Caucus O Caucus

I invited some of the other northern counties to describe their caucus evenings. I think they're as exciting as elsewhere in Idaho. Please read what Shelley Landry from Bonner County and Bev Moss from Kootenai County have to say about their events.

As Bonner County Vice-Chair and the Caucus Chair for the 2008 Idaho Democratic Caucus in Bonner County, all I can say about Super Tuesday, Feb. 5th is: “What an unbelievable and exciting night it was!” We had 593 people attend our caucus which goes on record as the largest turn-out for a Democratic Caucus in our history.

We began planning this caucus several months ago. We were warned by the Idaho Democratic Party that we should expect a turn-out that was triple the size of our 2004 caucus. Many people laughed and scoffed at that prediction……oh how RIGHT the IDP was! We had an incredible team of volunteers that worked hard helping to prepare for anything: tables, computers, food, candidate materials, finding more volunteers, the list was endless. I can’t thank my team enough!

By the day of the caucus, we all knew that we were going to be getting a record crowd. I think many of us were grateful for the snow. Bonner County Democrats proved that no matter the weather they are ready to win and win big! People began flooding in at 5pm and by 615pm we had almost reached capacity at the Panida Theater. We somehow managed to squeeze everyone in.

One of my greatest moments of the evening was right at the beginning. I welcomed everyone, said the pledge and then asked the question, “who is ready to take back the White House?” The response was not a cheer it was roar! That roar set the tempo for the rest of the evening. Bonner County and clearly the rest of the state are ready for change!

Shelley Landry

"We are the ones we have been waiting for"


Last night Kootenai County Democrats filled the North Idaho College Gym literally to the rafters! We were pushing the fire code restrictions of 1250 with over 1300 in attendance. In order to get all the people into the gym, we delayed the actual caucusing until about 7:25, but we started right at 7:00 with the pledge and used that extra time to fire everyone up. It was great to be with so many other Democrats and friends who care about the direction and leadership of our country. Our 27 delegates were split 80% for Obama and 20% for Clinton. Although we were finished with the actual caucusing by 9:30 pm, the delegate elections for the Obama caucus took until 11:00. Even though we’ll need to spend the next few days sorting through boxes of supplies that were dropped by the headquarters late last night, we all agreed that we pulled off the biggest caucus Kootenai County has seen with a minimum of glitches. Congratulations to all of the counties throughout our state who went to great lengths to make sure Idaho voters’ voices were heard.

Bev Moss
Chair, Kootenai County Democrats