Obamania Strikes Wallingford:

On account of My Better Judgement, i was going to steer clear of caucusing. Nothing good can come out of it, and Its best to leave the choice of Obama v. Hillary to those who actually care. Someone once said "idle hands are the devils tools," and this has never rung more true than yesterday when, with absolutely nothing better to do I walked to the Middle School and readied myself to be a cantankerous jackass.

The term "devils advocate" stems from the Roman Catholic church canonization proceedings. Also known as the "Promoter of the Faith," this individual was appointed by the Church to argue against the canonization candidate. His role was that of a skeptic, questioning the candidates character and refuting any miracles attributed to them. In common use, the "devil's advocate" is one who takes a position for the purpose of argument. This role is best served by contrarians and malcontents, people who are naturally inclined to question the Collective Wisdom.

I was never looking to be a Devils Advocate in the 2008 Democratic Presidential Nomination race. I had a candidate, Bill Richardson, who I was more than happy to support all the way. Unfortunately, only about 4% of caucusing and primary voting Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire agreed with me, so an exceedingly qualified and fascinatingly resumed candidate was left by the side of the road on the way to Nevada... resigned to slink home to his neighboring home state and watch the race unfold without him.

Meantime, the race was narrowed to two horses, and unbeknownst to me until yesterday, most Wallingfordians had put their money behind Obama.

This alarmed me at first, as I had only gone to the caucus hoping to inspire a spirited debate with my shouting. In fact, that's why I almost didn't go. Had Snoqualmie Pass been open yesterday, there is no way I would ever had attended. Even so, it was only by shaming myself into going that I went, afraid of what it was I had to do. I had been joking for weeks that "if I go to the caucus I'm just going to yell at people," and the only problem was is that the joke is that it wasn't a joke.

I waited in a crowded gym, unpatiently, for 30 minutes, leaning against a wall and not so much as making eye contact with people. As soon as things came to order at about 1:30, there was an obvious problem.

About 8-10 precincts were meeting at Hamilton Middle School, and as such there were three precincts meeting in the "East gym" alone. As our precinct officer called things to order, and the 100+ people in the gym clustered into three groups, it was nearly impossible to understand what people standing less than 20 feet from me were saying. Frankly, that hardly mattered...

After the preliminary vote count was tallied, it was announced that it currently stood at 5 delegates for Obama, 1 for Hillary, and 1 for "undecided." The undecideds (or most of us) then gave ourselves up by raising our hands. Now the fun part began.

I gathered people were being given 1 minute to make statements, most were for Obama and just a couple for Hillary. Then the precinct officer started to move to the next order of business. "Wait a minute," I interrupted her, what about the undecideds... do we get a chance to make a statement?"

Now was my moment, heart racing, i climbed up on the table, introduced myself, and then, shouting to be heard...

"Anyone can get up in front of a group of people and talk, I'm proving that right now. We've all had a chance to see over the last 7 years what happens when you have an incompetent executive in office." People began to clap and cheer but I put up my hands to stop them. "I'm pissed off because I had a candidate, Bill Richardson, who never had a chance, and I don't know why! He had the best resume and qualifications of anybody running, but I guess he wasn't a good public speaker... well, neither am I... believe me, my heart is going about 180 right now." By this point, a woman in another precinct group began to sush me, saying I was being too loud and they couldn't hear in her group... this only emboldened me, and I began to speak louder.

'We allowed ourselves to get too caught up in change, and we ignored resumes and qualifications." I raised my voice even more as the woman continued to try to sush me. "I see two candidates who don't have the qualifications to be President, and I need people to convince me that they are. I'll be over here..." I stepped down, pointing behind me to my spot of safety against the wall.

One guy in a green shirt immediately came over and shook my hand, and about 6 or 7 others trickled in my direction. A woman started in about Obama being less divisive, and I somewhat rudely cut her off. "The Democrats lost in '04 because they didn't fight dirty. Hillary's right when she says she's vetted and tested. The Republicans win elections by being divisive... they draw a line and the sand and force people to pick a side."

I could tell this wasn't popular, but it sparked a short debate. All the people around me were Obamaniacs, so it wasn't much of one. Then i chimed in on health care... the issue I had arbitrarily decided to be my focus less than 24 hours earlier.

I tried to argue for Hillary, but, lacking genuine conviction, it was half-hearted. It was my nature as a malcontent and contrarian to take the devils advocate approach. The discussion was polite and mild mannered, and I ended it with my qualms about the ever-increasing extra-constitutionality of the role or President, a trend started some time ago but pushed to new limits by Bush, et. al. I explained that I felt the next President, whoever it is, is going to have to be faced with the awkward task of limiting his or her own power.

This is a difficult topic to discuss, but I got some decent feedback... again supporting Obama, by then, the next order of business, the "final tally" was up. People had the opportunity to change their votes, and someone mentioned to me that I needed to be a delegate for "undecided." I talked with another undecided, and woman who couldn't be a day over 21. She had decided to go with Obama. I explained to here that the intellectually honest thing for me to do was stay "undecided."

And that was basically it... the next order of business was delegate selection, and there were to be 6 for Obama, and 1 for Hillary. Having no further business for myself, I left.