Civic Duty can kiss my tired ass.

So, I was voted a delegate for the 49th LD for my Man Barack Obama. Dave was an alternate, but yet again the Cow did not show up for her visitation, and so at the last minute he stayed home due to lack of child care. The "good" news is that the biznatch is in the hospital. We're guessing the mental ward again, as they are being vague as to why, instead of whining about her medical problems to try to get us to feel sorry for her. I would imagine our marriage and house-buying is what shoved her ass over the edge again, as anything good that happens to Dave ends up doing this.

Anyway. I had to be there at 7:30 to check in. One cool thing was the Obama people decided to send out an email to the people linked in to barackobama.com and have a food drive - by the time I got there to donate my few cans there were already 15 boxes! So that was excellent.
I stood in a very long line to get my badge, then another line for my ballot and booklet, and then went into the auditorium to sit. While I was there I saw Jori's 2nd grade teacher, a friend of Winter's mom, and our attorney! HAHA. You know you are old when the people you know have to do with your kids and not shows you went to etc.

Since voter turn out was huge everywhere, there were 5 Legislative Districts that met (it was LD and County combined, which was the first mistake they made) there were over 3000 delegates and alternates. We began to get behind schedule instantly, due to them severely underestimating the amount of time it would take to do anything with that volume of people. The agenda stated we were to get out at 1, no later, due to Passover.

To make a long bitching rant short, there was zero organization, you couldn't hear jackshit when they split us into groups, our LD had to move TWICE, and myself and a few other ladies took it upon ourselves to get the elderly members of our group situated, and it was BS that people with canes, crutches, wheelchairs etc had to be trekked up and down stairs and wooden bleachers. The process to elect state delegates was a total cluster, it was hot, we were starving and thirsty (with no food/drink allowed or even planned for in there) and by the time we got done electing delegates for the next level it was 1:30 - we hadn't even gotten to the resolutions (which there were like 15 of that we had to vote on - and it was good shit, like calling for impeachment of Bush/Cheney). I had a massive headache.

As soon as I turned in my ballot at 1:30 I had had it, I was about to go homicidal, so I bailed on the resolutions and took off. I wasn't the only one. I read this morning that so many people left that someone blew the whistle on quorum (i/e not enough voters there to make it a "real" vote) and so the resolutions didn't get passed! Which blows, but seriously, what did they think? We would sit there until 4 with no food or drink?

This was my first LD caucus, and I talked to people who were old school, and they said that this one was a bunch of crap, and they were shocked at how it all went down. I certainly won't volunteer for this again, which is sad, because I am a political diehard, and I know that if I won't volunteer, there are tons of other people that won't. Granted I've never loved a Prez candidate like I love Barack, but yeah. It was a nightmare.