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By Daniel McGonigle
Argus Managing Editor
The 2008 Caucuses gave Houston County Republicans and Democrats the opportunity to help shape the direction of their respective parties.
The voting precincts throughout Minnesota were reporting nearly the same type of turnout for precinct caucuses on Tuesday night, rooms were overflowing,” said John Aiken, director of communications for the Secretary of State. “Many locations reportedly ran out of presidential preference ballots and had to have more printed. “[Precints] reported very high turnout numbers for both the Democratic and Republican parties.”
Statewide more Democrats caucussed than did Republicans, some 203,000 to 62,000.
Aiken said Republicans reported 61,638 caucus attendees from 3457 districts or 83.87 percent of the total of 4122 districts.
Democrats reported 202,609 caucus attendees from 3340 districts or 81 percent of the total of 4122 districts.
These numbers from both parties reportedly shattered previous records. The state Democrats last reported such a high number in 1972. Party officials predicted a turnout of about 70,000 for the caucuses.
As a state, the Democrats selected Barack Obama while the Republicans selected Mitt Romney.
At mid-morning Wednesday, the Republican and Democratic vote counts were as follows:
Republican
Romney 25,587
McCain 13,474
Huckabee 12,278
Paul 9,662
Democrats
Obama 135,174
Clinton 64,561
A source for information
The Secretary of State’s Web site at http://www.sos.state.mn.us/home/index.asp has been an excellent source of information for the caucuses. A Caucus Finder service was launched on Jan. 15 and from that date to 7 last night, traffic recorded 177,000 visits. Presidential preference results are now available on the Web site.
“We had aggressively thought we might get about 70,000 hits and it more than doubled; that’s astonishing,” said Aiken.
Houston County
In Houston County, the caucuses were held at the High School and each party had about 30 representatives at their respective caucuses.
The Republicans discussed their parties platform and discussed changes to the Republican Party of Minnesota, and began laying the foundations for the 2008 elections.
Their platform focuses on reducing the tax burden, making government better, not larger, and defending America at home and abroad among other things.
An energy surrounded the DFLers and an excitement and enthusiasm, as the members who were in attendance used words like “change” and seemed energized by the potential for the success of their party.
Countywide, Obama gathered 246 votes to Clinton’s 155 for a total of 401 votes out of 405 cast. Dennis Kucinich received some votes and some went to uncommitted.
On the Republican side in the county, the three main players in the race received the bulk of the support. Huckabee received 76 votes, Romney 73 and McCain 48 of 235 cast countywide.
Clinton Obama
BLACK HAMMER TWP. 4 4
BROWNSVILLE 2 4
BROWNSVILLE TWP. 2 6
CALEDONIA P-1 4 8
CALEDONIA P-2 6 9
CALEDONIA TWP. 4 4
CROOKED CREEK TWP. 1 3
EITZEN 4 3
HOKAH 2 7
HOKAH TWP. 6 12
HOUSTON 3 6
HOUSTON TWP. 1 4
JEFFERSON TWP. 0 2
LA CRESCENT P-1 17 25
LA CRESCENT P-2 8 40
LA CRESCENT P-3 8 10
LA CRESCENT TWP. 16 26
MAYVILLE TWP. 1 0
MONEY CREEK TWP. 3 9
MOUND PRAIRIE TWP. 8 6
SHELDON TWP. 2 1
SPRING GROVE 30 27
SPRING GROVE TWP. 10 6
UNION TWP. 5 3
WILMINGTON TWP. 4 10
WINNEBAGO TWP. 1 1
YUCATAN TWP. 3 10
Huckabee McCain Romney
BLACK HAMMER TWP. 0 0 0
BROWNSVILLE 0 0 0
BROWNSVILLE TWP. 0 0 0
CALEDONIA P-1 9 10 11
CALEDONIA P-2 0 0 0
CALEDONIA TWP. 0 0 0
CROOKED CREEK TWP. 0 0 0
EITZEN 0 0 0
HOKAH 8 5 16
HOKAH TWP. 0 0 0
HOUSTON 0 0 0
HOUSTON TWP. 16 6 9
JEFFERSON TWP. 0 0 0
LA CRESCENT P-1 11 4 12
LA CRESCENT P-2 5 5 8
LA CRESCENT P-3 3 1 3
LA CRESCENT TWP. 11 5 10
MAYVILLE TWP. 0 0 0
MONEY CREEK TWP. 0 0 0
MOUND PRAIRIE TWP. 0 0 0
SHELDON TWP. 0 0 0
SPRING GROVE 0 0 0
SPRING GROVE TWP. 13 12 13
UNION TWP. 0 0 0
WILMINGTON TWP. 0 0 0
WINNEBAGO TWP. 0 0 0
YUCATAN TWP. 0 0 0
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