Minnesota Caucus Report: Huge Turnout!

I just returned from a Democratic caucus and the story of the day is turnout. I have not seen so many Minnesotans gathered in one place since the State Fair. And they were far from a uniform breed: young, old, black, white, disabled and able-bodied--it was among the more diverse assemblies I've seen as well. Having never before participated in a Minnesota caucus (we moved here from Ohio, land of the lost ballots, one year ago) I had no frame of reference. Luckily, the lady in back of me--a friendly gray hair--offered to be my institutional memory. She said it was 10x the turnout she had seen in 2004, which is undoubtedly an exaggeration but seemed possible considering the overwhelming mass of people that were filing in orderly lines (this is in a neighborhood in Nokomis, with a good deal of snow on streets lined bumper-to-bumper). With more than an hour before close of polls, they had already run out of the "official forms." I was surprised by the casualness of the caucus (compared to the touchpad Diebold machines that I was used to eating my vote)--I simply wrote down my choice on a scrap of paper and slipped it into a box.

I couldn't help but look at the votes a few fellow caucus-goers (all women of various ages) and I will say that four out of four of them wrote down Obama. This might be an anomaly because of the demographics of the neighborhood, but if it's at all emblematic, expect Obama to sweep Minnesota by a large margin.