It’s been a long 48 hours for me here in the heart of Texas. Monday night I went to check out Barack Obama for myself at one of his stops in Houston. The crowd was about six thousand or so strong and was composed mostly of people of color (probably an 85-15 split) including quite a few South Asian Americans. I’d never been to a political rally and figured this would be my chance to witness one first hand. I would have loved to have gone to a Clinton rally as well but my schedule (and hers) didn’t permit it. My observations from the rally were many, but here are a few:

1) There are a lot of sheep who will bay at just about anything

2) People seem to go crazy when free stuff is being handed out. When free Obama placards were being handed out (to wave around at the rally) I felt like I was in the middle of a disbursement of flour in the Gaza strip, given the way people started acting

3) The vast majority of people want to believe in someone other than themselves

4) Gas prices seem to be the most important thing to the group of people I was with

I realized that a rally just doesn’t do anything for me. I am a policy wonk and find it more satisfying when I feel the candidate is talking directly to me rather than simply trying to inspire me.

I early voted in the primary but I also caucused after the polls closed at 7 p.m. CST tonight (Tuesday). This dual primary-caucus system is unique to Texas and is often described as the Texas Two-Step. At 7:15p.m. you sign in and declare which candidate you are caucusing for. You have to caucus for a candidate in the same party as the person who you voted for earlier in the primary. However, there is nothing preventing you from splitting your “two votes” among two candidates if you choose to.

The caucus — officially dubbed a “precinct convention” — begins at 7:15 p.m. or when the polls close, whichever is later.

Caucus-goers arrive and put their names and presidential preference on the “sign-in sheet.” Ideally, they should show proof of having voted in the Democratic primary, but it is not absolutely necessary, according to the Harris County Democratic Party.

The group first elects a chair and secretary. Those two then take a count, noting the total number of people and how many are for Obama or Clinton. Delegates then are distributed proportionally.

For example, say 100 people show up at a given precinct on Tuesday night. If 75 of them support Clinton, and 25 support Obama, then she gets 75 percent of the delegates and he gets 25 percent. If the precinct has 20 delegates to allot, Clinton gets 15, Obama 5. [Link]

I live in a heavily African American district so I expected that the caucus at my local precinct, an African American church directly adjacent to my apartment building, would be filled with Obama supporters. It was. I also expected there to be a heavy representation of health care professionals since the area of town I live in is called the Med Center area. There was. So many people showed up that just signing everyone in took an hour and a half. Since I was one of the first to sign in, and since I lived right next door, I left the caucus, made barbecue and lime salmon with steamed asparagus, ate my dinner, and then returned to the church just in time to begin the caucus.

At this point the Obama supporters were asked to go to one side of the room and the Clinton supporters to the other (no other candidate had enough supporters to meet the threshold). The caucus vote was roughly 370-80 in favor of Obama which meant that the delegate breakdown for my precinct was 29-7 in favor of Obama. Now we had to vote, from among the remaining caucus participants (half left after signing in and being counted), who would serve as elected delegates to the state convention. I think I had a pretty decent shot at being elected a delegate by my peers but I passed. I am instead thinking of making a power play to become captain of the entire precinct (the person coordinating a caucus). If Jindal can win in Louisiana why not I in Texas ? Baby steps like these are a way in which desis can get more politically active on a small scale while keeping their day jobs. Plus…I’m power hungry.

In any case, I observed that most of the desis there (about a dozen or so) caucused for Hillary Clinton, and that all of those present until the end were under ~35. I also noticed that many of the African American participants questioned every detail, afraid that their vote might not be counted or that the middle-aged white Obama supporter who serves as the current precinct captain might change his vote or might not be sufficiently loyal enough to Obama. Not a single black man remained to caucus for Clinton, but a handful of black women did.

I left just after 10 p.m. CST feeling pretty satisfied. I excersied my vote to the fullest extent possible. Juding by the results, every vote counted.