Living as a Democrat in red state Idaho for 19 years, the idea of attending the Dem caucus felt like a futile endeavor. I've always shown up to vote on election days to at least secretly savor the idea that I was cancelling out my now ex-husband's ballot choices. As Idaho is a lightly populated state, the caucuses are county events instead of being portioned down into voting precincts, and my county, Canyon's caucus was in a high school's auditorium.

I got there half an hour before the doors opened with the first 15 people as we watched the line quickly grow before we were allowed inside. Once in, we watched the auditorium fill as the Bernie supporters gradually overcame the "undecided" and Hillary sections. Bernie people began to just sit everywhere and were eventually moved into a second auditorium on the other side of the building. The estimate was "over" two thousand people - not all voters since some were kids with their parents, casual observers, whatevers. It may not sound like much, but it felt like an effing miracle in this area where the Dem caucus was barely ever reported and mostly announced as an aside.

In our auditorium, two unrelated people from the handful of early arrivers became cheerleaders for the Berners and did a great job keeping the crowd fired up as we mostly overwhelmed the Hillary folk. I was frankly shocked at the energy of the event and impressed with the strong diversity of a crowd that spanned generations, ethnicities and life styles - parents with newborns, old sourdoughs, grandmas wit their knitting, hipsters and even a guy styled after the Guy Fawkes icon. I do wonder about the county Dem officials candidate of choice since Bernie was listed third on the ballots after a Mr. De La Fuente, with Hillary in the number one slot. The Sanders representative's rally speech was given bilingually by a Latino woman who about brought the house down. Hillary's guy was a lawyer whose tepid speech received brief courteous applause.

Random people kept us updated with news from the caucus in Boise/Ada County and just before our late-starting first ballot the report from a city official in Boise stated the crowd there was estimated at 21 thousand, 70% Bernie supporters. There were reports that this Idaho Democratic Caucus was the largest one in the Nation's history (!?).

The organizers did a good job accommodating everyone so they could vote and Bernie netted 82% of the votes on the first ballot. A second ballot was allowed to give both sides a chance to sway the undecideds. I lost my sheet with the final tally somewhere in the crazy crowd, but the Hillary votes were just over 200, 6 staunch undecided and 2 to for someone named De La Fuente - the balance, over one thousand, for Bernie with 82%.

It was fun, it was moving and of course will be glossed over and under-reported if at all because we're a rural county, but I can tell you that there is a strong spirit of revolution in the Bernie crowd. Now it looks like the tragic news from Belgium has shut down much reporting on Bernie's victories at all.

Here's a link to the local NBC report on the historic caucus in Boise for Ada County: