I have pictures and news, but not the time to actually post everything, so here's a brief rundown. UPDATE: Photos made it in after all!
Voting at my precinct didn't finish until almost 9--meaning the last person in line at 7 didn't vote until almost 2 hours later, and yes, the line wound up and down inside the building when I arrived.
That kept all would-be caucus-ers (?) outside the building until 9, and it took another 2 hours to finish the process after that, including reading resolutions, etc. As has been reported, organization at the caucus level was somewhat lacking, which wasn't helped by the fact that most people who showed up had never participated in a caucus before--including me, but I had done my research and so I just tried to go with the flow.
Chief among misunderstandings is that at caucus time people are, in fact, allowed to show their candidate support and talk about their candidate and even attempt to sway others to their side. The caucus is not an anonymous process--it's not like your vote (although, if you still believe your vote is anonymous you are very, very trusting...I have some beachfront property in Arizona to sell you.) I'm sure there were some nefarious deeds going down in other places, but all I saw last night were people making honest mistakes and the best quick-fix decisions they could make on the fly. The worst part about the night was the wait--not for me, but rather for the folks who showed up with 1 or 2 or 3 kids in tow. How's that for dedication?!
The best part about the night was being stuck in a room with people from the community who had never spoken with eachother before. People kept finding connections and striking up conversations...at the end of the night, with 30 plus people still hanging around to vote on resolutions, I think there was a general sense of "So THIS is why civic participation used to hold society together! Interesting...perhaps we should do this again sometime."
As you've likely seen, Obama was better at getting his supporters out to the caucuses, but boy was it close. My precinct went 14 delegates to the county convention for Obama and 13 delegates to the county convention for Clinton. And, um, oh yeah...I'm one of those Clinton delegates! Basically, we had 14 Clinton supporters at the end of the night, one who didn't want to be a delegate, and so we unanimously nominated and voted the remaining 13 of us as delegates. The alternate delegates will be chosen from the list of people who caucused and said they would like to be delegates, but didn't stay for the nominating and voting process.
And whether you're a Democrat, a Republican, or whether your candidate did well in your eyes last night, I will tell you this...this primary has done great things for my generation of voters in Texas. Today at the office, THE talk of every stolen social minute was about the election, about voting, about being part of the caucus and how "next time, I'm going to try to get involved to help things run more smoothly." Next time?! Such talk is unheard of in my voting experience. I loved it!