Wow.
Just got back from the caucus.
The site was expecting 400 people. The site was fire-coded at 650 people.
800 people or more showed up.
They ended up having to count us in shifts, and move us out to let more people in.
In the room, Obama supporters outnumbered Hillary supporters easily 3 to 1. The Obama crowd was diverse– in race, age and gender….and easily had the most enthusiasm.
According to the media reports I’m seeing, it looks like my experience wasn’t an unusual one for Kansas. Currently, I’m seeing most media outlets reporting Kansas at approximately 75% Obama.
I expect that it’s going to be a close delegate count when the nation’s votes are all counted tonight. I think that benefits Obama, because it he’s out-fundraised Clinton, and the coming primaries allow him to concentrate on 3 or 4 states at a time, rather than 24 all at once. This gives those states more “face time” with Obama, and recent results show that the more people are exposed to him, the more they like him.
Glad to hear it. Obama’s still behind on delegates, and while I know there’s quite a ways to go, I’m nervous.
Looks like Obama won by a landslide in Kansas, but it’s pretty close in a lot of places. Here’s a good election mashup if you haven’t seen it before: http://maps.google.com/decision2008
i went to the jccc caucus…they were expecting 300 and ended up with about 1500! very obama-heavy…i’d say 70-75%. it was so interesting to see.
one of the REALLY cool things was that they had the people who switched from republican to democrat stand up…it was literally half the crowd!
It seems like Obama did better in caucus states.
I really felt like people were pumped for Obama here in Mass but it didn’t bear out.
That’s one of the annoying spin jobs from last night. All the talking heads were blathering about how shocking it was that the Mass endorsements (Kerry, Kennedy, etc.) did not put Obama over the top. He was down by like 30 points there a month ago and ended up cutting the lead in half. The story is about how Clinton’s lead there nearly evaporated.
Likewise, both sides are claiming victory from last night, and I think both sides can rightfully claim important wins. Of course, last night was supposed to be the night Clinton knocked Obama out. So, again, the fact that it was essentially a dead even tie means Obama is the real winner.
He has to keep it up of course, but the next few races should be good ones for him too. If he eliminates the minor delegate gap in the next week or so and then takes either Ohio or Texas, he should have a stranglehold on it.