Caucusing for Bernie

I went to the Washington State Democratic caucuses a week ago and voted for Bernie Sanders. He won Washington with over 70% of the votes, which was not a huge surprise as he has done well in other caucuses. I knew it was likely that Bernie would win Washington with or without my support, and I know Hillary Clinton will almost certainly win the Democratic nomination with or without my support, so I went mostly for he experience, to participate and to observe.

First observation: sooo many white people. I live in a really white place, but even with that, the caucus-goers were probably whiter than the community at large. Several of my neighbors are from India, but they were under-represented at the caucus. Maybe they are not all citizens, but I would think they are. Anyway, white people tend to favor Bernie.

There were a lot of Bernie supporters wearing Bernie t-shirts. I did not see one person who was visibly supporting Hillary, although there were Hillary supporters there.

Young voters overwhelmingly favor Bernie, but there were not that many young people at the caucus. Nevertheless, I think we were probably typical of much of Washington State, which Bernie won with about 73% of the vote. For just my neighborhood, the vote was 24 for Sanders to 5 for Clinton.

I did not observe much animosity toward the Hillary supporters. It was all pretty cordial. In fact, it was all pretty slow and pretty boring. I spent two hours there total, and they were still talking when I left (although I was able to vote first.) Caucuses seem like an inefficient way to vote. Just before I left, someone spoke to the whole room on behalf of Hillary, and then someone spoke on behalf of Bernie. Then someone from my neighborhood spoke on behalf of Bernie, saying that we should vote for him because he was most likely to beat Trump. I thought that was a lousy reason to vote for Hillary, so I didn't think much of it as a reason to vote for Bernie. They had to keep it balanced, so next someone spoke for Hillary. Then they said that someone else wanted to speak on behalf of Sanders, and so they needed a volunteer to speak for Hillary.

And I left. It was interesting to be a part of it, to spend a little time with like-minded people participating in Democracy. I saw a few Boy Scout parents and a former Scout there -- I always think of the Boy Scouts as Republicans, but they apparently are not all. Overall though, give me voting by mail, as we do for all elections other than caucuses.