Reply #6: And to help illustrate what Debi is saying...

[IA_Seth]

For example, I caucused for Wes Clark with 2 other people in my precinct in 2004. We didnt have 15% obviously. The 2 others went with Dean or Edwards or someone and I never saw them at any successive convention. I caucused for Gephardt on caucus night because it helped give him viability (splitting the delegates instead of handing them all to the other candidates - Dean in particular) and I was able to get them to send me to the county convention as a delegate - where I again tried to caucus for Clark. Clark wasn't viable there either, and I ended up with Kerry at the county level and stayed with Kerry through the district and state conventions.

So you see.. I wasn't for Gephardt, and I didn't really consider ideology.... but I did caucus for Gephardt because Wes wasn't viable and I gained 2 things by doing so:

1) I was able to be a delegate at the county level where I could again attempt to caucus for Clark, and
2) I was able to strengthen Gephardt's presence, which gave him an extra delegate that one of the other candidates would have received had I not. I wasn't a big fan of Dean at the time (sorry Debi!), so my strategy was to weaken his delegate count.

Once the writing was on the wall, and I knew I wasn't going to be able to caucus for Clark, I went fully behind Kerry and as a delegate at the district/state conventions I was able to do my small part in influencing our party platform (carrying Clark's ideology forward).

Hope that helps!