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. ;)

Be Honest.

The majority of networks are giving Allen the lead.

...the democrats have a good chance to blow this one too. I know people are talking about "waves" but it was the same thing we heard in 2004. We have been sticking our faces to our monitors and checking and tracking polls for months now. Then we hit up the forums, reinforce our idea that the country wants to "throw the bums out", go nuts with our blogs, and realize there is no way we can lose, just like in 2004.

Tester had a 20% lead over Burns, now it's a dead heat. The Ford and Corker race was tied, now Ford is down by 10 points. Every other senate race that democrats were making momentum stalled, all right about now. In the house, it was 20 seats, then 17, now I hear 15 for sure? What about Foley's district? His name is still on the ballot and his replacement, who was thought to have no chance in hell of winning, is now neck and neck with the democrat. All the polls are tightening and we are looking for the "good" news to make us feel better about tomorrow so we don't "panic".

We, democrats, need to face reality. We don't have a message, we don't have a plan, and we don't have any sort of strategy that voters can be sold on. This is why the republican message still works and why, when the republican machine started up in the past few weeks, we see it in the polls now. This "we are better than them" and "we need change" didn't work in 2000, 2002, 2004 and I'm betting that tomorrow that it won't work either. We might squeak out a win in the house but it's not going to be a "wave". If democrats don't notice that they got in by shear luck and republican blunders, then 2008 will be another let down as well.

The polls are tightening for a reason. It's time we recognize the true reason why.