The Results Are In

Super Tuesday has come and gone and the winners are .......................... well, there isn't one yet. Although John McCain has a pretty good lead on the Republican field and should lock up the delegates in the next few primaries.
The situation on the Democratic side is much closer and it might carry on into the March primaries. What's funny is that a month ago everyone thought the Republican race would carry on into the convention, but now it's the Democratic race that is too close to call. The Hillary Clinton machine picked up some key states last night though and that could lead to more victories for her.

Here are the latest delegate counts for each party.

I attended the Republican caucus last night and found it quite interesting. Although if I wasn't a political nut I probably would have left due to boredom!! The place was packed, a much higher turnout than Republicans had anticipated. But why wouldn't it have been? It's an open election on the Republican side for the first time in years, the Democratic candidates are very polarizing and Republicans are just as fired up to keep the White House in Republican hands as the Democrats are to take it over.
I cast my vote for McCain but Romney won the Minnesota vote. It doesn't really matter in Minnesota though because the Republican vote is non-binding, which means that the delegates can change their votes when they pick their candidate at the state convention.

Speaking of delegates, I ran for a delegate spot and got one. But it wasn't too hard, it was pretty much anyone that wanted one in the precint could have one. Now I have to go to the District Convention and run for another deleagate spot. My goal is to be a delegate at the National Convention in St. Paul and in order to do that I need to keep running for delegate spots at each convention. Next is the district, as I said, and then it's the state. Can I win? Who know's, but it will be fun to be a part of the process. Minnesota gets something like 37 Republican delegates so my chances are probably slim, but we'll see. Hey, no one can accuse me of not being a part of the process now!

Couple observations from the caucus:

1) Absolute chaos! Political events like this are always the most unorganized thing and last night was no exception. They apologized and said they didn't expect this many people. As I said they should have expected it for the reasons I listed, not to mention the non-stop local media coverage of the caucus. People wanted to be a part of it and felt they needed to be there. They should have foreseen this.
But this is a good problem to have! It got me pretty pumped up to see all these Republicans coming out and being excited about voting. The media is constantly saying how Republicans aren't excited about this race. I think last night proved them wrong.

2) The people at these things crack me up. There was a guy with a shirt that said "Tax" on it with a big giant "X" thru it.
There were Ron Paul supporters everywhere talking up their candidate.
There was a couple that sat down at my table and announced they were big Huckabee supporters and tried to convince everyone. He ended up getting 4 votes in our precint.
There were a lot of jokes about Democrats (which I won't repeat here because I don't feel like offending part of my readership today).
We said the pledge, we said a prayer and we all booed when Hillary's name was mentioned.
Good times!!

3) I've learned something about politics over the past few years that I think is ringing true again this year - the loudest people aren't always the majority. As I said, there were a ton of Ron Paul supporters at the caucus last night. They had the pins and stickers on, shirts, hats, etc. You would have thought he was the main candidate. Yet he barely got any votes in our precint - I think he had 1 vote. (The district is seperated into different precints and then you vote in each one, so I don't know what was going on in other parts of the room, just our area).
The same thing is happening with Paul around the country - he raises a ton of money, his supporters are very vocal - and yet he doesn't win anything.

Why? Just because his supporters are loud doesn't mean that he has ENOUGH supporters. It's the same with the "youth vote" every four years. The college kids are always fired up about voting and they are the loudest ones for the candidates. Yet come election day most of them don't show up to vote.
Who does vote? The elderly vote more than anyone. Rural people vote. Parents vote. What I'm getting at is that most of the people that vote are the ones that aren't as vocal about their political affiliations because they are too busy doing other things. But they show up on election day.
Remember in 2004 how Bush was going down because of the college vote and what not? Well that didn't happen because everyone forgot about all the silent voters.

This will be interesting to watch in the general election this year. Are Obama's supporters maxed out, is this what he has? Or are there more hidden voters out there to vote for him. We keep hearing how he's got the youth vote locked up. Well, will they should up to vote this time? And what about McCain? Republicans always have the most silent voters.

Anyways, it will be intersesting to watch.

4) Caucuses should be done away with. It was interesting for me to attend because I'm a political junkie, but for an "average person," it would be boring. Minnesota really needs to adopt a primary system. It will allow more people to vote and it doesn't require people to take 2-3 hours out of their night. I know, I know, if it concerns you that much you should be able to commit a few hours of your night to it. But what about those with kids, or those that work at night? These people can't attend even though they may want to be part of it.
Anyways, it needs to be changed because there are plenty of people that want to vote in a primary but aren't able to do it. Is a caucus really a representative vote??