Last night, I participated in my first democratic primary election. I am proud to say that I am one of those "young people" who has been inspired to not only learn more about, but to actually participate in our nation's electoral process. This newfound interest is almost entirely due to Obama. He inspires me; it's as simple as that. I don't see him as any more "qualified" to be in the White House than senator Clinton (or any less so for that matter) -- they're both great candidates -- but I feel Obama's potential to unite and inspire our country is far greater than anyone I've ever seen in my lifetime. Here's an excellent blog post that mirrors much of my sentiment by good friend and political junkie Aaron Mandel.
Last night, in the Quest arena in downtown Boise, Ada county held the nation's largest democratic caucus. It was an absolute circus -- nearly 10,000 people showed up. Even after the stadium was filled to capacity, the line outside stretched for blocks. Idaho does its first round of voting with a paper ballot, allowing everyone there (including those waiting in the line outside) to cast a vote. My friends and I realized we weren't going to get inside the arena, so we cast our votes, and then went into the sports bar overlooking the arena. We couldn't participate but we got to see the spectacle. Several glasses of water (no alcohol could be served inside the building) and a basket of French fries later, someone told us that there was now room inside the arena, and I got to go down onto the floor and bathe in the bizairre atmosphere. After the paper ballots were tallied, any voters whose candidate did not receive 15% of the vote was given the opportunity to cast another vote, or to try to lure voters into increasing their numbers to 15%. This was not necessary. Obama took nearly 90% of the vote for our precinct, helping to give Idaho his biggest margin of victory in any state.
Obama drew a crowd of over 14,000 to his speech on Saturday. Please remember, this is Idaho. There are only something like 12,000 registered democrats in the state. You do the math.
1 comment:
Sammy J.,
What I have to say is short, but pay attention, suckle its sweetness.
"There Will Be Blood", Paul Thomas Anderson, Daniel Day Lewis.
Sam, Sam the actor, if you're still in there or out there somewhere- Day Lewis's character was made for you. You could have acted this character straight into the oil-sopping ground! (Lewis does a good job too though.)
Anyways, I might be moving to Portland this summer, or PDX as the locals say.
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