The facts are staggering. Close to 3 million Texans voted in the Democratic primary. More than 1.1 million went back Tuesday night to the caucuses. This extraordinary day and night was felt everywhere.
It is the proverbial thunder over the hill. Democrats are back. Everywhere.
There is a lot of loud whistling in the dark from Tom Craddick supporters about whether they gained votes or didn't lose votes or were given a low bail-bond to get out of electoral jail temporarily. And it's true that some Craddick-Ds won, but not because Democrats had a referendum on Craddick.
Instead, it's because Democrats attracted more than a million new and just-getting-informed voters to the polls. Would it have been better if anti-Craddick D's had won? Of course.
A million new people suited up as Democrats for battle. They haven't yet aimed their weapons at the most corrupt House leadership in Texas history. But that clicking sound is the sound of a million hammers being pulled back.
And by the way, as Phil wrote below, there were no real gains by Craddick. And Democrats had already gained three anti-Craddick votes since the session through special elections and party switching.
Would it have been possible to inform these new voters? The truth is, given the short fuse on this primary -- we only knew a few weeks ahead of time that the presidential hurricane was coming here -- it is highly doubtful that resources could have been marshaled. Craddick cronies were a bit lucky. They were already trying to buy their way out of trouble. And the massive spending by his corrupt contributor network just bought themselves a lot more scrutiny in November.
Brief tactical note: It's quite obvious these new voters are not political junkies, they are concerned and engaged citizens. They are not watching Hardball or Olbermann. Communicating with cable t.v. alone will not be sufficient to turn new and low information voters into repeat, high information voters.
To compare, Rick Noriega won without a runoff in this context of new, low-information voters. He spent his money on the networks. Which these new voters are watching.
Here in Texas, there's been a major split around the controversial Speaker of the House, Rep. Tom Craddick. These four Democrats (highlighted in red), who supported Speaker Craddick, drew challengers, and whether or not they win or lose -- coupled with other key TX House races we're watching in other threads -- could signal the potential defeat of Speaker Craddick.
To see a full list of how the TX House candidates are doing tonight, follow this link:
The battle over the Speaker's race is being fought out in the TX House, as well. Here are some of the key races that will give us an indicator of how Speaker Tom Craddick is doing across the state. All of the incumbents on this list supported Craddick, except for the last one, Haggerty.
To see a list for the results of all the TX House races, click here:
The "Craddick D" races aren't the only races to watch. Several incumbent Democrats have been targeted by conservatives this cycle in their primaries, as many conservative consultants run "shadow" pro-Craddick campaigns in the TX primary. Here is a look at those races as well. For space purposes, several of these races are above the fold (Miles vs. Edwards, Escobar, Moreno races) and several others are below the fold. We'll adjust this as the night goes on and we know which races become a priority.
To see a full list of how TX House candidates are doing tonight, follow this link:
You can watch CNN and MSNBC -- I will, just to see how much they say and when they say it. I'm interested to see how far the analysts get ahead of the numbers, just in the interest of trying to "call" something. But we promise to have the latest numbers -- and measured analysis -- throughout the night and well into the morning, if need be.
Later today, we're going to have 6 posts that will be constantly refreshing as numbers come in -- remember, there's more than just the Presidential race coming in. Those posts will be:
Presidential Primary - Will include a Senate District breakdown
Federal Races - U.S. Senate (Rick Noriega), CD-10 (Grant. vs Doherty), & other federal races
TX House, DEM Primary - Lots of big primary races for our state legislature
TX House REP Primary - Lots of big primary races for the other side as well
Statewide Races - All of Texas' statewide races
Other Races - Mainly county races around Texas
As the night goes on, we will loosen up our structure as we can. I will ask, though, that our readers remember: almost the entire writing staff will be caucusing and out watching returns at parties. I'll be doing my best to steer the ship, but there's only so much I can do. Please help me out by commenting, sending me e-mails, and continuing to return and watch numbers.
This is a daily feature through the early vote period of the TX primary.
The following links take you to spreadsheets based on the numbers from the Secretary of State's website that shows the early vote totals for the 14 counties with the highest numbers of registered voters:
I've put together the list of what I think are the top 10 YouTube clips of this Presidential primary campaign. I've done my best to find clips that are well known and had (at least some) influence and/or interest. I think you'll enjoy the list.
Feel free to disagree with my order in the comments, and let me know which ones I missed. Watch all 10 videos below the fold...
The Texas Democratic Party is warning that its March 4 caucuses could be delayed or disrupted after aides to White House hopeful Hillary Clinton raised the specter of an "imminent" lawsuit over its complicated delegate selection process, officials said Thursday night. [...]
In a letter sent out late Thursday to both the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns, Texas Democratic Party lawyer Chad Dunn warned that a lawsuit could ruin the Democrats' effort to re-energize voters just as they are turning out in record numbers.
Spokesmen from both campaigns maintained there were no plans to sue before the March 4 election.
"It has been brought to my attention that one or both of your campaigns may already be planning or intending to pursue litigation against the Texas Democratic Party," Dunn said in the letter, obtained by the Star-Telegram. "Such action could prove to be a tragedy for a reinvigorated Democratic process."
A lawsuit over the caucus process is the worst thing that could happen on March 4. Talk about torpedoing every opportunity raised by the incredible turnout from the Clinton and Obama campaigns in Texas. Both campaigns spoke about the potential lawsuit:
"Officials from Senator Clinton's campaign at several times throughout the call raised the specter of 'challenging the process,' the official said. "The call consisted of representatives from both campaigns and the Democratic Party."
The source, who did not have authorization to speak about the matter on the record, said Clinton's political director, Guy Cecil, had pointedly raised the possibility of a courtroom battle.
But Adrienne Elrod, Clinton's top Texas spokeswoman, said campaign and party officials had merely discussed primary night procedures and that the campaign was merely seeking a written agreement in advance. She could not elaborate on the details of the agreement the Clinton campaign is seeking. "It is our campaign's standard operating procedure that we need to see what we are agreeing to in writing before we agree to it," Elrod said. "No legal action is being taken. We have no reason to take any legal action."
Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said the Obama campaign had no plans to sue.
"We're confident that by working closely with the Texas Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign we'll have a caucus that Texans can be proud of -- because every eligible voter will be allowed to participate and have their vote counted in a timely manner," Earnest said.
Hopefully, this is all just a lot of talk and nothing materializes it. But if there is a lawsuit leveled against the TDP over the caucus system, I'll leave school for a month to follow whichever campaign files a lawsuit and heckle them at every single rally they have.
A lawsuit about the caucuses would be the most damaging way to proceed with this -- to date -- incredible presidential campaign in Texas.
Five days out from the Texas Democratic presidential primary, the race remains a dead heat, but Barack Obama now leads Hillary Clinton by a 46%-45% margin. Over the past three nights, Obama's number have improved from 43% to 46% and Clinton's have slipped one point from 46% to her current 45%. The race continues to trend slowly but steadily toward Barack Obama, keeping in mind these changes are slight and within the margin of error.
