(It appears we have a candidate for SDEC committeeman from SD 14. Other candidates I am aware of at this time are Susan Shelton for SD 14 committeewoman and TCDP assistant director Garry Brown. I'm sure there will be others - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
This election year is one of the most exciting ones I have ever seen in my 41 years of being involved in politics and civil rights. There is all the buzz about the presidential campaigns, Texas being in play for the first time in decades and exciting races such as Rick Noriega for Senate and all the Texas Legislative races.
Well, there are another set of elections that will take place in June at the Texas Democratic Party Convention and I have decided to throw my hat into the ring.
Jennifer Nix is a writer/editor who helped Glenn Greenwald and George Lakoff with their books. Her thoughtful piece at HuffPost today captures something important about the Clinton campaign. Clinton supporters will disagree. But such great writing deserves attention. Jennifer has been a champion of us in Texas, so give her a read. She is an Obama supporter, but the piece is thought-provoking, and it's the kind of intelligent analysis that all of us should strive for from time to time.
The Campaign of Magical Thinking, by Jennifer Nix
When a top Hillary Clinton advisor predicted on February 16 that his candidate would "lock down" the Democratic nomination, called the number of elections and delegates won by Barack Obama "irrelevant," and later characterized the race as "wide open," it occurred to me that in the homestretch to March 4th, and what could be the decisive primaries, Clinton's campaign is relying heavily on magical thinking.
The Dallas Morning News is reporting that Clinton campaign training materials regarding Tuesday night's caucuses ominously advise supporters to take control of caucus sign-in sheets and vote tallies especially "if our supporters are outnumbered."
[Clinton caucus training material] goes on to say, "If our supporters are outnumbered, ask the Temporary Chair if one of our supporters can serves as the Secretary, in the interest of fairness.
"The control of the sign-in sheets and the announcement of the delegates allotted to each candidate are the critical functions of the Chair and Secretary. This is why it is so important that Hillary supporters hold these positions."
Now there can be only one purpose in trying to control the tally of votes under circumstances in which a campaign knows it's outnumbered, that it will lose an honest counting of the votes: to alter the true vote. To cheat. To steal. To suppress the votes of Texas caucus attendees and subvert the caucus process.
The phrase, "if our supporters are outnumbered," means, in simpler language, "If we lose the vote, take control of the vote tally and change the numbers."
Place this alongside the Clinton campaign threats to challenge the Texas caucuses and you get a full picture of what Clinton is up to: disrupt the caucuses at all costs. Steal votes, delay the reporting of honest vote totals, throw the process into chaos, do whatever it takes.
UPDATE -- There are other reactions, and links to perspectives on the Nevada caucus controversies involving Clinton campaign shenanigans, at DailyKos and Politico.
Mark Ambinder at AtlanticMonthly.com has an objective look at the reality of the presidential primary. Hillary Clinton, even under the best scenarios, cannot net enough delegates on March 4 to put a dent in Barack Obama's delegate lead. And she can't catch up in subsequent primaries, either. Ambinder's scenario is really redder than rosy for Clinton. But it makes the point very clear.
Clinton is counting on wins of any size to spin up her ultimate strategy, and it's this ultimate strategy that should concern all Democrats, not just Obama supporters, but Clinton supporters, too.
Suppose Clinton wins small popular vote victories in Texas and Ohio, but either falls further behind in delegates or breaks even. She'll trail Obama by 100-150 delegates (depending on whose count one uses) under the very best of circumstances. Spinning popular vote outcomes, Clinton wants to stretch the race out -- all the way to the Democratic Convention in Denver.
Should the Clinton campaign somehow prevail in seating delegates from Florida and Michigan, despite the fact that those states broke the rules and her opponent either did not campaign or was not even on the ballot there, the situation doesn't really change. That'll just smack of another back-room, dirty deal.
At the convention, Clinton will have to reverse the delegate vote that arrives in Denver. In other words, through some combination of super delegates and pledged delegate reversal, Clinton will have to take the nomination away from Obama at the convention.
And what will the effect of such a strategy be? Does anyone really believe Obama's supporters will return to vote for Clinton in November. Not in great numbers. It will split the Democratic party in half. And it will likely dramatically set back efforts in places like Texas to rebuild the Party.
In other words, this strategy, in the extremely remote chance that it is successful, dooms Democrats' hopes for November.
Now there's a rule in politics that you fight the war you're in and worry about the consequences tomorrow. Well, that's an awful lot like what's happened with the Bush policy in Iraq. Failing to account for the consequences has proved a human and political tragedy of hellish proportions.
A Democratic convention meltdown will not be a tragedy of that magnitude, of course. Except that a McCain victory will continue the human and political tragedy of hellish proportions that already is Iraq.
This is why the Clinton team wants to cast a cloud over the Texas caucuses. Reporting the caucus outcome will very likely make the stark reality of her circumstance a stark reality in public understanding. And that will reveal the endgame she has in mind.
Of course, a popular vote loss in Texas or honest press accounts of the delegate situation, especially if Obama performs in the Texas caucuses as he has in other states, will stop such a strategy in its tracks.
There is method to the Clinton campaign's mad preemptive sword rattling over the Texas primary/caucus. They want to delay and disrupt the reporting of the delegate count. They hope that if they win the popular vote, they can avoid, at least for one news cycle, news reports that even if they do so they will very likely lose the delegate fight in Texas and fall further behind Obama in the national delegate contest.
This is not speculation. This has been the subject under discussion. While I have not been part of that discussion, plenty of sources last night and this morning confirmed this as the core of the dispute.
It is widely assumed that Obama's organizational advantage will achieve in the caucus portion of the Texas election just what it has achieved in earlier caucuses: a significant victory in delegates. There are 67 delegates at stake in those caucuses. The Clinton campaign would like to delay the reporting of the caucus results, and that is why they have continually "reserved the right to challenge" Texas law and Democratic party procedures.
Throw the Texas delegate results in dispute, and win or lose the popular vote, they will have advanced their case that the contest remains close and should go all the way to the convention if necessary.
The campaign in Texas is close. Delegates selected by popular vote out of the 31 Senate districts will probably be split more or less evenly. This is due in large part to the fact that 15 of those districts have 4 delegates to award. A candidate would have to get more than 62.5 percent of the vote in those districts to win a 3-to-1 split. The most likely outcome is a 2-2 split. In addition, Obama may have a slight advantage in that the districts with the largest number of delegates, Austin and inner city Houston and Dallas, are viewed as Obama strongholds. Still, just about every model shows an even split of primary vote delegates, no matter who wins or loses the popular vote. This is just because the vote will be close.
The Clinton campaign strategy is to justify taking the fight beyond Texas even if they fall further behind Obama in the national delegate count. To do that, they must cast doubt over the fate of the 67 delegates that will be chosen at the caucus level. Hence, their tough positioning in phone calls with Texas Democratic Party officials and others involved in the primary here.
The Texas rules have been in effect for decades. Bill Clinton ran twice under these rules. They are no surprise to anyone, and both campaigns know they have to play by the same rules. There is little point to raising concerns before the election -- except one campaign finds itself running a very unique kind of effort. To remain viable, the results of the caucus in Texas must be thrown into doubt. Almost any legal challenge will do. The Clinton narrative can be maintained-- but only if their falling further behind in delegates is not reported or is at the least cast into doubt for a news cycle, or two or three news cycles.
Texas' hybrid primary/caucus would not be questioned were it not that one candidate appears to have an advantage in caucus settings. Or that in a close race, the popular vote in senate districts will probably translate into an even split of delegates. Consequently, the Clinton campaign finds Texas to be a poor place to build a firewall or mount a comeback. That's an historical accident. Attacking the state party here would be irresponsible and damaging to Democratic prospects here in both the near and long term.
The overwhelming numbers of Texas who have voted early in the Texas primary is symptomatic of the changing political tide here. Much work has been done rebuilding the progressive movement in the Lone Star State. Attempts to taint the primary, and consequently the primary and caucus decisions of Texas voters, will set this effort back.
The primary date of March 4 has been set for quite some time in Texas. It is probably best that we vote for our presidential nominees before we are drunk at St Patrick's Day (Yes, I know. Kinky didn't swallow the Guinness at the Dallas parade. Brilliant!). However there are some who think we may need to vote for the nominee prior to buying your sweetheart some candy on Valentine's Day, even as early as February 5th.
According to the Austin American-Statesman, any change in date would have to go through Leo Berman's House Committee on Elections.
For the Texas date to change, Berman said, "it's going to have to be a total bipartisan push. It's going to take a large majority of both sides of the aisle to do something like this."
While most Legislators are not entirely sure the date should be moved up to compete with other states for clout, the Texas Democratic Party would support a move up as close as February 5. If Texas moved it's Democratic primary date, it would have more sway in how the rest of the country may vote. As it stands right now this is the schedule for the Democratic primaries by state:
* January 14 2008 - Iowa * January 19 2008 - Nevada * January 22 2008 - New Hampshire * January 29 2008 - South Carolina * February 5 2008 - Delaware, Missouri * February 12 2008 - District of Columbia, Tennessee, Virginia * February 19 2008 - Wisconsin * February 26 2008 - Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, New Jersey * March 2008 (date to be determined) - American Samoa, Democrats Abroad, Guam, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Virgin Islands, Wyoming * March 4 2008 - Connecticut, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Texas * March 7 2008 - Colorado, Utah * March 8 2008 - Kansas * March 11 2008 - Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma * March 18 2008 - Illinois, Oregon * April 2008 (date to be determined) - Alaska * April 1 2008 - Pennsylvania * May 6 2008 - Indiana, North Carolina * May 13 2008 - Nebraska, West Virginia * May 20 2008 - Arkansas, Kentucky * May 27 2008 - Washington * June 3 2008 - Alabama, Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota, California
The impact of a change in date could also upset voters who are used to having a March primary. It could also impact the campaigns of local and state candidates. Having a shorter primary race means a much longer political campaign against incumbents who sit on their pots of gold. In that same regard, it also means less time spent battling your primary opponent and wasting your campaign money.
While we may not hold the key to who we sway the American public to vote for in the primaries, we must remember Texas is the key to any presidential winner in 2008 in the general election. Maybe we should just rest on those laurels before we ditch the leprechaun for cupid.
