Dispatches From Nevada, Part 2

(This concludes the chronicle of the nurse-practitioner from Northern California who volunteered as a precinct captain in Saturday's Nevada Democratic caucus.)

By E. O'Meara

Saturday morning, I drove to the Washoe County Democratic Headquarters for a 7 a.m. meeting in which I was to get instructions on what kinds of suspicious activity to look out for at the caucus. But when I arrived, the building appeared empty and the door was locked. I stood around outside for 45 minutes until a young woman arrived (with a key). She knew nothing about my meeting, explaining that she was there as an HRC volunteer. I thought at first that those initials stood for a human rights group, until it dawned on me that they stood for Hillary Rodham Clinton.But as it turned out, the woman was also member of a human rights group that had endorsed Hillary!

Everybody in my training session was from California. When I'd gone to my initial caucus meeting on Presidents Day, I was told they only had about 60% of the precinct captains they needed from Nevada, and so had to seek out-of-state volunteers.

We all got a 35-page "NVDEMS Temporary Precinct Chair Caucus Day Guide." Our instructor had only one hour to get through two or three hours' worth of material as she outlined, with the aid of Power Point, all the steps and procedures we were to take.

At the end of this crash course, one HRC volunteer was visibly upset. "I have a degree and have had a successful career," she complained. "But this is too much to learn! What are the consequences if we don't do it right?"

"Focus on the math," the instructor soothed. "The math is the most important thing to get right."

The HRC people were assigned to Hug High School, and left by bus. Ten of us out-of-staters remained behind, including one self-described lawyer-engineer, who proceeded to perseverate for at least five minutes on repetitive math questions. (The math was in the guide and also on an enlarged worksheet for easy reference.)

The office Dems were waiting to get calls from precincts that needed help. Seven of the remainders were assigned as temporary chairs to three different locations. I joined two others on a trip to Shaw Middle School in Sparks, where 30 precincts would be caucusing. While we were waiting to get on the bus, the large screen TV in Dem HQ was tuned in to the Scalia funeral on MSNBC. So it was a relief to finally get out of there around 10:15 a.m.

We'd had been advised at our training session that it was OK to wear candidate buttons but "in your face" apparel such as shirts were forbidden. Stickers and signs also were not allowed. Still, there were multiple Clinton lawn signs right near the entrance of the school. People inside were wearing printed "Precinct Captain" T-shirts: purple for Sanders and blue for Clinton. Most shirts had buttons and stickers on them as well. I had on my black "Bernie for President" shirt underneath a vest and jacket -- and I kept it under wraps like a good student.

We met the site coordinator, who gave each of us a packet for temporary precinct captains.

Two of us went to a Spanish classroom, in which five precincts would be represented. I thought it was appropriate to get a classroom with a "Dreamers" poster on the wall outside.

Around 11:30, we got things started by selecting a permanent chair for each precinct. I went to check the entrance and noted that volunteers were using laptops and personal smartphones to sign people in. The line of caucus-goers was out the door, and the parking lot was overflowing. 

It was nearly noon when three other temporary precinct captains arrived in our room, probably having done double duty signing voters in. Two more were last-minute volunteers who needed an immediate crash course about various procedures. In our room, eleven caucus-goers showed up for five precincts in order to claim one delegate per precinct, broken down as follows: 4:3; 3:1; 1:0. These groups did not have to calculate viability (majority rules when there is one delegate up for grabs.)

One of the caucus-goers said she felt uncomfortable about being forced to make her choice in public, because her precinct consisted of her small street in an isolated area. She was fearful about potential harassment from her neighbors.

In two of the caucus groups, nobody wanted to be a delegate. My own assigned precinct had zero turnout! So who knows how that delegate will be assigned, if at all?

Meanwhile, at a Reno elementary school with three-precinct coverage, my girlfriend Karli was in a group that was 4-4 with a ninth delegate up for grabs. They almost broke out the deck of cards (no coin toss in Nevada!) but a recount gave the last delegate to Sanders.

Our precincts were done before 1 p.m. and we submitted our results by either calling them in or texting them.

Fear and Loathing, 2016

What better setting for the triumph of the casino capitalism that Hillary Clinton represents than an actual Las Vegas casino? What better venue than Caesar's Palace for the political enforcer known as Harry Reid to ensure the survival of the oligarchy for one more election cycle?

"Saturday may well be the day," caustically wrote Nevada journalist Jon Ralston, "that altered the course of the Democratic presidential race, when Hillary Clinton blunted Bernie Sanders’ campaign, when she was forced to work as hard as she ever has for a week (with a little help from a lot of friends) and slingshotted her with new momentum into South Carolina and then Super Tuesday. Nevada may indeed prove to be the day that saved Hillary Clinton’s campaign."

 Like Roman slaves let out for a brief Saturday airing, in full view of their masters, Nevada gambling and hospitality workers were herded into the caucuses. They cast their votes, not behind the usual private curtains, but in the full view of their employers and union bosses and blinding TV lights. It was a true Circus Maximus vibe, complete with hordes of salivating media predators pawing for release behind their cages as the mobs entered and exited through carefully placed vomitoria.  

America's Voting Booth

 
Even unabashed Hillary supporter, Chris Matthews of MSNBC, wondered aloud whether the caucus-goers were feeling any pressure to vote a certain way. TV correspondents, who seemed to outnumber actual citizens in some locales, complained that attendees were loathe to discuss whom they might be voting for. Some workers appeared fearful about backing a candidate not acceptable to their bosses.

Elsewhere in the state, though, wage slaves were not given an extended lunch break to do Reid's bidding. Only an estimated 17% of registered Democrats turned out to caucus. Many people, as reader E. O'Meara noted in a post from Reno last week, could not get the time off from work to vote. They only were granted a one or two hour window of opportunity to make their voices heard. That seems to have been a feature of the process, not a bug. 

That the Empress in Waiting barely squeaked out a "victory" by five percentage points over an underdog Democratic Socialist behind by double digits only a few weeks ago is testament to the emptiness of her campaign message of "Same Old Shit".

She is so imperious, so tone-deaf, that she couldn't even resist dinging the younger voters she will need to win the general election should she machinate and lie and triangulate and pander her way to the Democratic nomination. Echoing the loathsome Tweeting Clinton bundler I profiled in my previous post, Hillary went into full hectoring mode.

If you've been evicted, poisoned by filthy water, can't afford your medicine and get beaten by cops because of the color of your skin, don't expect any single payer health care or free public college tuition or a break-up of those really yuge casinos known as Wall Street banks. Hillary will give you just what Obama and Bill and Bush and Reagan have always given you: imaginary ladders of opportunity by which to hoist yourself up by your own bootstraps.

There will be no FDR-style Works Progress Administration or Job Corps. There will, however, be more trickle-down austerity -- or as Hillary put it in her neoliberal pep talk, "unleashing the innovation of our entrepreneurs and small businesses." Translated into plain English, this means more feeding at the public trough by private corporations, and tax breaks for such small business enterprises as yacht and luxury vacation home rentals.

And she had a very special tough-love message for America's lost generation, whose members now overwhelmingly identify as socialist:

But, I want you to think about this.

It can't be just about what we're going to give to you, it has to be what we're going to build together. Your generation is the most tolerant, and connected our country has ever seen. In the days ahead we will propose new ways for more Americans to get involved in national service and give back to our communities because everyone of us has a role to play in building the future we want.

I can't wait to hear her new proposals. They will probably involve no actual salary. Because unlike humanist Bernie Sanders, Clinton does not even pay her own young campaign workers. So I imagine that a Hillary Youth Movement would be modeled after Obama's Organizing for Action astroturf machine, which largely involves enlisting volunteers to propagandize for such job-destroying corporate initiatives as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And given Hillary's own hawkishness, she'll no doubt want to continue Michelle Obama's militaristic Joining Forces campaign, the brainchild of the Center for a New American Security think tank founded and staffed by "interventionist" Clinton Democrats, Wall Street investors, and defense contractors. 

Give back and give often. Give again and again for the good of the plutocracy, and Hillary will make you feel like you're really part of something as you struggle to survive.

Do I even need to tell you that after her very marginal victory in Nevada, her Editorial Enforcers are out in full force today, once again declaring that their candidate is Inevitable?  In a break from tradition and a slap in the face to democracy, the New York Times is already running Bernie's obituary on the front page. Even though, last I checked, he is not only still breathing, he's tied with her in (elected) delegates and is still ahead in some national polls.

Hillary kind of reminds me of Caesar Augustus's influential wife, Livia Drusilla. If you've ever read Robert Graves' I, Claudius or seen the BBC version, you know exactly who I'm talking about. In case you missed it, the series is still running on Hulu.

The big difference is that in Roman times, scheming political wives would poison or otherwise destroy their rivals in order to ensure the succession of their own sons. Livia, though, broke the glass ceiling of Caesar's Palace and became empress in her own right. Who needs sons, when you yourself can become the sun around which the planets of the corrupt ruling class and the sycophantic press can mindlessly revolve?

It's the 21st American century, thank goodness. So who needs to kill one's rivals, when you have the New York Times to do your character assassination for you?

 Of course, you still need heirs. And it's always a yuge campaign selling point to tell the masses how much you love being a Grandma. Livia was a doting Grandma, too. Her grandson was named Caligula.  

Dispatches From Nevada

Note from Karen:

Reader E. O'Meara of Northern California has been emailing me about her adventures the past several days, canvassing for Bernie Sanders in Reno and training as a leader for this weekend's caucuses. With her permission, I am sharing her journey with Sardonicky readers. Some names, including that of the author, have been changed in order to protect their privacy. The emails have been very lightly edited.
  

February 14:

I am working as a nurse practitioner in my local county jail, which has half its 400 population comprised of immigration detainees. 

My girlfriend/fiancee lives in Reno. There was outreach to Northern California peeps (I live 126 miles from her house) to help with canvassing this weekend, and I volunteered. Two days before coming out we found out Bernie was actually going to be there for a rally prior to the canvassing. There were only a few hundred people who came to the Reno rally (it's good to see that Las Vegas rally was better attended), but the energy was so good it was almost overwhelming to me at times. We saw Bernie and his wife a few minutes after the (four I think) Secret Service men arrived. Bernie was pretty punctual. He spoke for about 12 minutes, didn't say anything new, but he did speak to the Nevada issue of the solar business being busted by the PUC (Public Utility Commission).

The volunteers did a good job of getting everyone who came to canvass into groups. My girlfriend, Karli and I were joined by a very cool retired Indian man (his bumper sticker said "Medicare for None" with the Romney/Ryan name and logo beneath it). We were sent to a very wealthy, very Republican area with lots of space between lots. We were unable to finish all the houses on our lists (I hit about 30 houses) before calling it a day. It was a pretty discouraging experience, canvassing that area.

Three interactions stand out.

The first one was a 74 year old woman who had been identified as a "lean Bernie" Democrat. I asked if she would be going to caucus, and she didn't hesitate to say "No. Bernie's too old".

The second one was at a house where a female voter had been identified as Independent, I think (for sure not Republican!). A ruddy-faced, mustached white male in his late 50's or older answered the door and wouldn't let me speak with the person in question. "I'm not voting for him because he's a socialist!" Okay, but may I speak to so-and-so? "We're not voting for him because he's a socialist!"

At a third house, I asked the man answering the door if he was going to the caucus. "No," he replied. "I'm going skiing."

Since tomorrow is a holiday (and I have it off because I belong to a union!), I am going to a caucus training at the Washoe County Democratic HQ. I will volunteer to work at the caucus next Saturday. I was told they have 600 precincts to oversee, and they won't have too many volunteers. Besides the usual stuff, they also need people to be on the lookout for illegal antics from the other side; they want people to record suspect behavior.

Karli and I went to see the Michael Moore movie ("Where To Invade Next") today. It's not showing in my town theater (such a redneck place it is), but I am taking my kids to see it an hour away this coming Wednesday evening because it is such an important movie. 

(Ed. note: So much for claims from Clintonites that Bernie is a one-note campaigner: The New York Times covered his Reno visit here. A more extensive account of the rally from the Reno Gazette Journal is here. )

Feb. 16:

I went to a caucus training on Monday at the Washoe County Democratic HQ.  I knew nothing about caucuses until this election. My girlfriend didn't even know Nevada had a caucus until this year.

Nevada switched from the primary to the caucus in 2008 with the help of Democrat Harry Reid, since an early Western state was wanted and the demographics in New Hampshire and Iowa weren't representing the party well anymore. The Republicans and Democrats are caucusing on different  dates, the former's being three days after the South Carolina primary. Independents can't participate in the caucus.

http://nvdems.com/caucus/how/

People must be in attendance at a caucus to let their will be known. The window for being allowed to get into the caucus is very small: 11 am to 12 pm for Democrats on Saturday, Feb. 20. The Republican caucus is on Tuesday Feb. 23 in the evening (they have to bring photo ID, but the Dems don't). For the Dems, one must be inside or in line by 12 pm. Anyone arriving after that time doesn't get to participate.

After formalities, people get into groups depending on their chosen candidate. Some people may be undecided, and they get their own group. Using a mathematical formula based on allotted delegates for that precinct, the number of voters present, and the number in the individual groups, "viability" is determined. If a group is not viable, its members may decide to switch to a different group or not be part of one, after members of the other groups have a chance to convince them to go to their side. Once the viable groups have been set, the number of delegates they have won are determined based on a mathematical formula, then chosen from the group to go on to the county convention. (Interestingly, an undecided group can potentially be viable.  It behooves each group to select their allotted number of delegates, because if they don't, the delegates that are then chosen by the Party don't get to go beyond the state convention. (It's county, state, then national)

Why a caucus over a primary? There is no way everyone who wants to participate can. Although a Saturday is preferable to a weekday, people must work. A one-hour window is seriously inferior to the 12-hr window when voting in person, or the days-long window for mail-in ballots. And what about voters who are home-bound? Agoraphobic? Not willing to sacrifice their weekend?

But I think I found out why: parties pay for the caucuses; taxpayers pay for the primaries. Nevada had a $500,000 bill one primary with a low turnout. Also, for whatever reason, the parties had wanted two early primaries and two early caucuses. Both of the primary slots and one caucus slot were already taken.

They need lots of volunteers to help with the 600 precincts in Nevada. We out-of-staters have been asked to show up at HQ at 9 am on caucus day and await instructions on where to go based on needs as they arise.

I'll write again after the Saturday caucus.