things really is just showing up. What a shame to miss a great opportunity like this.

 

[RDM]

Frankly, I'm disgusted. The canvassers identified 16 people in our precinct who would nominate themselves as delegates or alternates. If they would have shown up, we would have dominated the caucus. As it was, there were 5 of us who were there for the delegate election. We were dominated by Romney and Santorum supporters. They conspired to nominate 3 from each of their camps as delegates. Things were going south and it didn't look like we were going to get even a single alternate, but I was secretary and did the math and pulled a maneuver that allowed us to get 3 alternates elected. Some of the Paul supporters there didn't understand why I did what I did, but if I hadn't had done it we would have walked out of there empty handed.


The Straw poll went as follows:

Romney 9
Santorum 9
Paul 6
Gingrich 4


People: SHOW UP! I can't believe the opportunity we missed by having people not show up. We would have dominated and filled all 6 seats. The other supporters were floored that Paul didn't take our precinct. They expected to show up to lose, and they walked away with the delegates.

I can't believe NO ONE picked them up and literally dragged them to the caucus. So much for not using the "Buddy System".