The Interlopers

[February 13th, 2008]

If Barack Obama is writing thank-you notes after his huge victory in Washington’s Democratic presidential caucus Feb. 9, he should mail several to Portland.

In a contest that shattered local records for voter turnout, the Illinois senator’s campaign had more than 70 volunteers on the ground last Saturday in southwest Washington, covering all 30 Democratic caucus sites in Clark County.

And organizers say at least half of those volunteers hailed from across the Columbia River in Oregon (see “Beaver Envy,” WW , Jan. 2, 2008).

With Oregon Democrats hanging fire until the state’s late-in-the-season May 20 primary to choose between Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), Oregonians happily crossed the Columbia last Saturday to help put Obama on top in Clark County. He got 66 percent of the vote in Clark County (he won 68 percent statewide).

The out-of-state presence ticked off some voters in rural parts of the county—places Portlanders normally rocket past on their way to Seattle.

“I heard some people say they wished [Oregonians] had stayed home,” says Eugene Carroll, the Democratic caucus coordinator in Ridgefield, a farming hamlet 10 miles north of Vancouver. “They were kind of grumbling, ‘Stay in Oregon.’”

But in often-chaotic state caucuses, presidential campaigns increasingly rely on out-of-state volunteers to observe the voting and herd their supporters to the right places. And caucus rules set few limits on what those volunteers can do. They’re free to post campaign signs, hand out buttons and talk up their candidates—everything short of casting a vote.

Obama wasn’t the only candidate who got a push from Oregonians. Sue Castner, a Portlander who serves on Clinton’s national finance committee, says about a dozen Oregonians crossed the river to volunteer for the New York senator, mainly at caucus sites in southwest Washington.

Oregonians also campaigned on the Republican side for Ron Paul, the libertarian-leaning Texas congressman who won Clark County’s GOP caucus with 26 percent of the vote.

But it was the Obama campaign that benefited most from Oregonians. Obama’s was a well-organized operation, even boasting a paid staffer in Vancouver—something the Clinton campaign lacked. Here’s how the Obama campaign used Oregonians to help win the Washington caucus:

The Democratic Party of Oregon channeled Obama volunteers to Charlie Burr, a PR rep and liberal blogger in Portland who supports Obama. He sent them on to Vancouver, where Clarissa Kornell, a paid campaign staffer from Ohio, was spearheading the caucus campaign.

On caucus morning, the Obama volunteers met on the sixth floor of the Vancouver Center building to place hundreds of calls to Obama supporters reminding them where to caucus. The crowd volunteers were mostly college-aged students, but they also included Oregon state Rep. Larry Galizio (D-Tigard), an early Obama supporter.

At noon the volunteers were dispatched to caucus sites. Portlanders Katharine Ryan, Dan Lombardi and Rachel Cooper—all in their 20s—were assigned to Ridgefield High. They meant to grab lunch on the way, but they found no restaurants outside of Vancouver. “It got really rural really fast,” Lombardi says.

Beneath a sign declaring Ridgefield High “The Home of the Spudders” (an angry-looking potato is the school mascot), Lombardi and Ryan greeted voters in the parking lot as they arrived. Flanked by Obama yard signs and wearing Obama pins, they directed Republicans to the school library and Democrats to the cafeteria.

Holding a map of the Ridgefield area, Cooper helped Democrats locate their precinct, each in a different area of the room marked with Obama signs, courtesy of a local volunteer. There were no Clinton signs in sight and no Clinton volunteers on hand, causing confusion among some voters who thought they’d wandered into an Obama rally rather than a caucus.

A caucus is partly a conversation where voters try to influence their neighbors. But the Oregonians stayed out of the debate at Ridgefield. After an hour and a half spent declaring their preferences and haranguing undecided voters, the Democrats of Ridgefield elected 20 delegates for Clinton and 32 for Obama to send on to their district convention. More than 300 votes were cast.

At the school library, where Republicans were caucusing, Portlanders Scott Sutton and Alison Donahower manned a Ron Paul table filled with pamphlets and buttons (see “Ron Co.,” WW , Sept. 12, 2007). Yard signs outside for Paul greeted Republican voters. Paul was the only Republican campaign active at the Ridgefield caucus.

Also volunteering for Obama was Marissa Madrigal, Multnomah County Commissioner Jeff Cogen’s chief of staff. Madrigal, who grew up in Ridgefield, said between the Paul and Obama campaigns the town has probably never seen so many Oregonians at once. But she didn’t count herself in that number.

“I’m a Spudder,” she said, “so I’m coming home.”