Caucus crowd boost for Dems

I would like to thank everyone who attended the Democratic Caucus at the Grandview/Wasilla High School, Talkeetna and Anchorage. Since moving to Palmer in 1999, I’ve attended the caucus each presidential election cycle. If we ever broke 50 people for our combined district caucus (Districts 12, 13, 14, 15, 16), it wasn’t by much. So when the state party told us to expect around 300, I really didn’t believe them. We’ve been told before to expect large crowds for events only to see the same people show up.

We prepared for 300 hundred people, believing it would be more like 150 who would actually show up. Our organizers were shocked when they showed up at 3:30 to find people waiting to register (registration wasn’t scheduled to start until 4:15). I took the day off to make final preparations for the caucus, but spent the day answering telephone calls from people with questions. When I arrived at the caucus site, I realized we were in for a big night as the parking lot was pretty full and there was a line to the door.

When we moved to the high school, I was concerned that a majority of people would just go home in frustration. We don’t have final numbers yet, but I don’t think we lost many people in the move. It was great to see the gym with nearly standing-room only. I’ve been an officer in the party for years and never thought I’d see that many Democrats in one place in the Valley, ever.

I know the process was confusing and frustrating. I think a lot of us felt like the man that was asked to empty the swamp that was full of alligators. We knew there were way more than we expected, but we didn’t want to deny anyone their right to be able to indicate their preferential preference. Because of the unexpected turnout, the registration process took longer than we had planned. We thank all of you for your patience.

Walking around talking to people, I heard comments such as “I didn’t know there were this many Democrats in the Valley!” Some of the regulars to our Democrat dinners and other party activists were walking around on Cloud Nine. This is something we have been dreaming about for years.

I hope all of you who attended will stay excited and will join us at other events. Let us hear from you as to what your caucus experience was like. Give us your ideas about how to improve the Democratic Party, nationally, statewide and locally. My email address is usnret58@yahoo.com.

Once again, thank you so much for attending, for your patience and for your future support.

Gilbert Lucero, chair

Mat Su Democrats

Wasilla