Monday, March 24, 2008

Go to your local caucus meeting!

Tomorrow night is the night for caucus meetings and we are up to our eyeballs in this State Legislator race. A lot rests on that meeting for us, so we are nervous and excited all at the same time. For those who might not know how it works, I will try to briefly explain:

So each state is divided into counties. Those counties are divided into Legislative Districts. One representative comes from each district. Ryan is running to represent our district. The districts are then divided into precincts. Caucus meetings are held in each precinct once every two years to decide on individual precinct leadership as well as, and most importantly, nominate and vote for delegates to represent the precinct on the county and state levels. The number of delegates that go for each precinct is determined by the number of people that attended the last caucus meeting held two years prior. The decided delegates then go either to the state convention or to the county convention. In our case, we are needing delegates sympathetic to us to be voted in to go to the county convention from the 21 precincts in our district. Once at the convention these delegates then vote to decide who will represent their district. So, it is crucial that we get delegates voted in who are planning to vote for Ryan at convention held on April 12.

Thus, we have spent many hours on the phone calling as many people as possible we know who live in the area as well as many we don't know giving them information and getting his name out there. Tomorrow we will be taking milk and cookies as well as flyers, stickers, and other relevant information to each of the 21 precincts. Then that night during the meetings, I will be at our precinct meeting campaigning for myself to be nominated and voted in as a delegate, as well as campaigning for, nominating and voting Ryan in as a delegate, as well as a couple of our neighbors sympathetic to Ryan. While Ryan, on the other hand, will be driving to and meeting with as many of the other 20 precincts he can to introduce himself and get his face out there. Keep in mind he has roughly 1-1/2 hours to do this in, so only 3-4 minutes each location, not including drive time.

After caucus night, Ryan then spends time visiting with each and every delegate going to convention, roughly 90 people, before April 12. Meanwhile we are ordering T-shirts, stickers, flyers, information and recruiting people to help the day of convention (if any of you are willing, please let me know, we could use the help)! If Ryan gets 60% of the vote, we don't have to go to a primary, but we are pretty sure because we are running against an incumbent that this won't happen, so we are shooting for the primary in hopes that we get more than 40% of the votes. So, should that happen, we go to a Primary election in which Ryan is contacting as many people in our district as possible! That election is held June 24.

Now, after that, his only opponent is the Democrat who happens to be in our ward and on the stake High Counsel. His daughter even takes piano lessons from me and is one of our date-night babysitters! So that ought to be interesting, eh? Our summer will be filled with parades, fund-raisers, booths, etc.! Considering I didn't have much of a political background, this has proved to be a very interesting ride! You can see his website at www.votewilcox.com btw.

Again, another long blog, but full of very valuable information, wouldn't you say! Thanks for all the help that has been provided already! Thanks for love, prayers, time, ideas and even money! Love ya'll!

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