How did your caucuses go tonight?

[katinmn]

Lourey won the straw poll in W-4, P-6! 18 votes - whoo-hoo!

We passed resolutions on the war, universal health care, immigration, affordable housing, and keeping guns locked up from kids.

Had about 50 people from our precinct. Amy Klobuchar made the rounds of the groups at Ramsey Junior High School, as did three candidates for House seat 64A.

There must have been hundreds of Klobuchar signs inside and outside the building.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Just got back from mine, Minneapolis W8 - P6.

67 people showed up, Kelley and Klobuchar won the straw poll by considerable margins. Linda Berglin and Neva Walker showed up, too. I'll be a delegate to the April 1 SD convention for District 61. Good stuff.

[KitchenWitch]

2. Bloomington W2 P16

Went very well. Resolutions against the war, against constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, for increased veterans benefits, children's healthcare, early childhood family education, access to contraception and for the environment.

Klobuchar was far and away the big winner for senate

Warren Spannaus is a member of my precinct, and he gave us a short history from when he was DFL party chair.

[DFLer4edu]

3. Minneapolis W12 P2

Amy Klobuchar got 76% in the straw poll, Lourey got 40% verses Hatch with 25%

[mediaman007]

4. District 39 met in West St. Paul...

at Henry Sibley High School. The parking lot was 95% full. A nice crowd stayed around after the precinct meetings for the general district meeting. Colleen Rowley spoke to the group, then the district endorsed Rick Hansen (39A) and Joe Atkins (39B).

[DFLforever]

5. katinmn, I was at Ramsey Jr. High too.

W3-P14.
It was better attended than the presidential caucus of 2004!
Lots of forward-looking resolutions passed including all those proposed by Peace in the Precincts. Someone commented wouldn't it be grand if the world was run by our state legislative district!

Our straw poll on governor and senator:

Klobuchar 32 Bell 10 other/undecided 1

Hatch 19, Lourey 10 Kelly 6 Doran 2

We heard from 5 of the state rep. candidates, candidate for sheriff, as well as the county attorney and county commissioner up for reelection.

Kate, who do you favor to replace Entenza? After hearing five of the six candidates tonight, I've changed my mind and am now leaning toward Erin Murphy.

[katinmn]

11. I was very impressed with Erin as well

She had the best message among the 64A candidates I heard. Only three made it to our far back place in the new north gym. We were rather tucked away.

[Minnesota Raindog]

6. Out here in Bachmann country ...

We had a terrific turnout. We unanimously passed a resolution calling for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. Dave Francis will almost certainly be the DFL challenger for Bachmann's state senate seat (there is one other candidate who is very unprepared). Attendance was 34 I think. Hatch won our particular caucus's straw poll pretty decisively. Can't recall what he got. Lourey got 9, Doran 3. Entenza could only muster 24 out of the 33, and 4 voted for "Other" for the AG. Not exactly a great vote of confidence in "Minnesota's Watchdog." This is Rebecca Otto's district, so she polled well. Klobuchar got 28 to Bell's 6.

A nice surprise was hearing from a young, enthusiastic school teacher from Stillwater named Jason Gonnion running for Matt Dean's District 52B House seat. It would be nice to get rid of that smarmy Bachmann clone.

I got the sense that there are a lot of people who were motivated to come out by Bachmann's social agenda and her anti-public-education stuff advocacy. Maybe there's hope for us out here yet.

One question--why didn't the DFL conduct straw polls in congressional district races?

[DFLforever]

7. Thanks, I forget the AG vote

Attorney General: Entenza 41 Other/Undecided 2

Matt's obviously more popular in his own district than in yours. He usually wins with about 79% of the district vote.

[katinmn]

23. It's very encouraging that Bachmann inspired Dems to show up

It seems getting rid of someone you dislike is a stronger motivator than showing up for someone you like, or are not offended by.

I hope this theory holds true in November.

[StarTurtle]

8. I don't know. I was locked out of mine (SD65, W5, P2).

When I called to find out where my caucus was, I was told it was at Como Sr. High School in St. Paul. When I got there I was told no, it was at Arlington Sr. High School. When I got there, I was told that it wasn't there, but no one knew where it was and there was no way to find out. Finally someone told me it was at Washington Jr. High. I first decided not to go, but I changed my mind and finally got there at 7:45. There was one sign on an exterior door and none at all in the building. I explored the whole ground floor and found no signs and no groups. When I went back into the parking lot I found another voter, who said that some kids in a gym class had told her the caucus was upstairs, but all the doors leading upstairs had been closed and locked.

There were no more than a dozen cars parked around the school. Who knows how many other people left in disgust?

It is bad enough that I can't participate above the precinct level because the St. Paul DFL discriminates against Sabbath-observant Jews, but I have always prized my participation in precinct caucuses. The DFL, with its sheer shoot-itself-in-the-foot incompetence, has stolen that from me and there is no way for me to get it back. Right now I am feeling that I have given the DFL the last dollar and the last hour that it is ever going to get out of me. I am furious and betrayed.

:shrug: :grr: :banghead:

[KitchenWitch]

10. I am sorry to hear about your bad experience

I know it is cold comfort, but I am sure there was some disorganization involved.

[katinmn]

12. Please contact DFL HQ and let them know.

DFL Headquarters Staff
Phone: [phone] / Toll Free: 1-800-999-7457
Fax: [phone]

Mailing Address:
Minnesota DFL Party
255 E Plato Blvd
St. Paul, MN 55107

[StarTurtle]

13. Already done. Thanks.

Before I even posted here I e-mailed John Stiles (SD65 chair), Allison Rick Thrash (SD65 associate chair), and Brian Melendez -- my e-mail to Brian I cc'ed to James Barone (CD4 chair) and Robin Madsen (CD4 associate chair). Frankly, I don't expect to hear word one back from any of them, but I've decided to give them 24 hours before I write to the Pioneer Press.

And, KitchenWitch, while I agree that there was some disorganization involved, I don't regard that as an excuse; I regard it as a symptom of the problem. I'll bet the suburban precincts got a whole lot more organizational help from the DFL than we did in the inner city.

[StarTurtle]

14. Locked out (2)

One reason I am so angry is that I took an entire floating holiday to go to my caucus because I work from 3 p.m. to midnight and I couldn't take only a few hours. So I didn't just piss away an evening, I pissed away one of my two floating holidays for the entire year just to find out that the DFL sets less than no value on me and my neighbors.

[katinmn]

15. You didn't have to use vacation. State statute mandates time off

What if I work or have school that evening?

Minnesota Statues section 202A.19 permits you to take time off from work without pay to attend your caucus if you give your employer written notice at least 10 days in advance. State universities, community colleges, and public school cannot hold classes or events after 6:00 p.m. on the evening of precinct caucuses.

State agencies, school boards, county boards, township boards, city councils, and all other political subdivisions cannot conduct meetings after 6:00 p.m. on caucus night.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't believe your experience is in any way reflective of DFL values. The organization -- as well as candidate organizations -- worked hard to get people to the caucuses and provide background material on what to do once there. I'm sure they would like to know if there were screw ups in order to prevent them from happening again.

[question everything]

16. Welcome to DU

Will be looking to more posts with less distressing news.

Yes, this is the problem of the caucuses. Could not attend for medical reasons that just jumped, but glad that everyone else had good experience.

[dpbrown]

22. MSA 202A.19 lets you take time off for caucusing

Minnesota Statues section 202A.19 permits you to take time off from work without pay to attend your caucus if you give your employer written notice at least 10 days in advance. That means you don't have to use a floating holiday, unless you want to.

[dpbrown]

18. Precinct Finder says your caucus was at Arlington High School

ST. PAUL W-5 P-02

Arlington High School
1495 Rice Street
St. Paul, 55117

For more information, please contact: Erica Schumacher [phone]

[StarTurtle]

19. I'm not in W5 P2, I'm in W5 P6. Trust me on this.

Also, I'm in SD 65, and all the precincts at Arlington were in SD 66.

[katinmn]

20. In post #8 you said you were in SD65, W5, P2

[StarTurtle]

28. Yes, I did, didn't I? Oops.

I have no clue why I said that except that I was tired and hungry and really, really irked. My precinct is W5, P6. Used to be W5, P12 before redistricting, which may be why I got my numbers mixed up, but the mistake is mine.

At least I got it right in my e-mails to Brian Melendez and the chairs of SD65 and CD4 (and I was right, I haven't had a response yet).

And I have already phoned John Stiles twice, with no response from him either.

:blush:

[dpbrown]

21. Your post says W5 P2, but P6 met at Wash. Jr. High School

ST. PAUL W-5 P-06

Washington Jr High School
1401 Marion St
St. Paul, 55117

For more information, please contact: John Stiles [phone]

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. I participated in the straw poll but don't know how it turned out

(precinct 13-2) because I had to leave early to meet tonight's translation deadline.

I considered trying for district delegate (there were enough open spaces), but I'll still be up to my eyeballs in projects at that point, so I volunteered as a city convention delegate. There were too many of us for the available slots, so not wanting to stick around, I was one of the people who volunteered to be an alternate.

I'd say there were maybe 100 people in attendance, not as many as 2004's record numbers, but still more than the 45 who are said to have turned out in 2002.

[dflprincess]

17. Bloomington SD 40 precincts 15 and 32

We double up some of the smaller precincts so I can report on a couple precincts. Turnout for our area was okay. We had 16 people show up for precinct 15 and 4 for precint 32 (some other precincts had much better turnout). Between the two precincts we had 55 delegate spots for the SD convention on March 18 - 9 people signed up to go.

Not many resolutions in these two precincts and no arguing, we were able to adjourn shortly after 8 pm.

If I recall correctly, Hatch and Klobuchar were the overall winners of the strawpoll - I was surprised that Kelley didn't do better. I was somewhat heartened that there were so many undecideds in the AG race, given that Entenza is the only one running. Mark Ritchie was actually at our caucuses, besides that we only had representatives from the Klobuchar and Freeman (Mike Freeman running for Hennepin County Attorney) campaigns. I was surprised there weren't more people there from other campaigns.

And no, the suburbs don't get any more help from the state DFL than anywhere else - at least not in my district. Outside of what the state supplies in the caucus packets, the senate districts are pretty much on there own so how well organized it is may depend on how much the people running the caucuses in your area know about running the event. The fact some places didn't even have signs up makes me suspect there were some real novices doing it.

[KitchenWitch]

24. for the most part, ours was pretty well organized

Tim Culver (Bloomington School Board) was the convener for my precinct. We had 29 available delegate spots for the SD41 convention, and we had about 25 present in the caucus, with 16 chosing to be delegates. We had 3 openings for the county convention, with two alternates, I am going to serve as one of the three going to the county convention!

The only actual candidate that visited us was Andrew Borene who is running for state senator (against Michel) in our district. Later, Kurt Laughinghouse and one of Borene's campaign workers came in (this campaign worker had worked on Barack Obama's US Senate campaign). Overall there was some good information out there.

I wish I had been able to meet you dflprincess, it is a shame that our caucuses were in different buildings.

I am not sure if there were any other DUers in my precinct. Only time will tell, I guess.

[dflprincess]

25. I know both Kurt and Tim

I saw Tim at the last SCC meeting, he was there working for the Kelley campaign. I haven't seen Kurt in ages - I just hate the way redistricting carved Bloomington up into 3 different Senate Districts. There used to be a Bloomington DFL Club, but that fizzled away a few years ago.

I signed up to be a delegate to the Hennepin County convention so I will see you there!

[KitchenWitch]

26. I think I will have to buy a DU shirt!

[wellstone dem]

27. There were 3 people at mine here in outstate MN

The rain and sleet kept some people away. It was exciting because the other 2 people wanted to be precinct chair. I considered running so that it would be a 3 way tie, but I didn't. I voted for the person who had been precinct chair the fewest number of times. Senator Kelly and Patty Wetterling were both at our caucus. (there were about 15 in the jr. high).

[katinmn]

29. It is great that you got to hear from both Kelly and Wetterling.

The future belongs to those who show up!

Sorry about the bad weather, though.