**live Iowa Caucus report**

[cyberswede]

Just locked the door - looks like about 300 at my small town caucus (unofficial).

[cyberswede]

1. bilingual caucus volunteers - awesome!

[book_worm]

4. Great! Let us know how it goes.

[cyberswede]

5. First item of busness

Pass the hat for donations...of course.

[book_worm]

6. BTW, where is your caucus located--I mean city and/or county.

[cyberswede]

8. A small town in SE Iowa

[book_worm]

10. Thanks! It's great to hear the geographic locations.

[cyberswede]

7. Next: identifying volunteers for the county party...

Precinct chairs, etc.

This is actually the primary function of caucuses: party organization.

Caucus chair reads a letter from the IA Democratic Party chair, Andy McGuire that emphasizes the importance of continued involvement after the caucus is past.

[Gregorian]

9. How cool is that. Live coverage from inside!

[cyberswede]

11. Now electing caucus officers

(Which are usually the people who are already running things for the evening)

[Paulie]

12. Who has the most power?

The one controlling the baked goods?

Thank you from this Primary state person for the updates.

[Live and Learn]

13. K&R nt

[cyberswede]

14. Some disorganization as the caucus chair gets a head count...

This is the baseline count, so we can calculate percentages after we split.

Herding cats...

[cali]

15. Thanks for doing this, cyberswede

It's really interesting.

[cyberswede]

16. Remarks from each campaign representative now

[cyberswede]

18. Clinton & Sanders has Spanish translations of their statements

A high school girl read the Sanders letter - well done!

[cyberswede]

20. I tried to grab video, but couldn't post it...prolly wifi issues

[SidDithers]

17. DU rec...

Keep the updates coming. They're fascinating.

Sid

[cyberswede]

19. Choosing preference groups now!

Exciting part!

[brooklynite]

21. Looks like O'Malley Campaign didn't issue t-shirts to their precinct captains...

[cyberswede]

22. We have 2 precincts in one room, so half on each side

111 people in one, and 148 people in my precinct.

[cyberswede]

23. O'Malley needs 15 on one side, and 23 on the other to be viable. nt

[cyberswede]

24. HRC and SBS groups look pretty even. nt

[cyberswede]

25. HRC has some great Latino outreach

There are non-English speakers with Hillary stickers...all ages, working class, busness people. Good on her campaign.

[cyberswede]

26. HRC 81, SBS 63, MOM 4 in my precinct.

O'Malley had 3 go to Bernie & 1 go to HRC, so final is HRC 82, SBS 64.

Now we elect delegates to the County Convention.

[cyberswede]

27. HRC gets 6 delegates; SBS gets 4 delegates. nt

[Howler]

28. Damn.

Hey thanks cyberswede. (((Hug))) you did an excellent job of describing it. I felt I was there.

[cyberswede]

29. These delegates go on to the next level...

a big meeting for the county where different committees decide various things, including the county's contribution to the party platform.

At the county convention, delegates to the State Convention are elected (and they actually campaign for this), and from there, delegates to the National Convention are elected. It's a big deal to get to go to the big show.

Every county convention sends their suggestions for the platform to the state convention, where another committee reviews and votes on what to send to the National party for the platform. It's cool that any individual person can propose platform items or amendments, and if they pass through all the steps, they can get their item on the national platform.

[Howler]

31. Sweet!

[cyberswede]

30. The other precinct in my bldg went 60-51 for HRC - pretty darn close!

I was pleased to see so many Dems in my community turn out!