Delegate Battle In Lone Star State Continues Post-Primary

According to the Dallas Morning News, Barack Obama has won the Texas caucus, with 38 convention delegates, and though he lost the popular-vote count to Clinton (65 to 61 delegates), the combined total (including superdelegates) gives Obama 109 to Clinton's 106 delegates and thus, a win in Texas after all.

And the Clinton campaign has responded forcefully, demanding that the county conventions of March 29 be delayed, provoking this reaction from the Dallas New's popular "Trail Blazers" blog by Wayne Slater:

"The Hillary Clinton camp has tried every avenue to delay reporting on the delegates from the Texas primary. They tried to intimidate the Texas Democratic Party prior to the primary. That failed. On election night, they threw up a dust storm of objections about irregularities. Now, the Clinton camp is urging the state party to delay the March 29 county and senate conventions, where details of how 67 delegates picked in the county caucuses will be announced.

"Why are they doing this? Because they are losing."

After reporting the delegate tallies, Slater reproduces the letter sent by the Clinton campaign to the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, and concludes:

"Hillary Clinton declared victory in Texas and moved on. As for these pesky details, like delegates, that's the last thing the Clinton campaign wants to talk about."

It would seem that the Clinton campaign's triumphant brag about winning Texas might prove, after all, to have been premature.

Even more disturbing, when it comes to popular vote-count in Texas, which allows Republicans to cross over and vote in the Democratic primary, is this trend documented by the Boston Globe:

"For a party that loves to hate the Clintons, Republican voters have cast an awful lot of ballots lately for Senator Hillary Clinton: About 100,000 GOP loyalists voted for her in Ohio, 119,000 in Texas, and about 38,000 in Mississippi, exit polls show.

"A sudden change of heart? Hardly.

"Since Senator John McCain effectively sewed up the GOP nomination last month, Republicans have begun participating in Democratic primaries specifically to vote for Clinton, a tactic that some voters and local Republican activists think will help their party in November. With every delegate important in the tight Democratic race, this trend could help shape the outcome if it continues in the remaining Democratic primaries open to all voters.

"Spurred by conservative talk radio, GOP voters who say they would never back Clinton in a general election are voting for her now for strategic reasons: Some want to prolong her bitter nomination battle with Barack Obama, others believe she would be easier to beat than Obama in the fall, or they simply want to register objections to Obama."

What is disturbing about this is that Clinton won the popular vote in Texas by about 100,000 votes--which would be easily handled by the Republican cross-over votes.

Exit surveys taken of voters demonstrated that the Republicans who voted for Obama generally did so because they were disgruntled with the Republican party and felt he would represent a fresh change.

However, those voting for Clinton, by a 75% majority, claimed to have been doing so for strategic reasons, to benefit the Republican party in November. None of those voters intended to vote for Hillary Clinton in the fall.

Though the Clinton campaign has attempted to spin these findings by boasting that Republicans were impressed with her tough-on-security stance and were crossing over because they genuinely felt she would be the strongest candidate in November, exit polling and research conducted by the Globe indicates quite the opposite.

Meanwhile, in its letter sent to the Texas Democratic Party, the Clinton campaign demanded that the county convention official delegate vote-count be postponed, claiming that the "true vote count has been distorted by violations of the Party's rules."

One of those "violations" claimed by the Clinton campaign was: "Failure to follow Robert's Rules of Order at the precinct convention."

They also protested, among other things, to the practice in rural areas such as mine, to consolidate precincts.

Had we not consolidated, we'd've had to have me and the other guy meet at a community center in the middle of a cotton field. Other precincts in our county would have had to gather two or three people in isolated areas as well. The busiest precinct group we had in the whole county had six people in attendance.

If the Clinton campaign seriously believes that they can claim such "violations" as grounds to postpone the legitimate Texas vote count, well, as my tough old grandmother (she always used to sign her letters "Grand Mother")--used to say:

"If you think that, missy, you got another think comin'."

Comments

[lbrillante]

SENATOR OBAMA WON TEXAS... ISN'T THAT A 'BIG' STATE?

[crazyv]

Suggest a new verb for the Oxford English dictionary

to Clinton-

disparage something when it doesn't go for you even though you would have praised if it had gone for you.

to confuse greetings/poetry/words from a five year old as incoming sniper fire

[mediafolk]

News Flash: Obama is the caucus winner in Texas even though Clinton won the popular vote. Of course Clinton is contesting the results. She wants to know what "is" is

[prospace]

1) There are no official numbers yet. The senate district conventions will be later this month. Thousands of fraudulent caucus votes will be voided between now and then. Many others will not be caught in time. People went to the wrong precinct, signed in multiple times, etc. Worst of all, many precincts didn't calculate delegates according to the rules of the Party, which can really affect the final numbers. Volunteers are responsible for catching the errors, and it's so much work it amounts to a second job.

2) It is preposterous to suggest that the caucus vote is more representative than the popular vote. For one thing, former Republicans can caucus if they so choose. In addition, independents are being counted as Republicans in your tally because a voter is labeled according to the last primary they voted in. I once crossed over myself to vote against Tom DeLay in a primary.

3) The caucus disenfranchised voters with special needs. many of my neighbors are elderly or have to work nights or have too many kids to take with them, or they just couldn't put themselves through it. I am a healthy young person, but our urban caucus site was so overcrowded with all the combined precincts that it was about 110 degrees with all the people, and it took hours of fighting in there to just get through it. It was absolute hell. One guy who tried to hijack the proceedings turned out to be in the wrong precinct. He almost started a fistfight. Police were called in elsewhere to break up fights.

Even Obama supporters in Texas are fighting to end the disastrous system.

[lbrillante]

I am looking forward to Texas moving forward and allowing Senator Obama to officially claim that HE WON TEXAS. So much for her big state argument. And if you look at all of the issues that have taken place around this Texas election, it gives more gravity to how difficult it can be from a legal standpoint to hold a second election in Florida and Michigan.
OBAMA/EDWARDS '08

[TheraP]

Thank you for this excellent analysis, Deanie. You've helped clarify, though that was not your main point, why a caucus is a very beneficial way of determining voter preference and the strength of that preference. While republicans may well be willing to vote "strategically" for a Dem (as opposed to a real, honest to goodness approval vote) in the privacy of the voting booth, it's a lot harder to pull off such hypocrisy in a caucus! And the caucus results are particularly interesting for that very reason.

Having to publicly declare for a candidate, at times having to advocate for that person in front of your neighbors, is one way of smoking out those who are gaming the system. And the proof of the pudding in TX is the caucus results.

Thank you, Texas!!!

[TheraP]

One more thing.... does this mean Obama won a big state? A really, really big state?

[Cathi]

Hmmmm.....maybe it won't be an "important state" any more to Clinton...ya think?

[Syco]

no she will claim foul, blame the media, and accuse someone of being sexist.