I love North Dakota! Not only because most of my extended family lives here, or that I can conceal carry if I choose, but because I can participate in their caucus while not being a resident. As a student, I am allowed to retain my permanent residency and I am proud to be a resident of the 19th Congressional District of the State of Illinois (go John Shimkus). However, living over 900 miles from home does present some challenges with regard to exercising my voting rights. I was unable to get a chance to request an absentee ballot for the Illinois primary and was set to spend my evening with friends.

Well, I did spend the evening with friends, but also voted. I planned to attend the Republican caucus in Grand Forks with two of my buddies who are ND residents, as I had never been to a caucus and wanted to see what one was like. When we got to the entrance, one of my friends suggested that we get our student ID cards out. I did and to my surprise was told that I could participate as a non-resident. After making sure several times that my participation in the caucus would not prevent me from voting absentee in my home district in Illinois, I cast my ballot for . . . Gov. Romney. I have been struggling for a long time over which Republican I support. I liked both Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson, but since they dropped out, I was torn between McCain and Romney (Ron Paul scares me as much and Hillary and Obama), but finally decided thanks to some last minute campaigning from one of my friends who follows politics a bit more closely than I do and has been keeping track of the issues with regard to both candidates. I have been leery of McCain anyway given his stance against the President and his policies on illegal immigration and my friends last-minute stating of areas I was suspicious about but had not paid attention to sealed the deal for Romney. One note, while Alan Keyes was on the ballot and I would love him to be the Republican nominee, I had to vote for someone that at least had a chance.

All in all, I had fun at the Republican caucus and hope to experience that again. After leaving the caucus, we decided to check out the other side and have a little fun. One of the caucus sites for the Democrats was (big surprise) on campus. This is smart on the part of Democrats, as what better way to get young people to vote, especially if you are the Obama campaign than to have a site right on campus. As much as I wanted to crash the event, I stayed professional and possibly even awed some of the local Obama people when I told them I was from Illinois (I did not mention that I can't stand the guy's politics, which would have gotten me tarred and feathered). We grabbed a couple of Obama posters and headed up to look at the caucus room, which was fairly quiet mainly because the Dem. caucus had been open since 2:00PM.

Overall, Super Tuesday, though cold, was fun here in North Dakota. Given that Obama has won on the Democratic side, we now wait the Republican results and I hope they bode well for Romney. I hope that everyone else had a great Super Tuesday and since it is also Fat Tuesday, please be safe while out partying.