Reading NYTimes posts, here and elsewhere, there is a lot of misinformation about what goes on at a caucus. If you attended a caucus you would know the rules and how the delegates are distributed.

- The numbers you see as results are the numbers of people who voted. Those are the numbers of delegates to the district conventions. In my precinct we had 6 delegates, 5 for Obama and 1 for Clinton. We had 94 people participate in my precinct. Of the 21k votes for Obama you see on CNN, 5 of those were from my precinct.

- Voters can register and anyone reaching 18 years of age by November can participate. For primaries, you need to be registered.

- You don't need to spend 2-4 hours at a caucus if you don't want to. You can show up, sign in and indicate your preference then leave. Your vote will still count. The reason to stay is to discuss the candidates and try to sway undecideds to your side.

- The rule sheet that is given to you says you need to allow 1 minute of discussion for each side, however it is up to the precinct committee chair to allow for more if wanted. We were all neighbors and I let my precinct have a nice balanced discussion for about 10 minutes.

- The 2-4 hours is an exaggeration. Even if you stay the whole time, the party only mandates 1 hour to caucus. I arrived at the site at 1pm, the caucus began at 1:30 and we were done at 2:15. I left at 2:30 and I was the precinct chair.

I have been finding that people who are against caucuses generally do not understand the system or have never participated in it. The beauty of the system is that you get to hang out with your neighbors and fellow democrats to talk shop. I met a teacher, a nurse, a grad student, an undergrad student, a civil rights attorney, a stay at home mom, an accountant and a retiree today. I shook their hands and we talked shop. It was great because we were able to come together under a common idea and discuss our different opinions in person. We talked, laughed and cheered for our candidates with passion that you just can't get by going to a polling station. It made me feel great to be part of such a pure and fun democratic system. It sure as hell beat filling out an absentee ballot and posting messages on a message board. ;)

To clarify my above post, in Washington state we had approximately 300,000 people caucus today and over 200k of them were democrats.

As eeave1's post makes my point, that 35k is the number of delegates to the district conventions, who in turn nominate delegates to the county then state conventions. There they select the 11 to go to Denver to represent the state.

Hillary was behind in pledged delegates after Super Tuesday, she lost 3 states and the VI's yesterday, VI/MD/DC vote on Tuesday where Obama is favored to win, then the HI/WI on the 19th where Obama is also favored. Maine votes today and we'll see what happens.

This is silently accepted by the Hillary campaign, they are banking on March 4th with Texas, Vermont, Ohio, and RI.

So she's behind after Super Tuesday and she falls even further behind for all of February (with possible exception of a win in Maine). Obama's name is in the papers. He's being talked about at the water cooler and coffee shop. He's got the momentum to seriously have an impact on the March 4th primary. Just as in Super Tuesday, he doesn't have to win, he just needs to come close and his momentum, cash reserves and long break between the HIWI primary will give him a good advantage to do that.

Now the Clinton campaign and her supporters can talk about the superdelegate lead but honestly, superdelegates are *Meaningless*. Michigan and Florida are also out of the game without another vote. Why? Because if the democratic party wants to have ANY legitimacy in November, there is absolutely no way the can do it by putting up a candidate that did not win the pledged delegate count nor can they let Michigan and Florida count without a re-vote.

Imagine if the DNC allowed Clinton to be the nominee if she loses of the state primaries/caucuses with superdelegates and a simple allocation of Michigan and Florida to Clinton. Seriously, those of you who keep arguing that this is the case. How does that make Hillary look in the general election? What does that mean for the Democratic party? Do you not think the GOP would have an even bigger field day with this?

This race is about pledged delegates and who ends with the most. If *anything* else happens, I'm not sure how anyone could be proud of or enthusiastically support that candidate honestly. It's not all about winning. Let's all remember that.

"Superdelegates will never support a candidate

who loses big blue states like California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and crucial swing states like Arizona, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. If Obama's vaunted momentum (catch the wave, dudes) doesn't net him Ohio on March 4 and/or Pennsylvania in April, he won't be the nominee, no matter how many delegates he picks up in the Virgin Islands."

Read my earlier post on this subject. Super Delegates DO NOT MATTER.