Post-Caucus notes...

I arrived at the Caucus at 6:15pm...pumped, nervous and full of anticipation. I met Heather as I walked in, she too was a first timer at the caucus. It was amazing just how many new caucus goers were present. It seemed that every other person I talked to was there for their first caucus...and most were standing with Obama. Something about the guy makes you feel like you can change the world, but that's not what I'm speaking of here...we're talking caucus process.

So I walk in, semi-panic when I'm not on the "registered voter" list, but am assured that if I head to the table by the window I can register to vote and be caucus eligible. I casually re-register and am in a room with 453 other registered democrats in my neighborhood.
We hang out for awhile, listen to caucus rules, sweat it out a bit. A man walked up to me smiling (at this point, my caucus friend Heather was talking to her neighbors, living in my apartment building I know none of my neighbors...so I hung out smiling) I think because I too was smiling.

He said "first time."
I said "yes sir."
He introduced himself to me as the precinct 73 leader for the Obama supporters.
I told him I was "so excited to participate tonight."
He replied, "It's because of people like you that we are going to win tonight. Thank you for coming."

Then we are to align with our preference groups. Obama's group is visibly larger than the others. I couldn't help but look around anxiously. We begin to count ourselves. Now this was the most interesting part: the counting of the supporters. With a small room and over 400 people around, they decide the only way to accurately count is to COUNT OFF. That's right people, we went around this group of 18 to 80 year olds counting off like we were preparing to play steal the bacon in 6th grade gym class.

The first number (we did this three times) I said out loud was 112. I was the 112th person to proclaim, out loud and totally proud, that I support Barack Obama as the President of the United States in 2008. What an honor. Iowa is so cool.

After the initial count, Dodd, Biden and Richardson supporters became not viable (they didn't have at least 68 people supporting their candidate...that's 15% of the 454 people that were there.) So those supporters are free to move to another group. We lobbied for some more people....waited for 30 minutes and then, after the last person was counted (for the third time) Obama received 239 people, that comes out to 4 delegates. (don't ask me how that works...)

I drove home empowered. Delighted. I have never felt more connected to the political process. Obama received 38% of the caucus votes. He won. We won.

Oh- and James Denton was at my caucus supporting John Edwards. What a hot plumber.