Well, I finally went to my first caucus last night and it was a bit different than I had thought it would be.
I think the turnout was somewhere around 123-125 people which was a good thing, because when I got home and turned on the news, they had news reporters at mega caucuses where 500-1000+ people turned out.
That must've been a madhouse.
(Click on the thumbnails to see larger pics)
At the sign up tableThey held the caucus at my precinct at a local building one block away from my place.
Most of the people there seemed very nice...
Waiting in lineThat is except for some of the Clinton supporters.
They kept cheering for Hillary at all the wrong times, sometimes interrupting the guy running the show.
And several of the women on the Clinton side were downright loopy.
(I think I say that out loud in the video at one point)
I heard one woman snapping on one of the other candidate's supporters and then she stalked off towards her table. (I never did find out what it was all about.)
And the guy in the blue shirt with the white beard and black stocking cap on the Clinton side (you can see him in the video) had a huge wet stain on the seat of his pants. I don't know if he fell on his ass in the snow before he got there or if he soiled himself. Either way, you could hear people talking about it under their breath to their friends or people sitting near them.
And he was elected as a delegate!
Other than a few wacky people showing up, it went pretty much by the numbers.
The people running it all seemed organized and did the best they could.
And Obama won!
The Obama precinct captain and his assistantAt our precinct, it ended up being 2 delegates for Obama.
Two delegates for Clinton and one for Edwards.
Three people did show up to support Chris Dodd and one guy came to support Kucinich but during the realignment phase, three were absorbed into the Clinton side and the Kucinich guy came over to the Obama tables.
I think there was a ouple of Biden supporters but I disn't pay attention to what tables they went to.
I was expecting that part of the caucus to take at least a half hour but all it took was about 5 minutes.
More people waiting in lineWe then wrapped it up about 20-30 minutes later and everyone except the precinct captains left.
I shot about 45 minutes worth of footage while there.
Since videos on Youtube cannot be longer than ten minutes, I had to first chop it in half and then trim up quite a bit with my editing software.
I tried to trim it down as best I could without it being boring and focus on the major events that took place there.
Also, you'll notice that it sometimes goes black for a second or two, that's just the fader effect.
I kept fiddling with the fader, wipe and dissolve features while shooting but didn't put them in any kind of order.
Sometimes there isn't a transition effect...it just cuts to the next scene.
I never really planned out how I was gonna shoot it, I just went and shot it on the fly.
The intro and outro by me
were planned.
Each video is roughly about 9 minutes long and there are two parts.
(Part 1 and Part 2)
If you really want to see what it's like to participate in a caucus, take 15-20 minutes and check out the videos below.
Enjoy!
Attending an Iowa Caucus: Part 1
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Part 2
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What do you think?