Faces from the Caucus

Legend has it there were two participants at the 2000 caucus, and 220 in 2004 at the Senior Center in Blaine. Saturday, the cavernous American Legion Hall in Birch Bay was packed. There were so many people and so few chairs that Bob Hendricks, the site manager, was moving so fast the camera couldn’t catch him in focus.

This Blaine High School Track & Field team sweatshirt described the situation. The wearer, Brandon Utter, now studies engineering at Whatcom Community College.

His friend Bobby King, a freshman at WWU, may have been the youngest voter of the few young registrants at the caucus.

The Obama people showed they know how to organize a campaign. Credit Richard May, an Obama field organizer who calls Blaine home. (He previously worked in Iowa, Nevada and Oregon.)

Obama signs lined the roads leading to the Legion. Obama posters studded the Legion’s walls. Standing by this one was the Whatcom Democratic Party stalwart, Bryan Dixon, precinct captain of #303. (Clinton supporters drew a few crude signs.)

One enthusiastic Clinton supporter, Sylvia Rhoads, stood firm. After reading an offered article by Peggy Noonan, an important speechwriter for Ronald Regan, concluding that Obama is “bullet proof“, she exuberantly stuck with Clinton.

Elsie Babcock came to decide between parties. Leaving the building before the vote, she said she had decided to be a Republican. However, “I could vote for Obama in the general election, but not Clinton.”

Hendricks mentioned the party in Whatcom County strives for diversity. We found these two people with distinctive hats. Could they be from Turkey or Finland? No, Chris Camp and Kim Coscarart are from Birch Bay. The hats hail from Nepal, purchased at Fair Trade Haven in Fairhaven. Camp became a delegate.

After the vote, came the appeal for money to support the Whatcom Democratic Party. Our precinct captain, Trudee Smith collected handfuls of contribution envelopes.

Despite being packed in like sardines, with little to do after signing up, most seemed to enjoy the experience.

Mine’ Hakim estimated the crowd at 700. Now a fragrance chemist who makes new leather scents for used car dealers, she previously worked conferences and learned to count in batches of 30.

Would 700 be 10 percent of the registered Democrats in the nine precincts? How will 700 compare with the number of voters in the primary whose vote won’t count for anything but headlines?