Chaotic Dem Caucuses Were Held In ...

This is from today's Albuquerque Journal column by Jim Belshaw:

So, with confusion as our motif, we move on to the Democratic caucus. First, a few descriptive passages:"

• "Complete chaos."
• "The decision to have only one caucus site ... appears to have been a bad one."
• "Caucus leaders ... are allowing people to vote by blue slip."
• "Confusion reigns."

That was in Nebraska, not New Mexico. The quoted material comes from a newspaper reporter at the Omaha World-Herald.

Let's try another caucus.

• "We ran out of chairs."
• "We ran out of sign-in sheets."
• "We ran out of pens."
• "We ran out of tables."
• "We ran out of everything here except for people ... I had to climb up on the table and shout. I felt like I was under siege ..."

That's not New Mexico, either. It comes from a Democratic caucus worker in Washington state.

Then there was Maine. A reader of the Talking Points Memo blog checked in via iPhone at the beginning of the Democratic caucus:

"I am at the Portland caucus now and things here are very chaotic," he wrote. "The line stretched around the block 30 minutes before the doors opened and now encircles the entire block. There are far more people trying to get in than the high school can hold."

Something's going on out there, no?

Readers wrote in with thoughts on the New Mexico Democratic caucus, some with complaints, one with a bit of whimsy ("What if we called this caucus 'a practice session' and just put Clinton and Obama back on the regular primary ballot for June?").

One said the voting in Corrales was smooth and easy.

Another volunteered to work in the caucus. (Remember, the whole thing was done by volunteers in New Mexico.)

Find fault if you must, and even if the faults you find are on target, I think the Omaha World-Herald reporter was on to something when she wrote: "They (voters) say that despite the confusion and the traffic woes, most people were happy and in good spirits. They were just glad to be a part of something that was big."

That sounds right to me.