Caucussing

As anyone with a pulse knows, last Tuesday was Super Duper Tuesday. While I find this whole amped up primary race to be kind of ridiculous, I was encouraged to participate because I thought it might make me feel like a responsible citizen.

Minnesota has a caucus instead of a primary. I thought it would be interesting to experience the political process from a different vantage point. It was a CIRCUS, literally...okay, not literally, but it was almost as crowded as the state fair and not nearly as organized (side note: everyone in MN shows up for the state fair...because it's awesome).

They shoved three small suburbs worth of precincts into the basement/cafeteria of a local high school and expected each precinct to be able to sit around a small lunch table. I think they thought there would be 5-10 people per precinct and it ended up being about 20-30. Madness. What I thought would be a 15 minute detour on my way to Bible study, ended up taking an hour and a half. Most of that time was just spent asking people to gather around the unmarked table of their precinct.

While I'm glad I had the experience, I was sorely disappointed by the lack of common sense most of the people who were there exhibited (which was further shown by the fact that Romney won the Republican straw poll in MN...jk). I'm not sure this whole caucus thing did our democratic system justice. I guess since the primary is all party run it doesn't really matter though. The two highlights of the night: the crowd spontaneously breaking into "God Bless America" while the mayhem of finding each precinct table broke out (thank you Republican party for living up to stereo types) and the many "Got Milk" posters which included a really awesome High School Musical ad.