The street in front of our house was jammed with cars and people tonight as I headed out towards my caucus site. There were two caucus sites between my house and the school where I ended up casting my vote and my excitement grew as I passed group after group of people walking with the cartoonish urgency that can only come on a cold night. I was so excited to live in a country where I was free to participate in an election process without fear of violence or doctored results.
The Republicans in my district gathered in a local middle school cafeteria. I sat down at a table after arriving roughly 20 minutes early and studied the crowd of nearly 90 people. There were only two people under the age of 30, which I took as a good sign, I mean honestly, when I was 18 I liked Bill Clinton solely because his theme song was Fleetwood Macs' Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. There were a few people in their forties, quite a few of us in our thirties and fifties, while the majority of the crowd was over sixty. Male female broke down to roughly 60 % male, 40 % female. Most of the crowd looked like they were very hard working, moving with the purposeful economy of motion common to those who need to save their energy for a long day coming. There were more than a few Carharts in the crowd, the instantly recognizable winter wear of the working man.
Most people spent the extra time trying to talk their seatmates into or out of various candidates. I was seated with two other gentlemen who knew they would be voting in the minority. All three of us shared a negative view of the eventual winner, Mike Huckabee.
After we all recited the pledge of allegiance, the emcee asked for a representative of each candidate to speak for roughly 3-4 minutes on why we should vote for his or her candidate. A friend of Fred Thompson’s spoke on his behalf, a woman from the crowd (small business owner) spoke brilliantly on behalf of Ron Paul, a young man spoke for Mike Huckabee, and three people from the crowd spoke on John McCain’s behalf. One of the people speaking for John McCain was an elderly woman whose husband had also been a prisoner of war. After each speech the crowd applauded, no one spoke on behalf of Romney, Guliani, or Duncan Hunter. Then paper ballots were passed out and we voted. The ballots were collected and a supporter from each candidate was called up to supervise the vote tally. As a man read aloud from each ballot, the emcee put a mark next to the name of the candidate receiving the vote on a large white tablet. The word Huckabee, repeated in a monotonous drone, bounced off my forehead 34 times like some audio version of Chinese water torture, by the end I had to resist the urge to stand up and scream, “You idiots! You lemmings!” Coming in second was Fred Thompson with 18 votes, tied for third with 12 each were Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, John McCain had 11 votes and Guliani although ahead of Hunter walked away with only one vote.
My choice came down to voting against Huckabee by voting for Romney, voting against the Government by voting for Ron Paul, or voting for conservative principals by voting for Fred Thompson. I wrestled with this for days, but eventually decided that for once in my life I would like to vote for something instead of the usual vote against the worse of the two candidates. So I voted for Thompson, a guy who doesn’t really act like he wants to be President, but who is for a limited government. And as long as I’m keeping things on the optimistic side, I would like to say I’m positive that Mike Huckabee would be a horrible candidate for President.
15 comments:
Am I an idiot and a lemming then, friend? :)
No, you get an exemption. I believe my grandmother also supports Huckabee and she gets an automatic exemption as well. But the rest of ya's! (Shaking fist) Read your comment on my Biden post, food for thought, food for thought, still don't like him though. I'm listening to Glenn Beck right now and a caller (self identified conservative) is talking about how he would favor Obama over Huckabee as well. The guest host just called him weird. Well that makes two of us I guess. I will have to do my homework before tonight. - Jer
Interesting.... Jeremy, this may be a weird question but who do you think Reagan would have rallied for? Gretchen
:-) Thanks for the exemption, J! :-)
But yeah, I think you and Glenn Beck's caller are both weird. ;-)
Still love ya, though. :-)
Using their respective websites as a source of what Obama and Huckabee say on the issues, I don't see how Obama gets the vote for more conservative. Anyway... see ya tonight.
Gretchen - although he lacks the charisma and energy of Reagon, I think Thompson would be the guy he would back.
I would have loved to see Reagon in office during 9/11 and the years following.
I remember sending Reagon a cookie and a get well card while he was recovering from the assasination attempt in 81.
I've teased my buddy John for a long time for supporting Thompson, so I imagine he will be doing cartwheels when he sees who I voted for. It really hurt not to vote for Ron Paul. He ended up being just a little too extreme for me, he's headed in the right direction on most issues, just a little too much of the baby was getting thrown out with his bathwater.
Benjamin, I don't think Obama would be more conservative than Huckabee, just less dangerous.
I would have paid money to be a fly on the wall in Hillary's campaign plane last night. For some reason I picture her chewing out everybody within earshot.
As much as I dislike Huckabee, I've got to say the Edwards scares me more than anybody else. His class warfare platform is downright dangerous.
"We are given the freedom to pursue happiness, not the guarantee of happiness." - Ron Paul supporter in a speech last night
Thanks for sharing your caucus experience. Do you have an opinion on caucus vs ballot box style primary? Hope you and your fam had a good Christmas.
When Reagan was elected President I was too young to stay up to find out the results so I wrote on a piece of paper for my dad to complete: Is Ronald Reagan President? Circle Yes or No. Sometime thereafter I wrote Reagan a poem and mailed it off. I appreciate your thoughts and you gave me much to chew on. I understand you don't want your blog to tread in too much political waters. However, thanks for stirring up the waters some. Gretchen
Jerm, I 've reached the same decision for the same reason. Since, unfortunately, I will probably have to vote AGAINST someone in the general election, I decided to vote FOR someone in the primary. That left Thompson and Hunter for me. Because I know more about Thompson, and Hunter, at this point, seems to have no chance, barring something unforseen before 29 Jan., I will vote for Fred.
And should McCain somehow be nominated, I will "write in" my vote in Nov.
Thanks for using "worse." Many people would have said, "worst." But that is correct only when there are three or more choices.
Kelly, I loved the caucus style. It made it feel like you were really a part of something. I enjoyed the conversations and it was exciting to see the votes tallied right in front of you. One friend at another Republican caucus said logistically they couldn't do a paper ballot so they broke everybody up into groups according to who they were for. That takes away the anonymity but it's a pretty cordial atmosphere to start off with so it's not much of a problem here. That system in Jersey might be another story.
On the Democrats side they all divide up into groups according to candidate. Each candidate must have at least 15% of the total to be considered viable. So they tally everybody up and then those supporting a candidate with less than 15% of the room have half an hour to either convince the necessary number of people to come over to their candidate or are themselves petitioned to caucus for a more popular candidate. Sounds like more fun but also slightly counterproductive. My friend Eddy caucused for Joe Biden but came up 3 or 4 shy of 15%, he and his wife then realligned with Obama. Another friend, said at his caucus Biden and Richardson did not have enough but after reallignment did.
In our life group tonight we had one for Edwards,one for Thompson, two for Obama (Biden), and two for Huckabee, three who did not caucus. Benjamin and I had a fun and informative discussion (mostly about taxes) and were able to offer each other the olive branch. He has really done his homework and is definitely making a well informed choice. Obviously in our group we have a wide variety of opinions and nobody is shy about expressing them but at the end of the day it is just fun to be together. E Pluribus Unum.
Leave it to the Democrats to take something simple and twist it around and complicate it. If that offends any of your Democrat friends, tough nuggies.
Simply an opinion from the "Crazy Uncle."
O how I wish I could have jumped into this discussion earlier! So here goes,
"Lemmings" - Love the picture, thanks for using the word. Yes, I agree completely (and I'm not handing out free exemptions - even to your grandmother, Jeremy ;0) ). This man should be running as a pro-life Democrat. I don't know why he's running as a Republican.
"Reagon" - Jeremy, Love you bro, but it's ReagAn. But thanks for sharing the touching story about the cookie!
"Worse" - I paused when I read it, thinking you might have meant "worst". I am better educated for reading your blog, thanks to Randy!
"Thompson" - I AM doing cartwheels! I can't believe you drank the cool-aid. Thanks so much for casting my vote in Iowa. There was no way I could do it from California, but I owe you forever. And I agree, Reagan would have voted for Thompson. His immovable demeanor, his stubborn "I'm not raisin' my hand" attitude, and his positions on most issues are very similar. GO FRED!
Jeremy:
I'm sure after participating in your first caucus you must've watched at least one of the two back to back Saturday debates and/or the Sunday GOP debate. You've gotten the bug, it would seem.
Tonight I was very geekish: I wrote out every GOP Prez/VP combination and tried to eliminate certain combinations for whatever reasons my knowledge/grasp of the facts dictated. A fascinating exercise because of what I view as a stronger overall GOP field. Some combos literally made me do a face cringe. Interesting stuff.
I did the same on the back of the paper with the Dems, which was a simple exercise because Edwards cannot be a viable VP candidate because of '04; Hillary would never accept a humiliating VP invitation; and Obama likely now will not be persuaded toward VP after tasting victory in Iowa (and probably NH on Tuesday).
Anyways, looking at the lists of primaries and caucuses left on the calendar I realize how "political" the political process will become. I'm not saying here and now who I will vote for in TX's primary and/or the general election. But I think I can feel who will be on the ticket...at least for the GOP.
The Dems--it all will come down to the nominee's choice of VP as to whether they can seal the deal on the White House.
Sorry! Thanks for posting this, at your old friend's request.
Aaron - I would be interested in seeing your list. I watched the debates too, I am strangely addicted to them. I think Rudy won the Republican debate. He is so articulate at explaining economic principles. So close and yet so far away... Ron Paul did good even though he got teased a little bit too much. Shame on you, Fred. What he's saying about the dollar is true. Thompson did alright and Romney did okay as well.
On the Dem side, Hillary looked like she wanted to kill someone, Richardson looked like the kid brother, Edwards...I'm not going there, while Obama clearly won the debate. He's for hope and he knows the score of NFL games!
Obama will be the next president. He is the master of the 5 second sound bite. Who cares if our economy is on the verge of collapse? Tickle my ears, tickle my ears! Obama is for hope and change, but did you also know that he likes Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain? I imagine he is also for puppies, long walks on the beach, and hot cocoa. He's going to be dang near impossible to beat.
He is the least frightening of all the Democratic candidates though. I'm holding out hope that he will pick Biden as his veep.
Back to Ron Paul, he is absolutely unelectable but he is saying some very important things about the US dollar. I sometimes still wish I would have voted for him. He had a great appearance on Leno last night. We'll remember his words when we are eating gruel and paying 30 dollars a gallon.
I can't picture VP candidates on the Rep side. Who did you have? I'm hoping the Republican nomination comes down to the convention. That would be exciting to watch.
Well, I'm assuming that on the GOP side there may a couple of mergers: I think of McCain/Huckabee and perhaps Guiliani/Thompson (which I would rather see as Thompson/Guiliani, but either way would be solid).
I'm bucking conventional wisdom here to say that the Republicans have a better than decent shot at keeping the White House. Every candidate currently in the race (not including, in my opinion, Ron Paul) is a viable general election candidate and could do well nationally, with Huck being the least viable in my opinion.
Maybe I'm dead wrong, but I disagree that Americans only want soundbites anymore. I think if Obama keeps doing well he will come under much greater scrutiny. Actually, I hope he does continue to do well, along with Hillary, so they can really duke it out much longer and she can trash him and bring a lot more of his glaring inexperience to the fore.
Obama's lack of experience and tendency to want to reach toward the most socialist/liberal hue on many a political issue of our day concerns me. Maybe this is classic youth and inexperience? Maybe it's simply good primary season strategy to appeal to the edges of your party during primaries and then gravitate toward the center for the general election season. In any case, it concerns me that the best he seems to have been able to muster for much of his short political career was a number of "present" votes. Kinda seems to fit how I view him.
I don't like Hillary...have a visceral reaction every time I see her...think she is probably a cyborg. But she is definitely more qualified to be prez than Obama.
Finally, a brokered convention would be astronomically interesting...on either/both sides. Wow. Very interesting political times we are witnessing. It seems everyone is wathing/talking.
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