veiled4allah: a day at the legislative district caucus

Back in February, I took part in precinct caucuses as part of the process of selecting the Democratic nominee for president. I got selected as a Kucinich delegate for my precinct (in this case, everybody who showed up in my precinct got to be a delegate for the candidate of their choice). As a precinct delegate, I have two duties, to take part in the caucus for my legislative district (the 47th), and to attend the county convention. The legislative district caucus was today and the county convention will be next weekend, inshallah.

The main purpose of the legislative district caucus was to elect delegates who will go on to the next level. This next level is the congressional district caucuses and the state convention. My legislative district is mostly in one congressional district (the 8th) with a small part of it in a neighboring congressional district (the 9th). There were about 330 precinct delegates there, of whom 18 were in the 9th district and the rest were in the 8th. The people in the 9th district got to elect three delegates to their congressional district caucus. These were one each for Kerry, Dean, and Kucinich.

The people in the 8th district got to elect 28 delegates to our congressional district. When the votes were tallied, only Kerry and Dean were viable as candidates. Kerry got 19 delegates and Dean 9. So I joined the Dean group, because Dean is a better choice in my mind to carry forward Kucinich's message than Kerry is

I was there for about four hours, most of which was spend waiting for people to sign in, waiting for the original candidate preferences to be tallied and delegate totals allocated, and then, after we had voted for delegates, for those votes to be counted. So it was a long and tedious day in that way. Still, during the earlier part there were some speakers (local politicians) to liven things up a bit. I had a chance to talk with some other Kucinich delegates, some of whom later joined me in the Dean group although the others were in the 9th district.

The county convention next weekend will be about the party platform.