Hawaii Democratic Caucuses!

I am so far behind in blogging. But truly, I'm exhausted (still) from the caucuses. They were held on Feb. 19, 2008.

I was there 90 minutes before they were supposed to start and I'm glad I was early because the line, like the Iraq war, did not have a foreseeable end.
This photo was taken after I had voted. The line was only getting longer!

The last caucus in 2004 had a state wide showing of 4500 people. Our precinct had four residents in attendance. This year the Hawaii caucus had about 38,000 people statewide with about 150 from our precinct.
So since I was the second one to get to our precinct table, I was recruited to help. It was an absolute blast!!

Confession #1: I still have PTSD issues from the election of 2000. See, I take great pride in the fact that Election Day is always on my birthday, November 7th. So the corruption, I mean confusion, of that election tainted not only my faith in the electoral process but also my milestone 30th birthday. I was living with staunch Republicans who were livid with Clinton, I was in love with a dude who I wasn't sure loved me back (turns out he did and ended up being my husband, but that's not the point!), and my professional life was completely unfulfilling. . . It was a wildly depressing birthday for me.

So my PTSD kicked in when I found myself being crazy anal (highly unusual for me) about every person getting the opportunity to vote and that their vote was being counted in an organized fashion. Ok, for realz, now that I've been on the other end of the voting polls, I know how EASY it is to rig an election. So this surge of retentiveness, unlike the one in Iraq, was really for the benefit of Americans and our sacred process of choosing the next leader of the free world.

Lecture over. Oh, and did you catch the not-so-veiled attempts to send the message that the war must end?

Otherwise, to be involved in the process was quite exciting and healing for me! It was awesome through and through, actually. I think I've found my lot in life. Voting police. . .er . . . Polling police? . . . maybe Precinct Police? I don't know but I know that I'm so into this now.
A picture I took before it got PACKED and I got completely overwhelmed. aaaahh . . . good times.

I have no earthly idea who this lady is. But I knew that she was way too bourgie to be from our district (who wears rouge around here?). Turns out, I was right! She told me that she's from San Fransisco representin' Obama and here make sure the process goes smoothly and to answer any questions. Totally didn't think to ask her name but she was nice and I think she's going to be a famous political face one day. So remember, you saw her here first!!!
Debbie Hartman. Long time political science professor. She's awesome. She ran the whole caucus for the District 47. She was announcing to all of us that even though caucusing was suppose to finish at 7:30, we were staying open until every person got to vote. (We ended up staying open until about 9:00).
We ran out of attendance rolls and ballots! Here are some ballots I made for voters. Super fancy. We are County 2, Dist. 47, Precinct 1.

And the winners from our precinct were:

Clinton: 33
Obama: 117

Obama won our whole District as well. . . by a landslide, I might add.

Confession #2: I've changed my mind (well, kind of) to Hilary. I did vote for Obama during the caucuses but in recent days, I'm feeling like I want to see a really bright awesome woman in that office. Tevita is such an Obama supporter so he has been teasing me the last couple of days about my "shaky testimony". I love how we banter about politics. We rarely disagree politically with each other so it's been fun. But I really do want Hilary to be President!!

Oh, and by the way, I am the new Vice President of our Precinct!!! I'm going to the Hawaii State Convention!! Yessss!! And there is a strong possibility that I can go to Denver in August!!! OH YESSSS!!!