Caucus Report

Lisa and I went to our precinct caucus tonight, our first in University Heghts. The town of University Heights is a single precinct. There are nearly 1000 people in town. There were 287 Democrats at our caucus this evening. Not too bad a turn out.

The large crowd was expected, we met outside city limits at West High in Iowa City, in the cafeteria. There were eight other precincts meeting at the school. We met in the cafeteria. Other precincts were in the band room, the library, and class rooms.

When we came in nearly every candidate had a portion of the room marked out and there were treats at each table, something I’d never seen at our old precinct.

We are a highly educated precinct, many doctors and PhD’s live in town. Given that you wouldn’t think it would be nearly so hard to count us all. Everyone was given a numbered card when registering. Our precinct chair then wanted to count everyone to double check that the number was correct. At this point my neighbor Mike looked at me and said, “You realize these are the same people that are going to be in charge if the Bird Flu ever breaks out. We’re all doomed.” The group shouted that down and proposed just accepting the number count from the cards, so our count was 287, and apparently 45 minutes that were used in 2004 were saved.

At 7:00 each presidential candidate was allowed to have someone speak for them for up to two minutes each. After that it was announced that each group would have to have at least 44 members to be viable. We then broke into preference groups.

I decided to back the same person I did in 2004 and looked for a Kucinich group (he was the only candidate without a sign anywhere) I found the six other hardy souls backing Dennis. At the end of the first session here were the group totals:

Obama 115
Edwards 49
Clinton 47
Biden 32
Richardson 30
Dodd 8
Kucinich 7

Then it was announced that there were 4 total delegates to the county convention that would come from our precinct. Every viable candidate would get at least one delegate. The groups could discuss and move if they wished.

We decided to go to Obama as Kucinich had mentioned. The Richardson, Dodd and Biden groups tried to figure out a way to merge and become viable, but it didn’t work so at the end of the second round we had our final standings:

Obama 144 2 delegates
Edwards 53 1 delegate
Clinton 51 1 delegate
Uncommitted 35

So the caucus groups selected delegates to the county convention, accepted resolutions and pretty much finished.

I am a great believer in this process of getting out and talking to your neighbors, listening to others and making decisions. I also really understand that we in Iowa don’t pick the winners, but we do pick the losers. I think the best quote ever regarding the caucus was from Bruce Babbit after finishing 5th in 1988, “I was in it right up to the beginning...”

I Like Hillary Well Enough...

...but I wish she'd stop calling me at dinner time.


Bill Clinton made his very first campaign appearance for Hillary in Iowa City last July

For that matter, the daily email from John Edwards and Joe Biden are getting a little old too. While I'm whining, I'm tired of the two old guys in the barber shop talking about Dodd, during his commercial that runs during the 10:00 news. I'm even ready to snarl at the ubelievably earnest Obama volunteers who phone to invite us to picnics.

As a matter of fact, the only candidates not bombarding my family right now are Richardson and Kucinich.

I supported Kucinich at my local precinct caucus in 2004. We were viable! (arcane Iowa Caucus term that no one else cares about) This time around we will be in a new precinct. That should be interesting.

Our old precinct (Iowa City 20) had college student rental houses, senior citizen apartments, and a Catholic rectory all included in it's area, quite the diverse group. Our new precinct is the entire town of University Heights. Our county is HEAVILY Democratic. I think we Democrats get the biggest "public" structure in town, the Presbyterian Church. The Republicans will likely get a room at West High School, which is not located inside city limits, but is in Iowa City. In know that in 2004 the Republicans met at the elementary school that is inside city limits, but since people parked on the streets around it for more than the posted 1 hour time length, they all got ticketed!

One kind of cool spin off of the caucuses are the Iowa Electronic Markets. These are "futures" markets for political events. Here is the link to the Presidential 08 Market.

The two "futures" currently trading are the popular vote percentage for each major party (as of 11/13/08 Dem- .530 Rep. .493) and winner take all market (as of 11/13/08 Dem- .612 Rep. .397)

I am looking forward to January 4th. (The day after the caucuses)

Welcome "Friends"!

I noticed a big jump in "hits" today and since the Friends of Historic Preservation's email note about the Parade of Historic Homes went out last night, I'm not surprised.

Welcome to the Foxcroft Blog. Here is where I write about restoring our place. Feel free to poke around. Major construction on our second floor project started in June 2005. A few favorite posts you may want to see are:

• A Little Off the Top, Please
• Old Guy Vs. the Radiator
• 5 Deadmen in the Basement
• A Lifetime Supply of Cardboard

If you want to see some pictures of the original interiors of the house, look to the links below on the left.

And not to hog the spotlight, here are photos of the other two homes on the tour:

Geoff's house which now sports it's uncovered original siding

Paul's house, as it looks after 5 of 7 additions over the years have been removed.

We all hope to see you on May 20th!