Doing our part

Democratic primaries were held around the country in the past week, and Diana and I were part of the most convincing wins for Barak Obama.

I caucused here in Boise. As you may know, there aren't that many Democrats in Idaho, so to save money, there is only one caucus per county in Idaho. Two things were especially notable this year:

• Barack Obama was the first major presidential candidate to visit Idaho in over 20 years. 14000 people gathered to hear him speak at 9 am on a Sat morning (unfortunately, I was on call at the hospital).
  
• the Ada County caucus (which includes Boise), was the largest Democratic caucus in the U.S. About 8500 people showed up to wait in the cold in lines that meandered around downtown Boise.
  
• for the first time in over 20 years, each of Idaho's 44 counties held a Democratic caucus.

Inside the Ada County caucus, it was overwhelmingly for Obama. As we were waiting for the initial vote count, I looked over at the Hillary Clinton supporters and I doubted that they would have 15%. They didn't. This means that the only viable candidate in Ada County was Barak Obama. In fact, only one county in the whole state went for Hillary Clinton.

In Washington, where the caucuses were held four days later, Barack Obama also won overwhelmingly. In fact, not a single precinct in the whole state went for Hillary Clinton. So essentially, Diana and I led the two most dramatic victories for Obama.

I think what this clearly shows is how unpopular Hillary Clinton is in the rural west (possibly even the west in general), combined with how excited voters are about Obama. Still, the race isn't over and I cringe thinking about the potential role of superdelegates and the delegates in Florida and Michigan. Hopefully the race won't come down to that.