Far Across the Oceans, Pools of Voting Democrats [View All]

[kskiska]

TOKYO, Feb. 8 — The 80 chairs filled up a half-hour before the caucus was to start, as did two dozen more that were hastily brought into the back of the room, and then the chairs along both walls and the window ledges and the aisles in the 20th-floor meeting room overlooking the grounds of the Imperial Palace.

Before long, what the Japan chapter of Democrats Abroad really needed was one of those Tokyo transit workers who cram commuters into rush-hour subway cars.

"We had about 40 people show up for our caucuses in 1996 and 2000," said John McCreery, vice chairman of Democrats Abroad and a 24-year resident of Japan. "We knew there was more interest this year, so we thought we'd get 80 people."

Instead, 156 eager, percolating Democrats showed up Sunday at the meeting room of Tokyo's Foreign Correspondents Club, the great majority of them attending their first overseas caucus and many voting in their first presidential election.

"I never got involved in politics before; I never even voted," said Terri MacMillan, 46, who was raised in Harlem and now runs her own English translation company in Tokyo. "But I had to get involved this year because of George Bush and what he's doing to the world."

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