Thread: Obama, Paul win in Clark County

Obama, Paul win in Clark County


Caucus results
Democratic Party


(complete Clark County results)

Barack Obama 66 percent
Hillary Clinton 33.7 percent
Uncommitted 0.24 percent
Dennis Kucinich 0.06 percent

Republican Party

(complete Clark County results)

Ron Paul 13.1 percent
Mike Huckabee 12.3 percent
Mitt Romney 10.7 percent
John McCain 8.8 percent
Fred Thompson 0.2 percent
Alan Keyes 0.1 percent
Rudy Giuliani 0.06 percent
Duncan Hunter 0.06 percent
Uncommitted 4.7 percent

STATE CAUCUS RESULTS

Democratic Party

(5,670 of 7,150 precincts - 79 percent)

x-Barack Obama - 67 percent
Hillary Clinton - 32 percent
Uncommitted - 1 percent

x-winner

Republican Party

(1,144 of 7,150 precincts - 16 percent)

John McCain - 27 percent
Mike Huckabee - 26 percent
Ron Paul - 21 percent
Mitt Romney - 17 percent
Uncommitted - 9 percent




Saturday, February 09, 2008
BY JEFFREY MIZE AND MICHAEL ANDERSEN, Columbian staff writers

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama bested New York Sen. Hillary Clinton by a 2-to-1 margin Saturday to capture the Washington Democratic Party caucus.



CNN and the Associated Press both called the election for Obama, reporting he is running strong across the state, winning at caucus sites in a wide variety of communities from Seattle to Yakima and Renton to Chehalis.

Washington State Democrats reported a record numbers of voters - possibly twice as man as in 2004's caucuses, which drew 100,000 people. More complete results are expected later tonight..

Here in Clark County, Obama rolled to a 2-to-1 victory over Clinton, a margin similar to what was recorded statewide.

On the Republican side, Clark County tallies revealed a fractured party with no clear front-runner. Ron Paul won the county caucuses by capturing 13 percent of the delegates to the legislative and county conventions. John McCain, the GOP presumptive nominee, finished a distant fourth with only 9 percent of the delegates.

Visits to two caucuses in Vancouver and Battle Ground showed strong support for Obama and Paul.

At Discovery Middle School, Democrats who packed the school’s commons areas favored Obama 2-to-1 over Clinton. Forty delegates who support Obama were selected for the party’s legislative and county conventions, compared with 20 for Clinton.

Results from the Republican caucus were more evenly divided, with 10 delegates supporting Paul and eight for McCain, who has all but wrapped up his party’s nomination.

Mike Huckabee received two delegates. Rudy Giuliani, who had dropped out of the race following the Florida primary and endorsed McCain, picked up a single delegate while two delegates are undecided.

Obama and Paul supporters also dominated many precincts meeting at Battle Ground High School, which hosted about 500 people for north-county Republican and Democratic caucuses.

"It's the triumph of hope over experience," said Brad Jeffries, 60, a computer consultant who was Clinton's only supporter in Hockinson precinct 625. "I was hoping there was actually somebody else who cared."

Down the hall in the library, eight of Jeffries' Republican neighbors had shown up for the caucus: five for Paul, two for Mitt Romney and one for Mike Huckabee.

All five of the 625th precinct's GOP delegates to the county convention would be Paul supporters, people at the table said.

"It went faster than I thought it would," said Dawn Woolcott, 44, a Hockinson homemaker who caucused for Obama in precinct 610. "I wish more people didn't think it was so daunting."

These results are from only one of several dozen caucus sites in Clark County. Complete tallies from Clark County and the state will be released later this afternoon and evening.

Saturday's caucus at Discovery was a decidedly Democratic gathering as more than 350 people streamed into the school's commons.

"I woke up early this morning and I thought my dream was we would run out of chairs," Ed Cote, the Democratic site coordinator at Discovery, said at the beginning. "Because that means so many people want to take our country back."

Just a couple hundred feet away, a less vocal crowd of about 50 Republicans attended their party's caucuses in the school's gallery.

Discovery Middle School is in the heart of the 49th Legislative District, which remains the most heavily Democratic part of Clark County.

The GOP caucuses were organized and tidy, with Republicans politely listening as Kathy McDonald, the party's site organizer, reviewed the upcoming election schedule and other details.

Meanwhile, the Democrats were more a frenzy of activity with people scrambling to sign in and gather around crowed tables, straining to hear speakers over the background noise and the smattering of occasional applause. Many people sat or stood along the sidelines, chatting among themselves or patiently awaiting for announcements.

Saturday's caucuses are just the beginning step in a long process to select delegates to the two party's national conventions. Delegates selected during Saturday's caucuses will move onto county conventions in April.

Cote, sporting a red WSU Cougars sweatshirt, is one of Washington's super delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver. He has attended every Democratic presidential caucus in Clark County since 1972 and has never seen such a large turnout.

"'84 was big, but this is far bigger," Cote said. "And this fits in with what is going on all across the country."

At Battle Ground High School, about 200 to 250 Democrats gathered in the cafeteria, broken into tables by precinct. There were almost 200 Republicans in the library at the school.

Don Arglin, a Hockinson fish biologist, showed up at Battle Ground's Democratic caucus at 2:30 p.m., just as organizers were folding up tables.

He was confused, he said -- he'd decided that morning to attend the caucus, after learning that the Democratic Party ignores the results of its primary election ballots.

But Arglin, 55, hadn't realized that in order to have your vote counted at the caucus, you had to show up when it began, at 1 p.m.

A caucus organizer told Arglin he'd missed his chance to vote, telling him that the confusion had been due to inaccurate reporting in the Portland media.

"I'm not very happy with the Democratic Party," Arglin said. "It's almost like the system's designed to eliminate the common people."

Cindy Carnahan, an organizer for Precinct 593, said she had to redirect a lot of people to their caucus sites.

“They don’t have their voter cards, so they don’t know what precinct they’re in,â€

Caucus results
Democratic Party


(complete Clark County results)

Barack Obama 66 percent
Hillary Clinton 33.7 percent
Uncommitted 0.24 percent
Dennis Kucinich 0.06 percent

These percents add up to 100%.

Republican Party

(complete Clark County results)

Ron Paul 13.1 percent
Mike Huckabee 12.3 percent
Mitt Romney 10.7 percent
John McCain 8.8 percent
Fred Thompson 0.2 percent
Alan Keyes 0.1 percent
Rudy Giuliani 0.06 percent
Duncan Hunter 0.06 percent
Uncommitted 4.7 percent

Am confused here--these percents add up to 49.96%
Who did the remaining 50.04% of the Republican Clark County voters vote for?

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
Franklin D. Roosevelt