Dean wins "first in nation'" Caucus! (Santa Cruz, Calif)

[RevolutionStartsNow]

Today Santa Cruz, California held the nation's first caucus. It's not quite Iowa, but check it out:

The non-biding caucus was sponsored by the Santa Cruz County Democratic Central Committee, the People’s Democratic Club, Santa Cruz County Democratic Women’s Club and North Santa Cruz County Democrats, and included a keynote speech from U.S. Rep Sam Farr and closing remarks from Assemblyman John Laird.

The hall was hopping. We had 2 live donkeys, bagpipers, and some great singing. After the entertainment, representatives for each candidate (except Lieberman and Sharpton) spoke to the crowd, and ballots were cast.

The results, from 441 ballots:

Dean 42%
Kucinich 29%
Clark 25%
Kerry 2%
Edwards 1%

Braun and Sharpton each had less than 1%

Go Dean!

[morgan2]

1. what were the donkey's for?

never mind I just have a sick mind.

[tinanator]

28. 7 virgins and a mule

nah, probably not.

[w13rd0]

2. Wow...

...THAT is a left leaning town...

Haha. Cool!

[RevolutionStartsNow]

3. Yes, it is very left-leaning

It was surprising that Dean won, in fact; the common wisdom around here is that DK owns this town.

[hellhathnofury]

4. Victory is ours.

[HFishbine]

5. Damn! Go Kucinich!

That's awesome.

[dogman]

6. Dean for President of Santa Cruz!

Is that bigger or smaller than Vermont?

[RevolutionStartsNow]

11. yeah, the Clark people were VERY disappointed

They had an okay turnout and lots of signs, costumes, etc. Lots of flash. And their speaker was EXCELLENT. They obviously prepared hard for this event.

But Dean won it handily, by a much larger margin that I expected.

[slinkerwink]

25. hehe, Clark should've entered the race two years ago....

[Hoppin_Mad]

7. Santa Cruz voted to impeach bush* too - Theyre REAL progressives there -nt

[Closer]

9. If they're such progressives

how the hell did Clark do so well?

Unless it was an open primary and some republicans showed up.

[dogman]

14. Some want to win back the White House.

There are some people who are good at basic math.

[Dookus]

8. heheh...

I've lived here in Santa Cruz for 6 years now. I love it here. What a quirky little town.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

12. Hey Dookus were you there?

It was cool.

[hellhathnofury]

13. Since I have the chance, What do you think of UC-Santa Cruz students?

I'm thinking of going there.

[mouse7]

15. So you want to be a UCSC Fighting Banana Slug, eh? n/t

[hellhathnofury]

17. Maybe if all else fails. I'm trying to leave CA.

Damn Arnold, damn Reagan. Doing all they can to ruin the UC's.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

18. Yes, and it's only going to get worse here, with Arnie as Gov.

The new budget is brutal, and the schools are really going to suffer. This was a big topic at the caucus.

[hellhathnofury]

19. Why are college students the only one's who have to pay new taxes?

Grah! How could Californians be so stupid?

[RevolutionStartsNow]

16. I went there!

But it was many years ago. It's a beautiful campus, and a great school.

Lots of Dean supporters on the campus!

[Dookus]

21. You'd love UCSC...

it's a great school on one of the most beautiful campuses in the country.

To Amerikav, no, I wasn't there. Wish I had been, though!

[tinanator]

24. best in the world

not a doubt about it. And the campus is like a bit of heaven on earth. None better.

[slinkerwink]

10. that's great news!

[cryofan]

20. DK is 2nd! I wonder if the news media will pick up on this?

There are no google news hits for the results, but here are some links to some articles written prior to the event:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22Santa+Cruz%22+caucus.

And here is text from one of the articles:
Democratic groups plan countywide caucus today. Saying they are worried that early caucuses and primary elections in states such as Iowa and New Hampshire could decide their party's presidential nominee before Californians vote March 2, four Santa Cruz County Democratic groups have decided to ``pre-empt'' Iowa's Jan. 19 caucus.

The groups today will hold a non-binding, Iowa-style countywide caucus of their own at the Santa Cruz Veterans Hall.

``We wanted to give Democrats in Santa Cruz County a chance to make their presidential preferences known before voters in other states set the choice in cement,'' Julie Conway said. ``It'll be a cross between a caucus and a straw poll.''

The public is invited to the event. But only people who are registered as Democrats or have declined to state their political preference can vote.

[Jerseycoa]

23. Congratulations, cryofan and friends

:toast:

[Jerseycoa]

22. WhooHooo

:toast:

Well done!

[LuminousX]

26. Don't those numbers mimic MoveOn's primary?

MoveOn results
Howard Dean 44 percent
Rep. Dennis Kucinich 24 percent
Sen. John Kerry 16 percent

Of course Clark was still waiting to be 'persuaded' to run for President at this point in time so was not part of the vote.

[dpbrown]

27. Go Kucinich! 29%! Yeah, baby!

Do I make ya' feel like caucusing, baby?

Do I?