With all 25 Democratic Votes in, CNN is calling Alaska for Obama!

[Up2Late]

<http://www.cnn.com/>

Any of the Alaska people here, from Alaska, going to the convention?

Maybe this would be another good question, if we have any Democratic Delegates here at DU?
And why or why not?

[Cha]

1. Yay! Alaska! Now if

Hawaii could have their say in the primaries! B-)

[Blue_In_AK]

2. We just got back from the caucus in Anchorage

a little bit ago. There were so many people there, I couldn't even believe it. I've posted some other places about it, so I won't repeat. Suffice to say that the Dems were truly out in force tonight.

[Up2Late]

4. OH, O.K.! You folks had a Caucus! I was wondering how they got Alaska's results so quickly...

...that makes more sense.

So, do you folks in Alaska do your caucus the same way as Iowa or is it more like the way the Republicans did it in West Virginia today?

[Blue_In_AK]

5. I wasn't paying attention to how the other places did it.

We just all showed up at the school and then went to different rooms depending on our state congressional districts. Or I should say they tried to put us in rooms, but there were so many people that they had to keep moving us into bigger areas. I've never seen so many Democrats in one place in Alaska before in my 36 years here. It was really incredible.

[Up2Late]

3. Alaska STATE INFORMATION: 3 electoral votes (from CNN)

Alaska
STATE INFORMATION: 3 electoral votes
477,040 total registered voters -- 14% Democratic, 25% Republican, 54% Independent, 7% Other

Does Alaska have a "open Primary," and what's with the 7% "Other"???

[Blue_In_AK]

6. We caucus

and it was closed. The Republicans do something called a "presidential preference poll." The "others" are Libertarians (a lot of them), Greens and something called "the Alaska Independence Party," who want to secede from the Union...really. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Independence_Party

We're a pretty eclectic bunch up here.

[Up2Late]

7. So what does that mean for the 54% Independents?

Are they able to pick a party each election or are they S.O.L.?:shrug:

[Blue_In_AK]

8. My husband is registered as independent

but he (and many, many others) were able to change their affiliation to Democrat at the caucus, even if only for one night. I assume the Republicans handled it the same.

When we have primaries for state offices and our national representatives, the Independents can pick either a Republican ballot (which has only Republican candidates on it) or the Democratic ballot which has the Democrats, Libertarians, Greens and anybody else. The Republicans chose to close their primaries a while ago because the Democrats were voting in the Republican primaries and messing up (according to them) their results. This was back when the Democratic party here didn't have much clout. That has changed quite a bit in recent years.

According to the paper this morning, statewide about 12,000 people participated in the Republican preference vote. Over 8,000 participated in the Democratic caucus. John McCain came in dead last here, Romney first, followed by Huckabee and Paul. Obama won the Democratic caucus by about three to one.