Sorry for this entry’s delay, but in the course of defending Freedom and Democracy I contracted a fairly serious respiratory bug that has kept me down since Saturday morning. I still suffer from frequent coughing spasms, but my head has stopped spinning so I can’t help but be grateful. Unfortunately, five days of high fevers and even higher doses of not-pseudoephedrine have blurred some of the election details. No worries, though, I will simply fill in the gaps with frog DNA (hey, it worked in Jurassic Park).

!! Spoiler Alert !!
Hillary won the Nevada Democratic Caucus with 51% of the vote to Obama’s 45%.

On Saturday afternoon, even before I had reported the results of my precinct’s caucus, I started receiving sympathetic phone calls and text messages. You obviously all saw the results on tv, oftentimes much sooner than I did because CNN made its projection with less than 50% of the vote in (my precinct was in the second 50%). I appreciated your thoughts and concern over my apparent loss, but the truth is that I came out of Saturday morning feeling very good. It would have obviously been better if Obama had won the popular vote, but I try not to stress over events that I can’t control. I said in my pre-caucus post that the very best I could do was to deliver my precinct. On Saturday I did just that. And I did it very well. So how could I be disappointed?

Let me walk you through the event…

The rules for a caucus are strange so let me take a quick minute to explain the process first for any of you who are unfamiliar. The Nevada caucus was this state’s version of a primary election; it is our method of determining the state party’s delegates to the national party convention. Those delegates in turn will choose the party’s national nominee for the general election. Different states choose their delegates in different ways and with different methods. A primary, like those held in New Hampshire and South Carolina, is nearly identical to a general election in that a voter can go to the polls at any time during election day and cast a secret ballot vote for their candidate. A caucus, like those held in Iowa and Nevada, works very differently. During a caucus voters must show up to a specific place at a specific time and then cast their vote publicly. Here is the specific process.

Voters show up at a specific place and time for the caucus. At a designated time the doors to the caucus are closed and nobody is allowed to enter or leave until the caucus is finished. Once the doors are closed a count is taken to see how many people are in the room. Caucus participants then publicly declare their support for a candidate by forming into supporter groups (“everybody for Barack come stand in this corner, everyone for Hillary stand over here, etc…). The number of supporters in each group is then counted and the percentage breakdown of supporters dictates the breakdown of delegates for that precinct. For instance, if Obama has half of the supporters in the room he is awarded half of the delegates for that precinct. The one weird caveat to this system is that in order for a candidate to be awarded delegates he/she must be deemed “viable.” Generally, to be viable a candidate must have at least 15% of the room’s support. If a candidate does not have 15% support then anyone who has declared for that candidate must “realign” and join the group of supporters for a candidate that is viable. Essentially it works as an instant runoff.

Ok, hopefully that makes sense to you. It’s ok if it doesn’t though, because it turned out that at least half of the people who actually participated in, and in some cases RAN, the caucus in my precinct didn’t understand it either. I will get to that in a bit though…

So the caucus was set to officially start at 12pm, and as a precinct captain I had instructed my supporters to arrive one hour early. Remember, in a caucus you cannot be late. Not even a little bit. If you are not inside the room at noon your vote will not count. And because of the proportional allotment of delegates every single person who shows up can make a tremendous difference. I chose results over courtesy and told my people 11am, even though it meant they would have to sit around for an hour.

As the captain of my precinct I took it upon myself to show up to the caucus location at 10:15, even earlier than my coordinator had suggested, to claim a good section of the room and set up tables, signs, and supplies. (There is a whole realm of strategy that goes into caucus setup and location scouting that I won’t go into here, but suffice to say that I put way more thought into “picking a corner of the room” than I probably ever will again.) Walking into the elementary school gymnasium that would serve as my precinct’s polling location I was a bit shocked to find that the Clinton campaign already had their corner claimed, their tables set up, and their signs and banners hung. There was a group of four middle-aged women wearing Hillary tshirts all lounging around their tables. According to the caucus chair (the woman who would be running our caucus, the job I would have had if I hadn’t moved into a new precinct) the Hillary people had been there “for a long, long time.” I wasn’t sure why they had shown up so early, but it was a bit of a confidence shock to find myself so thoroughly outnumbered and outperformed from the very outset.

I took my cue from Team Hillary and chose the corner of the room directly opposite from theirs. With no idea what kind of turnout to expect I simply copied the Clintons and set up the same number of tables as they had. It was only 1030 when the first Obama supporter arrived: an 80-year-old woman in a wheel chair who I had spoken to on the phone the night before. As she wheeled her way into the gym she announced her arrival with an angry shout in my direction. Apparently she felt very disappointed in the Obama campaign, and specifically me, because our setup was not as good as Hillary’s. I was of course in the process of hanging up my very first sign when she started calling me out. I didn’t bother explaining that she was 30 minutes early and that I was working by myself. Instead I just smiled and went back to work, racing to hang up signs and set out voter registration forms, water bottles, and Obama literature. I tried to smile, but it was impossible to ignore the woman’s constant stream of angry muttering. Things were not starting out well. It was one thing to look bad in front of the Clinton precinct captain. It was somewhat worse to look bad in front of one of my supporters – for good reason or not.

Fortunately, help soon arrived.

As supporters began arriving it seemed as though nearly all of them were for Obama. Resolved to operate at a higher level I quickly took charge of the new arrivals. I put a few of the women in charge or organizing and distributing water bottles to our people. I put a few others in charge of maintaining the signs. I found one particularly outspoken older gentleman and gave him an Obama sign along with a specific mission. The part of the room that I had claimed for our supporters was between the entrance doors and the registration table, meaning that anyone who came to the caucus must walk by our tables first. I instructed the man to put on his biggest smile and say hello to every person who walked by him… while also displaying a Barack Obama sign. If anyone came to the caucus as an Undecided, they better not make it to the registration table without turning into an Obama supporter.

I also instructed a volunteer to stand near the entrance to the building and greet everyone who showed up by offering them an Obama sticker to wear. I then enlisted the help of some of the more chatty supporters to walk around the room and strike up pro-Obama conversations with anyone who was not wearing a sticker. As the room started to fill up there was a very real sense of pride to be had in realizing that the old woman who had been so angry before was now smiling and gave me an approving pat on the back as I walked by. Furthermore, it was satisfying to see that the four members of Team Hillary who had been so ahead of the game at the beginning were still sitting at their tables doing nothing. They had nobody handing out stickers. They had nobody holding and waving signs. They had nobody doing much of anything.

The turn of the tide officially came around 11:15 when I was forced to set up another table… and then another… to hold all of our supporters. I would have set up still another, but we ran out of space, rubbing right up against the table of Edwards supporters. And even then we still had people standing against the walls.

Hillary’s people didn’t need to set up any more tables.

With my organization well delegated to volunteers I was able to turn my attention to the caucus math. I did a quick estimate of numbers and rapidly determined that John Edwards was going to be non-viable; there simply were not enough Edwards supporters in the room (15%). That meant that when it came time for the caucus to begin, all of those people were going to have to go to either Clinton or to us. I desperately wanted it to be us.

I made my way over to the table closest to the Edwards folk and quietly told the people seated there to “strike up a conversation” with the people sitting only a few feet away. I didn’t explain the concept of non-viability because I didn’t want to offend any of the Edwards folks, but I wanted our campaign to get its hands on these voters before the Hillary people noticed what I already had. Fortunately, it would seem that the Clinton organizers were either lazy, ignorant, or simply couldn’t count, because they never did notice. It was my hope that when the “surprise” announcement of the Edwards non-viability was made, the Edwards supporters would already be pro-Obama and it would be all but too late for the Clinton team.

So, anyways, the doors were closed at noon and everything went as planned…

… except NOT.

In reality the doors were closed by the caucus chair at 11:52. Keenly aware of the rules I walked over and made a point of opening the doors again. The caucus chair, an otherwise nice lady who was under a lot of pressure, came over and told me that the doors were closed and nobody else was allowed to come inside. I stood my ground.

“You are not allowed to close the doors until 12:00. We still have eight minutes left.” I pointed at the clock on the wall and then showed her the display on my cell phone.

“No, I just got off the phone with the state party and I can close the doors whenever I want,” she said.

“Call them back. You are wrong.” (I am not normally a stubborn or confrontational person, but in the defense of Liberty I apparently develop quite the set of cajones?)

The woman then made her argument to me. Her understanding was that she could close the doors once the registration line was empty (which it was). Further, she had “made an announcement five minutes ago that the doors would be closing.” She made a move to close the doors, but I stepped in front of her and without effort I dispatched her assertion with an argument of my own. First, I politely declared her “announcement” worthless because the people who would be most affected by that announcement would have been unable to hear it… because they had not shown up yet. Second, her claim about the registration line being empty was invalid because according to her rules she could have started the caucus at 1030am when nobody was in line… because nobody had even shown up yet. Further, although our precinct’s turnout was very good, conceivably a smaller precinct would never even build up a registration line due to sheer numbers and therefore there would be no control over such arbitrary caucus start times. I finished by leaning in and quietly saying, “Please just wait a few more minutes. I don’t want to have to file a complaint with the state party.” The woman made no reply, but I stepped outside for a moment and told my volunteer (the one welcoming voters) to be sure and let in anyone else who showed up before noon.

As a testament to the triumph of justice, a few minutes later a Hispanic family arrived to the gym. The caucus chair made a move to disallow them from voting, demanding to see their registration forms, but I stepped into the mix once again and escorted the family to the registration table and saw to it that they were all given ballots. As the ballot was handed to one of the men I asked him who he was supporting. “Oh, yeah…” the man quietly replied. “We are here for Clinton.”

I suppose that’s justice, eh? I fought a battle of procedure so that Hillary could get a few more votes. Oh well, I would do it again. To me it was a victory in that I protected that entire family’s right to vote. I am sure they have no idea what took place, but nobody else was willing to speak up – certainly not the Hillary staff, who were nevertheless all too happy to receive the last minute support – and I did what I thought was right.

As the doors officially closed I was jazzed up from the dispute and ready to get things going. We started off with a count: 135 eligible voters. Then it was time to break into preference groups. I had recruited a few more supporters to work as “corallers” whose job it was to keep all of our people in one place so that we could be accurately counted. However, because of our large numbers and overflowing nature the caucus staff member made a mistake during the count and outright ignored nearly twenty people. I pointed out the error and the correct count was taken, although not without a bit more guff in my direction. (I was proving to be quite the trouble maker. I mean, following the rules must be a real bitch, huh?)

The initial count was beautiful. Obama had 67 supporters – exactly half of the people in the room. Hillary had about 50. Edwards had about 15. Two people were Undecided.

A murmur of astonishment went through the room as the caucus chair declared what I already knew: Edwards was non-viable. His supporters would have to go elsewhere or their votes would not count. Really?! Tell me something that I don’t already know…

There was a frenzy for the next five minutes as the Clinton supporters descended upon the Edwards table (again, as I had expected). I had already set that piece of my plan in motion so while some of my supporters went after the Edwards voters I turned my personal attention to the two Undecideds. It was, and still is, bizarre to think of a Democrat as undecided, but I did my best to make my case by striking up a conversation in the same manner that I have for the past few months on my campaign phone calls. “So what issues are most important to you? What are you looking for in a President?…” While I was talking with the undecided voters, two fairly young men, I was interrupted by an obnoxious middle-aged woman wearing a Hillary tshirt. She began yelling over me and making it all but impossible for any of us to be heard. Surprisingly, it was the undecided voter who took control by posing an unexpected, but awesome solution. He gave the Hillary supporter and I each thirty seconds to pitch our candidate. I let the girl go first. She rambled for a while, listing the typical and (imo) bogus arguments for Hillary’s candidacy. She kept talking until the man cut her off and told her to be quiet (which made me actually laugh). Then it was my turn. Even though her arguments were stupid I decided to go with a positive message instead of using the negatives of refuting her own claims; essentially be pro-Obama, not anti-Hillary. I spoke about unity and belief, the lost pride in America and the universal power of hope. Essentially I took what I thought was the Obama approach to campaigning. I talked fast, but I knew what I was talking about and the bizarre urgency of it all made it fun. More than anything, now that I have had some time to reflect on it, the impromptu debate was so enjoyable because it allowed me to be smart again, if only for a little while. Unwittingly that poor Clinton supporter walked her loud mouth into a battle she was never going to win. It just so happened that she found herself in a knowledge-based debate against (probably) the most intellectually prepared person in that entire room. The heated argument made me feel like I was in a college classroom again. As soon as I finished speaking the girl simply turned and walked away (again, just like college. BOOM! Self-burn!).

In the end neither of the Undecided voters made up their mind. In the second count they were both still Undecided. However, after the caucus was over the young man who had orchestrated the mini-debate came over and shook my hand. He thanked me for talking with him and said I made a convincing case and that he would be supporting Obama in the general election. I wanted to slap him in the face and say, “He might not be in the general… and no thanks to you!” but of course I only smiled and thanked him for coming to caucus.

And as for the Edwards supporters…? The all went to Hillary. Every single one of them. It was bizarre and it was terrible. I might have seen it coming as they were nearly all white women (nearly every single person in the Clinton corner was a white woman), but it was terribly frustrating to watch. First of all, my “plan” had worked perfectly. Long before the caucus began we had Obama supporters speaking to them. Then when it came time to realign the Edwards people literally told us, “We are going Edwards or nobody.” They said that over and over, “Edwards or nobody,” right up until the moment they stood up and walked over to Hillary.

So in the end, even though we had half of the room in our corner, with the help of the Edwards supporters (and the lack of help by the Undecideds) Hillary managed to earn half of our precinct’s delegates. Of the 12 delegates in Nevada precinct 1390, six went to Clinton and six went to Obama. I found out a little later that my precinct was expected to fall heavily for Clinton, so a statistical split was actually a pretty good win. It felt even better to know that, regardless of final proportions and rounding, I had more people in that room.

I was happy, and for reasons beyond the turnout. I was happy for Obama, but I was probably even happier with myself. I had organized and run that caucus about as well as anyone probably could have. The Clinton staff had shown up earlier, but I had brought the better game. Of the 67 Obama supporters who voted on Saturday, I was personally thanked by at least twenty of them. It felt really good to know that the Obama campaign presence and organization, in that precinct, was the clearly superior campaign. We had better numbers. We had happier, more motivated people. We had stickers, signs, and a clear sense of community and common purpose. And I had helped to make that happen.

In the end Obama lost the state’s popular vote by 5-6%, but he still managed to win more convention delegates than Hillary. Both campaigns declared Nevada a win and then moved on to South Carolina. For my part I went home briefly before going to the movies (Cloverfield). A few people called to say they were sorry for how my day turned out, obviously unaware of how much of a success it had truly been. I turned out more caucus supporters than any other campaign. I operated the caucus well. I defended a family’s voting rights. I won a mini-debate. I earned the respect of some local Obama supporters, a few Clinton staff members, one grumpy old lady, and a number of volunteers with the state party. I turned a projected Clinton rout into a statistical tie and a numerical win. Even the day’s only true defeat – the complete loss of the Edwards supporters – was not for lack of a superior strategy or effort.

I did my best, and so even though I officially lost it still felt like a success.

For Matt:
In celebration of a successful finish to several months of effort I went out and bought an iPod Touch. It was completely Matt’s idea and I was thoroughly helpless against his brilliant and irresistible powers of suggestion. The Touch is mine, but the credit is all his.