The Village Idiot & the Texas Caucus

How totally disrespectful to call our Dear Leader a Village Idiot. Whoever made this sign should be thoroughly ashamed.

Then again there was that exchange between our Dear Leader and CBS newsman, Peter Maer, at a recent news conference in which Maer asked The One Who Does Not Read Newspapers, "What is your advice to the average American who is hurting right now, facing the prospect of $4 a gallon gasoline."

Our Dear Leader interrupted at that point and asked, "What did you just say? You're predicting $4 a gallon gasoline?"

Maer patiently explained that it was not he making the prediction, rather it was "A number of analysts predicting $4 a gallon gasoline."

Our Dear Leader was shocked and stunned at this late breaking revelation, saying, "Oh, yeah? That's interesting, I hadn't heard that."

And in even more shocking revelations a study was released by the U.S. Government yesterday which concluded that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Al Queda. I hope someone informs our Dear Leader before he puts his foot in his mouth again on that one. I can't remember the last time he has mentioned Weapons of Mass Destruction or declared one of his Missions Accomplished. Are the levees fixed in New Orleans yet?

On a totally unrelated note. I just returned from the library. Loyal readers will remember the library is where I voted a week ago today and returned that night to experience the Texas Caucus Chaos that still has not been sorted out.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a piece on Saturday's called CHEERS AND JEERS. On Saturday there was a CHEER that had the ladies in the library today all atwitter.

The CHEER said---"Cheers: To the staff of the East Regional Library for graciously putting up with 500 of us Democrats caucusing at the library until midnight Tuesday."

I learned about the Cheer when I asked if they knew how the caucus went. I told them I'd tried to participate but bailed when I saw that it seemed to be spinning out of control. I told the librarian there were more than 500 people there, when I bailed, and more were arriving. She told me that the Cheer was also wrong about the time, that the caucus actually lasted til past 1am Wednesday morning! That is way past my bedtime. I don't think I've stayed up that late in this century. I don't know if I've stayed up past midnight since Christmas of 1994 at Disneyland. That was exhausting. But at least there were fun rides.

I mentioned I had called 911 when I saw things were spiralling out of control. The librarian told me police arrived and started ticketing people who had blocked others in. I told her it was the election workers who told people to park anywhere, especially if they were trying to vote and needed to get in line before 7pm.

So, I guess I will never know how many people actually made the attempt to vote at the East Regional Library. I'm amazed that 500 made it til, at least, midnight. Much more determined democracy participants than I. That or they are more driven than I to make sure we have a good replacement for our current clueless Dear Leader.

Caucus Chaos

My experience at last night's Texas caucus was not an isolated one of a kind fluke. Even though the Caucus Chaos that I witnessed was not mentioned in this morning's Fort Worth Star-Telegram similar scenarios played out at voting locations all over Texas to varying degrees of chaos, confusion, disorder, turmoil, discord, pandemonium and borderline anarchy.

At some polling places in Tarrant County (location of Fort Worth) the primary voting ran over an hour late, causing the caucusing to begin over an hour late.

In many locations, when the caucusing finally began, more chaos followed with no one knowing what to do and then, when the process finally got under way, running out of sign in sheets and ballots. As a Hillary supporter, Michelle Coomer put it, "I was so appalled at how it was run. It was a terrible mess. It was a fiasco. There was no organization."

Approximately 500 people were left out in the cold at Fort Worth's Southwest Subcourthouse waiting for the voting to end. Some people had been directed to the wrong voting place leaving them not enough time to get to the correct location.

Various locations reported people showing up to vote in the primary who had early voted, taking literally those campaign slogans telling them to vote twice. Other voters somehow thought they had to participate in the caucus or their primary vote would not count.

It is not yet known who won the caucuses. It is known Hillary won the primary. Like I said before, it is likely Obama will end up with more Texas delegates because it is likely he won the caucuses.

So far I've not heard any noises, beyond my own, regarding declaring the caucus results fraudulent due to all the problems and the large number of people who were unable to participate due to all the ineptitude.

Texas Caucus Debacle

It is 7:27 pm. I am already back from the second step of the Texas Two Step. The caucus. I arrived at the caucus location at 6:45. A line of cars was backed up on to the street at the entry to the parking lot. The parking lot was full. Some voters were leaving and not staying for the caucus and those were the available parking spots. By the time I made it off the street it was parking lot gridlock.

Some were trying to turn around and bail. This resulted in an ugly stand-off between two women drivers. I could not believe there was no police presence to help with this mayhem.

So, I called 911. The dispatcher sounded sleepy. I explained the problem. Told her it was at the East Regional Library Voting/Caucus site. She said she needed a street. I said, I dunno, I think it's Bridge Street. She said she also needed a cross street. I said there is none and the cops will know where the library is.

At that point one of the election workers showed up trying to untangle the mess. I told her I was on the phone to 911 and asked where are the police, this is getting ugly?

A couple minutes later election worker traffic directors started going around asking those in cars if they were here to vote in the primary, if so, just park anywhere, and go vote. And then they decided to just tell everyone to park as best they could. I could see this could get me blocked in, so I drove to a spot where I thought that no one could block me.

By now there was a large crowd milling about outside the library. More cars continued to enter the parking lot. Some exited and began parking on a side street. By the time I escaped that side street was full of parked cars on both sides of the street for at least a half mile.

After I parked I ran into the election worker I'd told earlier that I'd called 911. She was now in full traffic director mode. I told her she was the prettiest traffic cop I'd ever seen. That seemed to please her.

I wanted to take some pics of the crowd. There was a festive atmosphere. A guy stood on a bench and preached to the crowd. He sounded very insane. I got inside the library and saw the size of the crowd. It was not even 10 after 7 and there were enough people to fill up 10 of the caucus size rooms.

And the voting had not ended. I knew this was a boondoggle that did not need any further participation from me. So, I began my escape. The traffic cop who I'd told was pretty saw me leaving, then grabbed my arm and said I had to stay, that my one vote might be the one that made the difference.

I didn't think so. What I thought was this was an absurd boondoggle and whoever is the controlling authority that validates elections needs to immediately make whatever move they need to make to invalidate these caucuses. I saw many people giving up. As I walked among the cars most had their windows down. I'd ask if they were here for the primary or the caucus. Almost everyone answered caucus. I saw two cars in which women were crying in frustration.

On the plus side I saw many people who brought their children. I think they were feeling really proud about who they were getting to vote for and wanted their kids there. I saw many acts of kindness.

And one big bad overarching case of a really bad idea going badly awry.

The Texas Two Step stepped right into this mess without thinking. This election night disaster could have been avoided. It is not like it has not been known for some time that tonight was going to be a big deal.

I'm appalled. This is two elections in a row now here where I have been sort of disenfranchised. Jimmy Carter needs to monitor the Texas elections like he does other Third World countries.