Skagit reluctantly taps McCain

Sen. Barack Obama overwhelmed Sen. Hillary Clinton in Saturday’s Skagit County Democratic presidential caucuses, winning more than two-thirds of the delegates in the precinct contests.

Republican Sen. John McCain won the most delegates in GOP precinct caucuses, but was followed closely by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Mitt Romney won some delegates in spite of dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination last week. Ron Paul won a handful of delegates as well..

Obama won 70 percent of the county’s delegates, according to final caucus results released Saturday night at county party headquarters.

Meanwhile, Clinton won 28 percent of the county party’s delegates, and 2 percent are still undecided. Only four of Skagit County’s 118 precincts had a majority of their delegates supporting Clinton.

“Hot damn!” exclaimed Obama supporter Dan O’Donnell as he looked through the results at the Skagit County Democratic Party headquarters in downtown Mount Vernon. “This is exciting. I like this.”

Part-time Obama employee Charese Hinshaw was so energized by the results that she went for a run around the block Saturday night.

Skagit County Democratic chair Glenn Bordner gave 3,850 as a conservative estimate of the number of people countywide who participated in his party’s caucuses Saturday.

“People really want a change, they really want a Democratic government and Democratic leadership,” Bordner said, adding “any number of Republicans” also attended Democratic caucuses.

Obama’s local win came after several Democratic caucus locations were overwhelmed with apparent record attendance. La Conner High School had more than 400 participants, said Lona Wilbur, an organizer for that location. That’s in comparison to the 100-some people that attended in 2004.

The caucus was originally scheduled to take place in the school library, but the overwhelming turnout forced the party to expand into the gymnasium.

“They had to open up the gym and pullout the bleachers and set up a mike,” Wilbur said.


Republican results

In the county’s Republican caucuses, McCain received 33 percent of the delegates, Huckabee had 26 percent, Romney got 20 percent and Paul nabbed 14 percent and 8 percent were undecided.

McCain’s not-so-dramatic lead in Skagit County’s Republican caucuses Saturday did not surprise Mark Hulst, who hosted precinct 311’s caucus at his Mount Vernon home.

“There’s a real sentiment that people are kind of looking for a conservative candidate and people aren’t so sure John McCain is that person,” said Hulst, who is also the state committeeman for the Skagit County Republican Party. “They’re sending a message to national that if McCain is going to be our nominee, we need a conservative vice president candidate.”

County party Treasurer James Lyon felt the somewhat divided results reflect the Republican Party’s diversity and its different degrees of conservativism. In the end, though, he thought all party members would come together for the general election.

“I think what you’re gonna see when we’re all done is a unified party,” Lyon said.

Both Hulst and Lyon reported large turnouts at their respective precinct caucus. Hulst said while he normally hosts between three and five attendees, there were 13 at his home Saturday. And Lyon said his precinct, 140, had 22 attendees, or about three times the number of normal attendees at Big Lake Grade School.