If you call that a caucus, your polls all wet

The line at the GOP caucus extends well beyond the frame in this picture taken outside Biddeford Middle School on Saturday. (Lebanon Voice photo)

More than 2,200 Republicans showed up to vote in the York County GOP Caucus on Saturday, and from my perspective it looked like we were all in line!

By the way, if the definition of caucus is where members of a political party meet to coordinate members' actions, choose group policy, or nominate candidates for various offices, that's not what I went to on Saturday in Biddeford.

It was nothing more than a primary vote. There were no presidential speeches as was listed on a bulletin released earlier in the week by the Maine GOP. There were no municipal organizational caucuses.

Instead there was a line outside the polls the length of two football fields that moved at a snail's pace.

Once inside the Biddeford Middle School more mass confusion as lines formed to certify names and addresses of registered Republicans often changed in midstream, leading to exasperation and more confusion.

My main concern this never happens again is because what if it were raining or the temperature was much colder than it was. It could have been a disaster or could have driven people from even trying to vote.

State GOP leaders should have seen this coming in a year that has seen Republican registration skyrocket.

There should have been a place inside the school where people could have waited outside of the weather.

As it was, though chilly, it wasn't unbearable.

Still, when I got inside I envisioned five or six pockets of Republican free-for-alls touting favorite candidate and trying to win you over.

But nothing of that at all. Just here's your ballot and there's the ballot box.

Even if they decided the numbers prohibited a typical caucus, candidate proxies could have at least come outside and talked up their favorite candidates to keep the wait a little more bearable and less boring. Instead I only saw two Cruz workers and one Rubio workers half-heartedly offer stickers for a couple of minutes apiece before they retreated back inside the school. Nary a Trump or Kasich worker was spotted.

As one disgruntled lady said as she left the polling place, obviously channeling Peggy Lee, "Is that all there is to a caucus?"

Lady, I hear you.