First Entry - Caucusing

Well I'm not exactly sure where to start with this cause I've never really blogged before but I guess I'll just start talking.
Today was the Washington State Caucus, and I, being the civic-minded young adult I generally aim to be, attended in my home precinct. From what I heard, it was the largest turnout ever, not surprising really, and there were actually several other people there in my age group, also not a big surprise. Having no prior experience with caucusing, or any other political type stuff other than the absentee ballots I fill out for each election, I really had no idea what to expect. Heres what happens, for all of you too young or otherwise unable to attend.
We started in a large room, the school's gym, sorted by precinct. Following the pledge of allegiance, for which I stood in silence as always, there was the requisite reading of the rules, the reminder to support the party both in fund raising and volunteering and all of that, we broke out into different rooms based on precincts. That's when the fun started.
Precincts are small geographic areas generally consisting of a few hundred people. My precinct is about 8 square blocks of my neighborhood and has about 550 registered voters, out of which there were 44 at the caucus. After a preliminary count, there were 25 people for Obama, 14 for Clinton, 3 for Edwards and 2 undecided. After the count was tallied, the debating started. First we had those for Clinton, promoting her experience, her tough stand on issues, her ability to change course and change her mind when necessary (in relation to the war in Iraq specifically) and her appeal to those who feel it is time for a president. Then there were those for Obama promoting his youthful energy, charisma, appeal to everyone, especially the young, and his strong plans for many of the important issues. Another girl and I were the only ones there under 30 so we, obviously were very strong in our support of Obama and his appeal towards the young reminding the group several times that for the Democrats to do well, they need a lot of support, and that those our age who support Obama will, in general, become disenfranchised if he is not chosen as the nominee.
It was a fun discussion, there were very passionate arguments on both sides, from the young and the old, from the lesbian couple who were concerned for their rights, from those with unreliable medical coverage, from those harshly against the Iraq war. It was really an excellent display of democracy at work and true community discussion on the issues facing our country, something of which I wish there could be a lot more.
After all that, we had a final vote to decide the delegates our precinct would send to the legislative district caucus. The vote came out with 1 for Edwards, 11 for Clinton, and 34 for Obama. With that total, our precinct was to send 4 delegates for Obama and 1 for Clinton. Then came the voting for who those delegates would be. This was pretty easy, four of us raised our hands, and we were it. That's right, I'm headed to the next step of the caucus. It should be fun.
In the next few weeks, I hope all of you head out and vote for whomever you wish to vote. Here's a little something for Obama.