Valley Dems to caucus for president

WASILLA — Valley Democrats, at least those not living in Sutton, will meet Saturday for the party’s Presidential Preference Caucus.

While the caucus promises little, if any, of the drama of the Republican contest March 6 that garnered Mitt Romney a win in Alaska (though he more-or-less tied with Rick Santorum in the Valley), it’s still going to be fun, organizers say.

“I kind of look at it as a celebration, a chance for Democrats to get together and celebrate the nominating of Barack Obama as our candidate,” said Gwen Heynen, chair of the Mat-Su Democrats.

Unlike in contested caucuses, there likely won’t be what Heynen referred to as a “fan-out” in which the meeting diffuses into different factions vying for votes for particular candidates. But that doesn’t mean there absolutely won’t be.

“It’s possible for us to still have a fan-out if somebody came in as a write-in or something or wanted to be on the ballot, they could possibly do that,” Heynen said.

There is a pretty high bar in place, though.

“When we ask if there’s anybody that objects to Barack Obama (those objecting) would have to total 15 percent of the people there for that objection to stand,” she said.

The main caucus is at the old Valley Cinema building on Old Matanuska Road next door to Evangelo’s.

Caucus week for Alaska Democrats starts today. Sutton is caucusing Thursday at Jamey Duhamel’s house. Democrats in Valley's northern reaches along the Parks Highway are meeting at the Twister Creek Restaurant in Talkeetna at the same time as the Wasilla caucus. If you’re a Talkeetna-ite or Willow-ite stuck in Wasilla that day, you can come to the theater.

The nominating process begins in Wasilla at 9:30 a.m., Heynen said

“It they want to be a part of the nominating process, which is the whole point of coming to the caucus, they don’t want to be later than 9:30.”

After the nomination and the unlikely-to-happen fan-out, Democrats will take up party business, seeking nominations for delegates to attend the national convention on behalf of Mat-Su. Nominees will be sent on to the state party with formal selection scheduled for the Democrats’ state convention on Mother’s Day Weekend — May 11-13 — in Fairbanks.

“We’ll be discussing any resolutions that people want to make or changes to the party platform that people want to make motions on,” Heynen said.

She said she’s excited for the caucus. She wasn’t there for the contested one in 2008.

“In 2008, we had Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, so people had to go through the whole fan-out process,” Heynen said. “We had, I believe they said, somewhere close to 1,000 people in 2008.”

Of course, she said, that kind of turnout is unlikely to be repeated this year.

“We’re excited that people have shown an interest and want to come to this, but we’re kind of not planning on 1,000 people this year.”

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.