As I wrote in my final posts during the week, I sensed my Edwards support slipping away and by Friday night, I knew I had real trouble. It wasn't that many supporters were defecting to other campaigns (only a few did) but that at least 11 of my solid supporters had health problems in their families that would keep them away. (At the time, I was projecting a viability number of about 12 and had about 18 strong supporters Id'd.) I picked up a few undecideds in my final round of calling Fri night/Saturday but at least 3 more on whom I was counting didn't show at the caucus.

Even before things started, they heated up. At 9:50am, before even the sites were to open up for temp prct chairs to begin setting up, I got a call from a pct captain that Clinton supporters were setting up signs and passing out lit in the parking lot -- which the party had made clear was against the rules. I went over and was surprised to find that the registration table for the precinct had been set up outside the school and had been plastered with Hillary stickers. I pointed out to the temp precinct chair, who happened to be my state Senator, that this was against the rules, and he pooh-poohed my concern, suggesting "we should take a liberal interpretation of the rules." I asked if he really wanted me to have to call in to complain about him doing this, and he agreed to remove the stickers. I didn't call and went to my own site.  (Apparently they responded to calls complaining about this by stating that "we can't control what goes on outside the caucus room.")

At my site, there was a different problem. Although the room was not supposed to open to voters until 11am, both the Clinton supporters and an Obama campaign staffer had already postered a wall each. I was rather upset and pointed out a) they were not supposed to even be in the room for an hour and b) were only supposed to place one poster per campaign on the wall (the state party had reiterated this rule in a memo to each campaign on Thursday). This time I did call the state party, put the call on speaker, and got the situation clarified. We would each post only one poster.

After that, things settled down and ran smoothly for the most part. Although I had originally signed up to be the temp pct chair and gone to the training, my wife (who also attended the training) suggested last night that she should chair the caucus, so no one would be upset about my evident support for Edwards. I agreed, esp since this freed me up to try to win over much-needed supporters. That turned out to be a smart choice, both because it helped settle the situation (she had stayed scrupulously non-committed throughout the campaign) and because she ran the process superbly, with much greater attention to detail than I could have given it.

It quickly became evident that a) we were going to have a much larger turnout than I had expected and that b) the Clinton campaign had done a terrific job of mobilizing its voters. (They very effectively got their precinct leaders to the sites very early by distributing their packets not during the week, as we had, but on Saturday at 7am.) All the calling not only got a good # of their people out but got them their early; Clinton supporters were arriving in large numbers by 10:30.

By 11:15, we had long lines out the door for sign-in and new registration. All told we had 103 previously registered voters sign in (of about 650 democrats in the precinct) plus a whopping 36 new registrants, for a total of 139 (though at the count-off, we came up with 143, a discrepancy that remained unexplained.)

What most surprised me was the heavy Latino turnout for Clinton and the very low turnout of Latino voters for Obama. I asked the Obama precinct captain if she was expecting a bus load of Culinary members (Culinary uses mini-buses to shuttle voters to the polls on election day) and she said no. That pretty well settled the outcome. AS it turned out, there were Culinary members in all three groups; the Edwards group also had at least one SEIU and one AFSCME member.

As at other sites, a dispute erupted at 11:30 over whether the doors needed to be shut at that point. Both the Obama and Clinton campaigns had instructed their captains that the doors needed to be shut at 11:30. The temp pct chair training had said thus, but also encouraged chairs to use their discretion to allow late arrivals to sign in if it would not prolong the start of the caucus at noon. Moreover, the state party had clarified to the campaigns (but not the pct chairs) that anyone arriving at noon should be allowed to participate. But the Clinton pct cptn was quite vociferous that the doors needed to be shut at noon. Our pct chair overruled her and allowed the only voter who arrived atfter 11:30 to sign in and participate.

By 11:45, thanks to volunteers from each campaign who helped with the sign in, we were ready to elect our chair and secretary. (After my wife was confirmed as chair, I nominated the Clinton precinct captain to be secretary to promote concord, which seemed to work well.) Since we could not count in until noon, the chair suggested short speeches. I made a plea for help to reach viability so that the issues Edwards raised would continue to be heard as the campaign went national, and so that Edwards focus on issues (which I symbolized by holding up the policy book) would set the tone for the rest of the primary, rather than "a quarter of a billion dollars of campaign donations and fights over who's suing whom ..." I liked my speech but it didn't win any spontaneous support.

As the end of the first allignment approached, Clinton had 80, Obama 46, Edwards 13, Kucinic 2 and uncommitted 2. Each of the 3 campaigns made a short pitch for the 2 Kucinic supporters who then said they would come to Edwards if it would make us viable. The uncommitted voters also agreed to come if it would make us viable, as did one Obama voter and one Clinton voter. I was now only three voters short, but I could not let the 15 minutes expire without at least getting 3 more uncommitted (because members of viable groups cannot reallign under NV rules). So I went to the Clinton group and explained that if they helped me reach viability, they could deprive Obama of at least 2 delegates without hurting their own cause. I urged them to move at least 3 people to uncommitted, which would at least make it mathematically possible for us to reach the 22 we needed for viability.

To my surprise, the Clinton captain had no idea what I was talking about and could not understand either why they should move supporters to uncommitted, or why I would suggest that most of the Edwards supporters would go to Obama if we failed to be viable. I explained quickly and had more or less convinced her when time ran out. I pointed out she had to do it now and that if my math was wrong, she could get her voters back in the 2nd 15 minutes. She agreed but only one Clinton supporter volunteered to move. As I pleaded for her and one of the two others assisting her to move themselves, the OBama captain quite rightly began to point out that time was up. (I had told the Obama captain I would come to their group if I were not viable, but to her credit, she was not put off that  was trying to help Edwards at her expense.)

So I redistributed the preference cards to the Edwards supporters, thanked them for their support, explained I would be supporting Obama and that they could choose Obama, Clinton or to leave the caucus. Of our 13, two went to Clinton (including my wife) and the rest plus the 2 Kucnic and one of the uncommitted went to Obama, resulting in a final tally of 83 - 60. That resulted in 8 delegates for Clinton, six for Obama. (By my calculation, had the Clinton captain agreed to my deal, the resulting final vote of 77-43-22 would have resulted in a delegate distribution of 8-4-2.)

At this point, all but about 18 people left the caucus in a stampede. The captains phoned in the results, and of those remaining, few volunteered to be delegates to the county convention. As a result, I was elected as an Obama delegate and my wife as a Clinton delegate.

As I called my other pct captains in my district, it became clear that Edwards had hit viability in the other precincts but not picked up additional delegates, suggesting it would be a long day. By the time I arrived at the Edwards gathering, it became clear how devastating a defeat it would be.