Inside A Chaotic Texas Caucus

Last nite we caucused with a minimal amount of cussing. At my polling place there were at least 500 standing in line in 40-degree weather at a fairly large Baptist church. Very exciting for long-suffering Texas Democrats and nice to see so many like-minded individuals kibitzing and doing something politically oriented.

Where and what is Denton? Just north of the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and home to two major Texas universities which likely explains why it went for Obama but it is also a fast-growing exurban area . Old Central Denton is like a mini-Austin with older hippies, college students, artists, musicians, etc. For my polling place and precinct in this area, I saw most of the people I would have expected and usually see at local clubs, coffeehouses and get-togethers.

My precinct results were: 60 for Obama (9 delegates) and 37 for Clinton (6 delegates) with the delegates going to the County convention on March 29th, followed by State in early June in Austin.

One precinct's captain, from what I gathered, never showed and they were left both literally and figuratively out in the cold with no leader and many folks drifting off. The main problem I could see was a lack of clear information and direction in some cases resulting in many people leaving after registering their preferences. I would say close to 2/3 of the crowd left before the actual caucusing and choosing of delegates. Several reasons for this I suppose: their vote was already counted, time, weather, etc. Our precinct had only two Clinton supporters by this point but the precinct chair, secretary and the Clinton supporters seemed assured that the six necessary delegates to represent the actual votes would be assigned.

All in all, the party atmosphere was such that folks were cooperative and happy to feel like their votes actually carried some weight in a notoriously "red" state.

Quote of the evening: "There is no reason at this local level for it to be so complicated". Second quote of the evening by older man in a vintage LBJ campaign hat: "I'm gonna get at least ten of you baptized before the evening is over". I hope he meant dunking us in the mighty river of Texas Democratic politics that, while sleepy for the past couple of decades, last nite's turnout would've made LBJ, Sam Rayburn and Lloyd Bentsen proud, if not the organization. At least the spirit is here and maybe we can build on it.