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Record Number of Democrats Throughout California Pack Delegate Selection Caucuses Including 980 in Oakland for Obama
By Frank D. Russo
In what can only bode well for Democrats in the November election in California, reports from all around the state show an unprecedented number of the party faithful attending caucuses for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to select the actual delegates who will go to the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
I saw this in the 9th Congressional District caucus for Obama held here in Oakland where 980 Democrats voted in a multipurpose room at Beebe Memorial Church. 102 candidates competed for four delegate slots and one alternate position. Attendees had to navigate their way through delegate candidates with signs, literature, spiels, and in some cases cookies, to get a ballot. The line formed before the doors opened at 2 p.m. and when the speeches began at 3:15 p.m., fifteen minutes late, the line went out the door, through the parking lot and all the way down the block.
Accounts in the press and blogosphere from across the state, coming in by dribs and drabs from the 106 caucuses, routinely describe the turnout as setting records and the level of enthusiasm and excitement as high. That matches what I observed in Oakland in what was a lovefest with not a harsh word said by a single person and folks fired up to do whatever it takes to win in November.
A record number of 2,850 candidates vied for 241 delegate slots in separate caucuses for Clinton and Obama in each of the state’s Congressional Districts. In Oakland, as in virtually all of the reports from around California, Obama supporters outnumbered those in the Clinton caucuses—but the numbers were record setters for both of them.
The winners in Oakland for Obama were Ayelet Waldman, an author in her own right and the wife of Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon, who received about 230 votes, closely followed by Jenn Pae, a recent graduate of U.C. Berkeley who had a website for her candidacy, Fred Feller an attorney, and Mark Friedman, a former El Cerrito City Councilmember and longtime Democratic activist. Darlene Brooks was elected as an alternate.
At the Oakland Obama caucus, many new voters were registered before receiving their ballots and even a few decline-to-state voters and Republicans were reregistered. [Pictured right]
In San Francisco, Paul Hogarth, who fell just shy of winning a delegate position wrote: “Four years ago, 200 Democrats selected the San Francisco delegates for John Kerry to the National Convention. Yesterday, 687 showed up to pick the three pledged delegates (and one alternate) for Barack Obama.” His article is worth reading to get the flavor of that caucus.
From San Jose: "The enthusiasm is terrific," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, an Obama supporter, looking over the Obama caucus at San Jose State University's University Theater. "There were half the number of people here four years ago."
The Sonoma Press Democrat reports that, according to California Democratic Party campaign strategist Bob Mulholland, statewide the turnout was more than double that of any past year and that 23,000 attended caucuses yesterday across the state. The significance of this beyond Sunday is seen in this one quote that caught my eye: "This is a beautiful thing," said Osborn, a white-haired 75-year-old whose first presidential vote was cast for John F. Kennedy in 1960."It's exciting," she said. "I really think this is a democracy. It's beginning to restore my faith."
This is a theme you see repeated over and over again in the articles on these caucuses. For example, from rock-ribbed Republican stronghold Escondido in Eastern San Diego: “Some had never been involved in politics before this year. Others have been working for candidates since John F. Kennedy inspired them as teenagers.”
Young and old, in blue and red areas of the state, diverse in every way—if our faith is instilled or restored in democracy—and we get out to vote—this will be a very good year for Democrats and a reawakening of civic engagement.
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