A caucus ain’t no primary - Maine

Let’s lay a little groundwork for this
We live in a Maine town with ~2000 folks, about 20 minutes from Bangor and 40 minutes from Bar Harbor (on a road the homeowners built and maintain, Mr. Obama)
Unless you just moved in here, photo ID to vote is kind of a stupid issue for us since, as was proved yesterday by the town registrar who sat at the Republican caucus unenrolled voter registration table (we were Independents), it’s where everybody knows your name. “HELLO EPA’S”, we heard immediately.
Norman Effing Rockwell.
Normally we drive ~3 miles to the town office, or the old grange hall sometimes (no, not in our buggy) say hello to everyone, jaw a bit, and vote, no wait. Even in heavy voting years. I mean, with 2000 people how many voters are there/voting hours = no wait.
So yesterday, driven by HOW MUCH we despise the candidates to one degree or another we felt compelled to be part of the rolling calamity going on.
In Bangor. Pop 25-30k, where the caucus was going on for the southern half of Penobscot County. It was at Husson College. Nice place.
And an OCEAN of vehicles, with HALF MILE walk to reach the end of either of two lines which stretched about 150 yards each, 2-4 people wide outside the building where the actual caucus was.
21 degrees, 15 mph wind. It was a happy crowd. No seriously. It’s only really cold beyond good clothing when the hairs in your nose freeze at the first intake of breath.
After yakking with a few people, they were nice enough to tell us the lines were only for those already enrolled republicans. So we were directed inside the building.
It took TEN MINUTES of walking in what was a set of lines we would have left and gone somewhere else if it was Disneyworld no matter how much the kids started screaming.
We got to the caucus about 40 minutes after it began. 1:40, ending at 5.
We registered, listened to everyone in that room (where a dozen small towns’ town registrars sat ready to enroll people) complain about ‘how the hell did we start with so many people running and every one SUCKS now?’
Several wishes for Carly Fiorina were heard.
We got back in line INSIDE and had about 30 yards of line in front of us before entering the caucus room. CRUZ SIGNS. One small Marco sign. ZERO for Trump. Cruz had appeared Friday in Orono where the University of Maine is about 10-15 minutes from Bangor.
Met Congressman Poloquin who was wisely shaking everyone’s hand. Signed his ballot petition.
Volunteered.
Finally made it into the caucus room where we were alphabetically sorted, had our green ‘YOU CAN TAKE PART’ cards taken and registered, and on we went.

The back side of the balloting area. Line is entered from directly opposite this shot in the small doorway.

One of two ballot lines. This line stretches the entire length of the building before entering the lobby and then winding all through the building to the ballot area.
The result:
Mr Cruz has a LOT of well motivated EVANGELICAL Republican voters. Church is a very busy place up here. It’s community. Schools and churches in the small towns. People conceive of Maine as Blue but the reality is, once you get away from Portland, there are only Blue pockets in SOME of the towns, like Bangor. There are just more people with other priorities in the city. Get smaller and RED. Get into the LAND, RED. Our town went 59-41 McCain, and 60-40 Romney.
City vs Country.
It’s not a coincidence that Cruz wins the caucuses. He’s anti TPP which means he is sanguine about free trade. And the Constitution is IT.
GOOD.
I think his position on Planned Parenthood is WRONG. They should be informed if they don’t spin off their abortion business, they’re cut off. If they do they are a valuable organization and on the right track. The abortion business can then sort themselves out in the market place.
Now he just has to do one thing for me.
Just get in front of a microphone, and say ‘God is not raising any Jew Hunters if Jews remain Jews’. Of course if he cannot say that because he, like Mike Bickle who endorsed him, BELIEVES THAT - he has another BIGGER problem.
And I might be part of it. Because if you believe a perfect being will raise up jew killers for those jews who stay jews, I have a reference for you.
It’s from the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Tantawi

In the 1960s Tantawi wrote a 700-page treatise on the children of Israel in the Quran and Sunnah (Jews in the Qur'an and the Traditions), in which he summarized: “[The] Qur'an describes the Jews with their own particular degenerate characteristics, i.e. killing the prophets of Allah, corrupting His words by putting them in the wrong places, consuming the people’s wealth frivolously, refusal to distance themselves from the evil they do, and other ugly characteristics caused by their deep-rooted lasciviousness … only a minority of the Jews keep their word. … [A]ll Jews are not the same. The good ones become Muslims, the bad ones do not.

Bickle:

Bickle explained that, according to the Book of Zechariah, one third of world Jewry will “get radically saved and become lovesick worshippers of Jesus,” sparing them from the inevitable apocalyptic fate of the rest of their fellow Jews.
“And so all of Israel, at the end of the day … they end up dying or if they survive they get radically converted at the Second Coming.”

I understand if you’re not Jewish this is not a big deal. But if you are, or can imagine yourself in a Muslim land where they’re not trying to actually kill you, and you hear some imam say ‘the good Christians will convert and the bad ones won’t and those who don’t will cause God to raise up Christian hunters’, and then the guy who is running for the nation’s lead says, ‘thank you crazy imam for endorsing me‘, think about your reaction to that.
We have along way to go, and one thing is TOTALLY CERTAIN.
Karl Rove et al, are FUCKED.
BIG TIME.
Bernie, and Cruz, huh?
Welcome to Maine.
We’ve HAD IT. DONE.