Washington Caucus Results Explained

[Seattle4RonPaul]

I'll try to shed some light on the WA state caucus and primary process in this email.
Yesterday we had caucuses and on Feb.19th we have a Primary. So basically we have to vote twice here: once in a caucus and once in a primary, because roughly half delegates are selected in a caucus system and half in a primary.

They WERE NOT counting primary absentee ballots, because they are not due yet. What they were counting was a "Presidential Preference" that every caucus attendee was supposed to put next to his name on the "Sign In" sheet, when entering the caucus.

Since I am a PCO (person in charge of my caucus) I had to report these numbers, and ONLY these numbers to a designated GOP representative in my county over the phone. The phone number was busy constantly for over 1.5 hours, so I had to call an emergency contact number to report the results. You would think that they would have more numbers for the whole county !!

The percentage numbers for Mc Cain at 25.5%, Huck at 23.7% and Paul at 20.6% are only the Preference form sign in sheets. They do not reflect delegate count and who these delegates are for !!!!!!.We have until tomorrow to send our packets with sign-in sheet, ballots and names od elected DELEGATES to the party HQ.!!
I know about some Ron Paul supporters taking thers and several other caucus results and driving to County HQ and watching over their shoulders when they count and tally the results.

Also notice here : http://wsrp.org/News/Read.aspx?ID=7042 that only 87.2% of precints were counted. I suspect some unaccounted for caucuses might be in rural areas and I guess we have bad weather in Eastern WA. (but I don't really know why they are unaccounted for)

I can assure you that Ron Paul is going to win delegates in WA state!!!

Another question some people have about "uncommitted". If you know the game of poker, you know that if you don't t have the cards and you are in the lion's den, you don't show them your hand, right?

 

[ConstitutionGal]

I received the following (excerpt from an) email today from a close friend of mine who lives near Spokane, WA. He was the precinct chair at his location:

First of all, we had a dynamite caucus last night. The house was packed and the overwhelming majority of attendee were Ron Paul supporters. I managed to stealth in 9 delegates and there were others who showed up with their mnds made up already and that weren't brought along.

We rewrote the Platform to include such things as abolishing the War on Terrorism, throwing out the Federal Reserve, returning to a gold and silver backed currency, forcing Congress to do their appointed jobs and handle the minting of the currency, adopting a market based health care system and the list goes on and on. These people were tickled shitless to have someone who allowed as much discussion as necessary, as much debate as needed, and who was not scared to take a stand on the issues. I ran the whole show and we stayed there untill six O'clock. Typically the caucus has been a card table full of geriatrics who only wanted to go along and get along and be home in time to watch American Idol. They left very early on. Well, that all changed last night and I found that people all over our region are PISSED!

I have a serious observation though. I think it is a mistake to declare support for Ron Paul at the Precinct Cauci. We had a combined or pooled caucus which included 5 precincts. At that level of involvement, there is no time allotted to discussion of a Presidential Candidate because the functions are mechanical at that point. It is mostly about finding people who are willing to do the work of the Delegate and working on the Platform. Then when you go to the County Convention, it still isn't so important to declare your loyalty BUT if you can get elected to the State Convention, then you can pop the weasel and deliver the vote to Ron Paul.
I saw the former Chair of the Central Committee go through the sign-in sheets last night and record the number of RP people and their names and rush around the corner and call someone with that info on his cell phone.

Now, I'll bet you those people who were waving the RP banner last night will not MAKE IT PASSED THE COUNTY CONVENTION. THEY WILL MAKE DAMNED SURE THEY DON'T GET ELECTED TO THE STATE CON. There is no other reason why there was no Presidential discussion or debate on the agenda but there was a block on the sign-in for Presidential preference except to sandbag them at the County level and get them out of the way. I told everyone that they did not have to declare at this time and it might not be prudent but they didn't listen (especially the Ron Paul crowd) and in a few weeks we'll see how many of them will actually make it through the County Con.

The gentleman who sent this to me is VERY politically savvy and has been involved with local and national politics there for YEARS so I trust what he says.

Is anyone else hearing anything different from inside Washington?

 

[hawks4ronpaul]

quoting:
We rewrote the Platform to include such things as abolishing the War on Terrorism, ...all changed last night and I found that people all over our region are PISSED!
...
I saw the former Chair of the Central Committee go through the sign-in sheets last night and record the number of RP people and their names and rush around the corner and call someone with that info on his cell phone.

Blowback?

http://hawks4ronpaul.blogspot.com/

 

[surf]

it was possible to be elected a delegate w/o being there. it's possible the GOP guy was calling for volunteers to fill any empty slots. hell, i have 4 delegates and 2 alternates, but there were only 3 people at my precinct caucus.

 

[Seattle4RonPaul]

I saw the former Chair of the Central Committee go through the sign-in sheets last night and record the number of RP people and their names and rush around the corner and call someone with that info on his cell phone.

Now, I'll bet you those people who were waving the RP banner last night will not MAKE IT PASSED THE COUNTY CONVENTION. THEY WILL MAKE DAMNED SURE THEY DON'T GET ELECTED TO THE STATE CON. There is no other reason why there was no Presidential discussion or debate on the agenda but there was a block on the sign-in for Presidential preference except to sandbag them at the County level and get them out of the way. I told everyone that they did not have to declare at this time and it might not be prudent but they didn't listen (especially the Ron Paul crowd) and in a few weeks we'll see how many of them will actually make it through the County Con.[/I]

The gentleman who sent this to me is VERY politically savvy and has been involved with local and national politics there for YEARS so I trust what he says.

Is anyone else hearing anything different from inside Washington?

I think it doesn't make any sense. If we didn't declare Ron Paul as our Presidential Preference, he would have gained 0 % of Popular Vote.
And his delegates would be all Uncommitted.
I'm sure people only declared "Uncommited" when they didn't have the numbers.

 

[Ex Post Facto]

93% reporting...and the percentage decreases.

 

[Signzit]

people don't tip your hand! Don't you people play poker?

Don't declare for Ron Paul until you are forced to do so.

Damn, that's command sense. You're fighting the Old Guard.

They should have listened to you.

 

[Janet]

The sign in sheet was the WA state equivalent of a straw poll. Did anyone see the info for ONLY RP supporters being collected? It may have been that the person going through the sign in sheets then running to the phones was doing a count for the straw poll and then was reporting the results, as this is what the MSM and the state GOP is reporting the results by at this point.

 

[surf]

I'm sure people only declared "Uncommited" when they didn't have the numbers.

our caucuses were so screwed up (we started late, had 300 people in a 100 person theater, etc.) i'm a PCO, and i didn't even get the roster until i was leaving. but, yes, i was one of the ones that signed as "uncommtted" and i didn't need to. i appologize

 

[TiffSherwood]

there are a LOT of RP people that signed in as uncommitted. But I think it's to our advantage for now. since the other delegates might not show up since they think that McCain locked it up. So if all of our delegates show up (including the "uncommitted") and all the RP alternates show up we could take it. It will be interesting.