Caucus Eve

It has been an interesting day. It began with people needing rides to the caucus. That was cheerful. Then it moved into information that our new Democratic Mayor and City Council (no website for the mayor or the city or the city council) wouldn't be coming to the caucus because they never changed (nor seemed inclined to change) the regular meeting date for city council meetings. I understand their predicament as newly elected officials, but I guess my obligations towards my voting responsibilities are just different than theirs. I mean, they are participating in our democracy, which is good, but they only seem to care about one small aspect of it. At least it's the grassroots, hometown aspect. But you know, the caucus is really the only vote that counts for Democrats in Idaho. And I'll bet the Democratic mayors in most other Idaho cities will be at their caucuses. Well, the the chair, vice-chair, and most precinct captains of the Boundary County Democratic Cental Committee would have changed the City Council meeting time, but obviously that is not our decision....Schade....

Then I heard that after a query phone call about the caucus to our local County Clerk's office, the woman was only told that "there is a primary in May." Well, I do not believe that an older female stranger, who needed a ride to the caucus, made this story up. I reported it the the IDP and heard that this was going on around the state. I urged the IDP to call our county clerk because she had run as a Democrat and at the first opportunity switched back to being a Republican. Our vice-chair also called them today, before I called just before 5pm. They said that they have been telling people the location is at the fairgrounds but they didn't know the time or anything else about it because we had not given them the information. EXCUSE ME, but the information has been (remarkably) in our local rag for the PAST THREE WEEKS! The clerk office employees know who the chair is and the phone number. How could they know nothing about the caucus but the place???? Which information, it seems, was not always given. Is this a boast of local ignorance? Do they never read the paper? Or, as Republicans, do they feel threatened by a display of Democratic popularity?

Finally I learned that the Spokesman Review reported that our caucus was at the city fire hall, even though we had changed the venue, as posted at the Idaho Democratic Party website, over a month ago, after finding out that the fire hall did not have wheelchair access. Ah, how to deal with such ignorance, such a lack of efficiency, such blatant and willful inattention to details. I guess that in exchange for all the physical beauty of Idaho's northernmost county, we have been given a balance in human inadequacy. Ah well, if the youth turn out for Obama at our caucus, perhaps all is not lost....



"This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease." - Robert Kennedy.