Sunday, March 16, 2008

"Dear Boyd"

Garry Mauro, the Clinton campaign's point man in Texas, says it's splitsville for him and Hill if the TDP doesn't quash those mean old caucuses:

In a letter sent to the state Democratic Party late Friday, the Clinton campaign asked that the March 29 county and state senatorial district conventions be postponed until the eligibility of the estimated 1 million caucus-goers that turned out March 4 are double-checked, the Associated Press reported Saturday.

Verifying that caucus participants were qualified by voting in the primary and that they were at their appropriate precinct caucus is the biggest challenge that remains for the party, Mauro said.

Without that, Mauro said, it will be impossible to know whether the regional convention delegates accurately reflect caucus turnout.

"We have to wait and see who shows up (at the regional conventions) and who's qualified to show up," Mauro said.


Boyd seems a little unsympathetic to the Clinton campaign's dilemma:


State Democratic Chairman Boyd Richie said the party has received about 2,000 caucus complaints, ranging from people butting in line to someone possibly stealing caucus sign-in sheets so that certifying a victor will be difficult. But he said with a record caucus turnout, he considered the problems to be a small part of a successful caucus process that energized Democrats.


Most of the whining coming out of the Clinton camp these days regarding the Texas caucuses has to do with the "unfairness" of it all: because Mrs. Clinton narrowly won the primary half (two-thirds, actually) and lost the caucus half (one-third, to be precise) by nearly a two-to-one margin, cries of "It's Bush 2000 all over again" and "one man, one vote" have become nearly a cacophony of squawking. The upshot is that precinct convention delegates and alternates can expect Clinton supporters within the ranks of senate district leadership -- particularly those who have hand-picked their pals to staff the temporary rules and credentials committees at the SD conventions -- to either go out of their way to deny Obama delegates, or slow down an already cumbersome sign-in process on the morning of March 29. They want some payback for the grassroots activists beating them on the evening of March 4, and intend to take it at the end of this month. They'll use the swollen turnout as excuse to try to shaft a whole bunch of green-behind-the-ears Obama delegates showing up for the first time. The Obama campaign has to prepare their delegations for this possible sabotage of the will of the caucuses, else they will be easily rolled by the seasoned Clinton operatives.

More drama ahead, and likely more whining from some quarter.

Sunday Funnies

I hope I never have to disavow something my pastor said.

Oh yeah; I don't go to church. Thank God.





Friday, March 14, 2008

Pelosi: No Obama-Clinton (that goes for me, too)

I don't agree with Nancy Pelosi very often but after the past week I believe she's spot on with this:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it's "impossible" that Democratic presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will join together as running mates this year.

"I do think we'll have a dream team," Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol. "It just won't be those two names."

Pelosi earlier this week told Boston TV station NECN that the two wouldn't combine their efforts because Clinton has suggested the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, would be a better commander-in-chief than Obama.

I think Speaker Pelosi is absolutely correct.

Obama has never expressed any indication that he would want Clinton as his running mate, and the recent racist smears by the odious Geraldine Ferraro eliminated any remaining possibility of his adding her to his ticket.

And FWIW I can't see how Obama can accept the V-P slot if Clinton manages to steal the nomination, when it would just give McCain all the ad material he needs to attack the both of them -- Obama for being "inexperienced" and Clinton for being a hypocrite and a political opportunist of the first order.

Needless to say, this offer has now expired.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Bulletins from the front lines

Christian Science Monitor:

"These six weeks are one of the most critical periods for the Democrats," says Joseph Aistrup, a political scientist at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan. "The candidates will be floating a lot of trial balloons to see what particular angles work."

The audience is only partly the voters who will award Pennsylvania's 158 delegates.

Perhaps more important, analysts say, are the nearly 800 elected officials and party leaders known as superdelegates who may well tip the race; the ordinary Americans whose poll responses journalists use to gauge shifts in political momentum; and the Democratic leaders who will decide whether and how to proceed with do-overs of the primaries in Michigan and Florida, which had been stripped of their delegates because they moved up their contests in violation of party rules.

Clinton won Michigan and Florida. But Obama didn't appear on the Michigan ballot, and to honor the party sanctions, neither campaigned in the two states.

Those primaries, if replayed in some form, would throw 366 delegates back into play. But it would also raise the threshold to win the nomination from 2,025 to 2,208. According to an Associated Press tally, Obama now has 1,598 delegates and Clinton 1,487, including pledged and superdelegates. Neither candidate is likely to pile up enough pledged delegates – those awarded through voting – in the 10 remaining contests to seal the nomination.

A decision on whether to rerun the Michigan and Florida primaries could come in the next couple of weeks, a move likely to divert a raft of campaign resources to those delegate-rich states.

More at the link. From a report filed at the Harris county executive committee meeting (of Democratic precinct chairs) last evening:

About 600 voters voted twice mostly on EVPA (Early Voting - Personal Appearance) and on Election Day. ... about 1100 voted in both primaries, (perhaps) in a combination of EV and Election Day voting. Actually some may have voted in the R primary and showed up for the D precinct conventions but that will not be known until the SD credentials are done.

I posted already about encountering one of these double voters. Of course this is voter fraud, but not the kind the OAG of Texas usually chooses to prosecute. Some of these cases will eventually be turned over to the Harris County DA's office; a new man starts there soon.

Senate District conventions promise to be chaos, as the final allocation of Texas delegates is at stake:

Curious whether Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton won Texas' Democratic caucuses March 4? The official results won't be available until March 29. ...

The (Texas) Democratic Party gave up Monday on its effort to produce a running public tally of the (delegate) count. The state party had set up a reporting system, outside the official count, that relied on 8,247 precinct chairmen to voluntarily call their results to 254 county chairmen who would relay them to state party headquarters.

But an estimated 1 million Democrats — far more than ever before — showed up for the caucuses, which were held right after voting ended in the first part of the Democratic contest: a standard primary administered by state government.

The huge turnout played havoc with the caucuses, creating confusion, long waits and even a few calls to the police to calm frustrations late on March 4. It hasn't made the count any easier either. ...

Now the party will rely on the official system laid down in its rules. Those rules require only that precinct chairmen mail the results of their caucuses to their county party chairmen 72 hours after primary election day. County chairmen don't have to reveal those results until county or state senate district conventions on March 29.

As in many states with caucuses, these district conventions pick delegates to a state convention in June which picks the actual national convention delegates. The Associated Press uses the results from local caucuses to calculate the number of national delegates each candidate will win, if the candidate's level of support doesn't change during this multi-stage process. ...


This is why the Texas Two-Step is actually four steps: primary, caucus, senate district, and state convention. It allows for lots of manipulation by those who know the system (i.e. Clinton supporters) and those who don't (i.e. Obama supporters).

Houston's 857 precinct results are still coming in, said Harris County Democratic chairman Gerald Birnberg. The count has been slowed because precinct convention chairmen ran out of official sign-in sheets, so they tore "Democrats Vote Here" signs off the wall and scrawled the preferences of caucus-goers in long hand. Birnberg said a dozen workers have put in 12-hour days since March 4 just making sure the paperwork was right, without even counting the votes yet in the state's largest city.

My SD will have 1522 delegates to the convention; at the moment to convene in a high school gymnasium capable of holding between 11-1200. The chairman's response is to seat overflow delegates in a separate auditorium.

That scenario is fraught with legal peril. The 'plan B' response was "Not all the delegates show up anyway."

This development bodes further ill for participatory democracy in Texas. Thousands of disenfranchised voters, delegates, and alternates coming to the process for the first time are likely to be more than a little disillusioned by their exclusion, which doesn't have rosy portent for their continuing their participation in the future, now does it?

Some will stay and fight while others will leave, turned off by the sausage-making of democracy. The only question left to know is how many and who wins as a result.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Eliot Spitzer should resign.

And so should David Vitter and Larry Craig.

And Geraldine Ferraro ought to be right behind them (not for the same stupidity, of course).

That CentCom head Admiral William Fallon, who has publicly opposed Bush's attempt to expand the GWOT by attacking Iran is the only person out of a job at this posting is nothing short of ridiculous.

Obama dismissed Samantha Power, a campaign adviser who referred to Hillary Clinton as "a monster", and did so quickly. Senator Clinton has barely 'denounced' or 'rejected' Ms. Ferraro's outrageous assertions, calling them 'regrettable'.

Clinton's campaign has taken on the air of the last days of Mike Huckabee's quixotic presidential bid, stumbling along waiting for Mr. Obama to have a stroke or something.

How long will this embarrassment continue? To Pennsylvania? Beyond?

Update: Seriously; Geraldine Ferraro? The most token female in history? An obscure back-bencher tapped to co-pilot the USS Titanic Mondale to the bottom of the sea, who then returned to obscurity?

Geraldine Ferraro? GTF outta here.

Update (3/12): One down, three to go.

Update
: Two down, two to go -- although this statement shows just how obnoxious and stupid Ferraro truly is:

"The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you. I won't let that happen."

Monday, March 10, 2008

Monday Funnies (Clinton supporters may wish to avoid)






The Weekly Wrangle

Time for the post-primacaucus round-up from the friendly blogs of the Texas Progressive Alliance, compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex.

Refinish69 joins John McClelland, Democratic nominee for Texas House District 64, in asking "Where's Myra"? And it seems that Shrub has a new title to add to his list -- Torturer-in-Chief doesn't seem like one most people would want, but then Shrub is a fool.

Eye On Williamson wraps up Tuesday's primary. Dembones points out that Obama won Williamson County and SD 5, as well as the unprecedented turnout for the caucuses. WCNews has initial impressions and more impressions from the primary.

Off the Kuff has been busy poring through the data from Tuesday's primary, with posts about the blueing of Harris County, and a series on Republican crossover votes.

The Texas Cloverleaf begs the question: who the hell is Mark Thompson? Is another dead dancer in our midst, or did voter apathy give us another odd run-off?

Where is Myra? State Rep Crownover is missing, and the Leaf wants you to watch a video to help locate her.

PDiddie at Brains and Eggs wrote the advance story of Election Day in his precinct with "Today's agenda", and the postscript in "244".

McBlogger had an exciting and mostly hateful primary week. Things kicked off with Mayor McSleaze's recap of the primary itself, while McBlogger took the time to bitchslap John McCain for taking an endorsement from some weird-o preacher in San Antonio and chastise adults for following the lead of a child. McBlogger finishes up the week with a plea for relief from a devastating force, Rachael Ray.

BossKitty at BlueBloggin asks Democrats to unite and explore Make It So! A Clinton-Obama ticket?

WhosPlayin thanks his city's staff for the help in Tuesday's primaries, and wonders why the big deal about the use of the "M" word.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston ponders When Hope turns into Whine.

Vince at Capitol Annex starts taking a look at the March 4 primary, with the first of many Primary Postmortem posts.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Sunday Funnies (Talking Straight)

The primary reason Clinton supporters who say they won't vote for Obama will vote for Obama in November:






Friday, March 07, 2008

"Do you think the Democrats will win the Presidency this year?"

Granted: Kossacks have always been anti-Hillary, and most of Mrs. Clinton's supporters can't spell 'blog' much less read one, but this poll is still astounding:

31%1130 votes
2%87 votes
51%1851 votes
1%50 votes
1%33 votes
5%178 votes
6%226 votes
1%27 votes
1%18 votes
| 3600 votes

Which extreme minority do you think I voted in?

And how did you vote? And why?

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Obama-Clinton '08

I'm kinda sorta maybe thinking it could possibly even be okay with me if the order were reversed. Yes, this a significant evolution of my position.

Bottom line: With just 600 delegates up for grabs and front-runner Obama 658 short of the 2,025 needed for victory, it is mathematically impossible for either candidate to clinch the nomination before the process is scheduled to end with Puerto Rico's June 7 caucuses.

Obama remains in the overall delegate lead, 1,567 to 1,462, according to Associated Press estimates.

With neither candidate able to wrap up the nomination during the primary season, Clinton and Obama must try to seal the deal by courting the 350 still-uncommitted superdelegates, including 14 from Texas.

I have to presume that the Supers will not stampede together in either direction.

A potential wild card is the continuing battle inside the Democratic National Committee over the seating of delegates from Florida and Michigan, two states whose convention votes have been taken away because they scheduled January primaries in violation of party rules.

But governors of both states are talking about arranging for a June re-vote if private funding can be arranged to cover the costs. For very different reasons, the idea unites Clinton and GOP leaders.

Republicans see these "do-overs" as an opportunity to drain Democratic resources and create additional tension between the two foes. Clinton's strategists eye an opportunity to erase Obama's edge.


This report indicates that Governors Crist of Florida and Manholm of Michigan are demanding a pardon from the DNC, while Howard Dean -- apparently he will be making the breakfast television rounds this morning to explain -- indicates that it's up to the Credentials Committee at the national convention to decide it, or the two states must re-vote. By June 10.

The sooner the Clinton and Obama camps come to an agreement on something and stop fighting, the better off everybody is going to be. It doesn't matter to me at the moment what it is they come to an agreement on: delegate counts in FL and MI, a unity ticket, something. Anything.

Can it happen? And how long will it be before it does, if it does? Can Hillary suppress her ego and be vice-president a second time? Or will she demand that Barack wait his turn and hold the bucket of warm spit? How much blood needs to be spilled? Can the bad blood remaining be leached out in time to beat George W. McCain in November?

Betting windows are open ...

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

244.

That's how many people signed in at the Democratic caucus in my precinct last night, in West University.

The Republicans had about eight, maybe.

The Chron reports that it was like that all across the county last night:

The crowd started growing well before the polls closed, and by 7:15 something resembling a mob had assembled in front of the Lovett Inn in the heart of Montrose. Patiently they waited for the chance to ... well, nobody was quite sure. ...

The hitherto obscure process, usually the province of the political hard core, was elevated to the main stage Tuesday by the tight race between Obama and Clinton and the unusual rules of the Democratic primary, which apportions delegates both by popular vote and success in the caucus straw poll.

"I've been doing this in Democratic primaries for 30 years, and I've never seen anything like it," said Annise Parker, the Houston city controller and a nearby resident. "This just shows that if you get the right scenario and the right candidates, people will come out to vote. Here you have a history-making election — either an African-American or a woman will be the Democratic candidate."


I have participated in about half a dozen or so caucuses and run the last three; we never had so many as ten people attend any of the previous ones. We ran out of sign-in sheets, and though people in the crowd came to my rescue with copies and clipboards, it still took an hour to complete the process. There was lots of grumbling and I'm sure many left with out signing in.

"I don't know how much difference this makes in the long run, but it makes a lot of difference to me," said 31-year-old Megan House, who was hoping to be chosen a delegate for the next stage of the process. "You've got to make a stand somewhere. People are understanding that democracy is controlled by those who show up."

And show up they did. So much so that some precinct conventions took hours to resolve, especially in places where many people were still waiting to vote at the nominal closing hour of 7 p.m. The convention cannot start until the polls are closed.

Like the day's voting before them, most of the caucuses went off without a hitch. But there were exceptions, mainly because of large crowds and poor logistics. At the Harris County Courthouse Annex No. 31, the polling place for Precincts 325 and 327, the building's configuration made it difficult to organize the 300 or so people who turned out to participate, said Gertha Giles, a poll volunteer.

In Precincts 559 and 620, which also were combined for the primary, hundreds of people were still waiting in line outside the Westchase Public Library at 10:30 p.m. Poll officials did not open the doors and eventually police were called to the scene. Officers said there was never any violence, and once people were able to get inside the situation calmed down. ...

As the last of the people waiting to caucus filed inside the library about 11 p.m., police lingering in the parking lot said they'd heard calls over the radio for officers to help with overflow crowds at two other nearby caucus stations in West Side division alone: a church on Boone south of Wilcrest and a library in the 10000 block of South Kirkwood.

Across Harris County, from the inner loop to the suburbs, polling places were overwhelmed by unprecedented caucus attendance. At Precinct 64 in the predominantly Hispanic East End, the Democratic caucus drew a record turnout that astounded longtime participants.


Our precinct broke 63% for Barack Obama, 37% Clinton. Obama's campaign had about five volunteers, including a poll watcher, present mostly outside electioneering, throughout the day. I neither met nor saw anyone from the Clinton campaign. But I met almost all of my liberal neighbors, and found out how much we shared about our concerns for the future of our county, our state, and our nation. At least a hundred stayed till the very end, approving resolutions, lasting to about 9:30 p.m.

There was observable Republican mischief being made as ballots were cast during the day, but not during the caucus n the evening. A woman who voted at our location asked me how it could be determined that someone voting in the Republican primary could be prevented from voting in the Democratic. I told her that they couldn't be stopped, but one of the two votes would -- eventually, as in days after the election, and revealed by its time stamp -- be determined to be fraudulent and investigated (hopefully, by the Attorney General of Texas). Then she apparently made a potentially fatal error: she identified herself as working as an election clerk in the GOP precinct voting in a different location from the Democratic one she had just cast a ballot in.

Not sure if she just slipped up letting that slip out or perhaps was taunting me at that point. I tend to think it was the former. If her name appears as having voted in both primaries yesterday however, she's going to catch a legal challenge. For anyone who may have listened to Michael Berry on KTRH yesterday afternoon between 5:30 and 6 p.m. -- as I did on my way back from the county clerk's office to the polling place -- he spoke very eloquently and sincerely about how wrong he believed it was that Republicans were doing this. Berry stood very obviously in opposition to Rush Limbloat's exhortations to Republicans to cross over.

Anyway ...

My wife walked to the caucus last night from our house, hooked up with another lady who inquired if that was her destination, had a nice visit on the cool evening stroll. As she sat in the audience the discussions ranged from topic to topic but seemed to focus on health care concerns. There are many Medical Center professionals in West U, and one anecdote shared by a caucus-goer had to do with his job responsibility to have conversations with people about what their insurance company would and would not pay for. And how many sick people walked away from that conversation and were never seen or heard from again.

The resolutions ranged from universal health care to ending the war in Iraq to addressing global warming to seeking renewable and green energy options and on and on. Two resolutions out of about twenty-five -- one addressed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by cutting funding for the nation of Israel -- were rejected by the caucus.

So it was frustrating and exhilarating simultaneously last night. Some left early, some stayed late, some left mad, some left thrilled.

Democracy really is like making sausage. While playing in the mud at the same time. Some like it, some don't. C'est la vie.

Be sure and read the comments at the link for some real entertainment from the bitter-ender conservatives gasping as the blue tsunami washes over their heads.

Prognosis Chaos

Congratulations are due Mrs. Clinton for her primary popular vote wins in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island last night. When she most needed to do so, she kept alive her still-very-slim hopes of capturing the Democratic nomination.

(Did I just write "hope" in reference to Clinton?)

Obama could have -- should have -- put her away last night, and failed to do so. This was the second time he had that chance and missed -- the first was in New Hampshire.

So onward through the fog. To Pennsylvania, the state described as Pittsburgh on one end and Philadephia on the other with Appalachia in-between. Clinton and Obama will have their constuiencies plainly defined; the one who can poach from the other's base the most will win there.

Will the super-delegates flip start flip-flopping back to her now? I'm guessing none of the higher-ups are brave enough to make that intervention call to her now. "She's just getting warmed up", after all.

Brokered convention in Denver? I think it is certainly possible. Good for the Democratic Party? Maybe, maybe not. If the newly energized youthful supporters of Obama have a heavy dollop of cynicism dumped on them by the party elites taking away their votes, there could be a pretty serious backlash. As in disillusionment, resulting in defeat in November.

On the other hand, if they stay focused, succeed in take back their democracy, and put Obama in the White House, then we see that new age -- all that 'hope' and 'change' -- that has been talked about.

Mr. Irresistible Force, meet Mrs. Immovable Object.

Good times.