Today's agenda

6 a.m. : Prepare to open my polling location. As chair of the host precinct, mine and two others will be voting together today, Republicans and Democrats combined. Three precincts times two political parties means up to six precinct caucus conventions in one location this evening (though there will likely be only four; the Repubs aren't quite so numerous in my little West U enclave).

7 a.m. : Poll opens. Weather in Houston today is cool -- low 40s, forecast high of 60, with a brisk wind -- so voters need to be wrangled inside the school entry until it warms up later. Difficulty parking, long lines, possibly frayed tempers could result. Queueing and caucusing instructions will be announced repeatedly for arriving voters throughout the day.

Noon: Have a closing appointment this afternoon, so away I go.

3 p.m. : The Harris County Clerk is conducting the logic and accuracy test downtown, so in my responsibility as the elections observer for the county, I'll be in attendance.

4 p.m. or so : Tabulation of early votes begins at the CCO. This is the fun part. I will observe as the seals are opened on the packets for each EV location, the electronic cards fed into and read by the processor and ultimately totaled. These are the first results that get reported on the county's website, which appear shortly after 7 p.m. Since I will be returning to my polling place, none of these results will be revealed to me prior to my departure. The standard protocol is to run the total, at which point everyone in the room -- the county clerk's election staff, observers, IT personnel and security -- is on "radio silence"; no cellphones or laptops on, no communication with the outside world. For about two hours a handful of people know what everyone else wants to know, but nobody gets to until 7 p.m. when the polls close.

5 p.m. : Back to my precinct to conclude the election. My election judges are the absolute best.

7 p.m. : Polls close, precinct conventions to begin at 7:15 or when the last person in line has voted. I've made preparations to conduct my precinct convention (aka caucus), but if I don't get elected permanent chair I won't be disappointed.

7:15 p.m. or later: Caucuses begin. We'll see what mayhem or mischief may be in store as the presidential campaigns jockey for delegates to the Senate District convention on March 29.

9 or 10 p.m. or later: Caucuses are concluded, so I am returning downtown for more central counting office observance, into the wee hours of the morning or until I can't stand the fun any longer.

No posting until I recover on Wednesday.

Howard Dean's redemption

The Nation:

The race for the Democratic nomination is a window into how the candidates view the future of the party, which is being shaped in large part by Dean's efforts. Are Clinton and Obama similarly committed to Dean's fifty-state strategy? How much faith would each, as the Democratic nominee, put in the party's grassroots? In the Internet era, the party is less about elder statesmen sitting in Washington than millions of people across the country organizing locally around issues and candidates. Dean and Obama have understood how the party is changing--and have embraced it. Clinton, thus far, has not. ...

Tensions have cooled since then, and both Clintons have voiced their support for Dean's fifty-state strategy. Yet in a larger sense, Hillary's candidacy represents the polar opposite of what Dean built as a candidate and party chair: her campaign is dominated by an inner circle of top strategists, with little room for grassroots input; it hasn't adapted well to new Internet tools like Facebook and MySpace; it tends to raise big contributions from a small group of high rollers rather than from large numbers of small donors; and it is less inclined to expand the base of the party.

A single example of the old-school/new-school made plain to this activist:

While I have received a robocall on my home phone from Texans for Hillary every single night for the past week, communication from the Obama campaign during the same period has consisted of two text messages to my cellphone, each inviting me to tonight's rally at the George R. Brown.

If you were wondering about that 'change' meme, this might be evidence of it. Oh, and this too:

In his sprint across the country before Super Tuesday, Obama wisely hit places where the party had barely existed years before. "They told me there weren't any Democrats in Idaho," Obama told a raucous crowd of 14,000 in Boise. "I didn't believe them." On Super Tuesday Obama won fifteen of Idaho's eighteen delegates and virtually swept the Midwest and Mountain West.

Fourteen thousand. In Boise.

I have been railing about minimalist strategies for years now. Writing off sections of the country -- not just states but entire regions -- is what nearly bankrupted the Democratic Party in the Nineties. And it was destroyed here in the Deep-In-The Hearta.

Yes, we had a Democrat in the White House, but he was under seige from an emboldened Republican majority in Congress. Democrats were decimated legislatively, not just in Washington but in statehouses coast to coast. While the rest of the country reversed the tide in 2006, we here in Texas of course are only just now emerging from the darkness.

This most clearly signifies my inability to support the Clintons' return to power. The twenty-state strategy, focusing a on a few select targeted races, using Texas only as an ATM ...

... the wisdom of this philosophy tricking down to the Texas Democratic Party, where losing every statewide office since 1994 and ekeing out a half-dozen wins in the statehouse in 2006 (while the rest of the nation turned blue) is defined as as 'victory' ...

But I digress.

Tradition dictates that whoever wins the White House will install his or her own regime in the DNC. Dean says that if a Democrat wins in November, he does not want to hang around the building past 2009. Yet few in the party believe it's possible, or preferable, to go back to targeting a dozen swing states every two or four years. "You cannot lurch from one election to the next with no game plan," Dean says. "I do believe the Democratic President is going to want a permanent political operation, and I think we're going to leave a very strong one here." Dean says the state party chairs have already persuaded Obama and Clinton to commit to funding the fifty-state strategy, which at a cost of $4 million to $5 million a year is a tiny fraction of the $300 million budgeted by the DNC for '08. "The one thing they should not get rid of is the fifty-state strategy," says Democratic strategist Donna Brazile. "We need to do more, not less."

Dean had the vision, but others will get or share the credit. It took an Obama to realize the potential of the Internet and grassroots organizing to transform politics. And it will take the commitment of future DNC chairs to the fifty-state strategy to continue building the party from the ground up. "You know the expression, to be a prophet without honor in your own land," says Steve Grossman, Dean's former campaign chair. "That's Howard Dean."

Kos adds:

... We saw the party elite (dominated by the Clintonistas) in DC hoarding their power, sure, but we also saw that the masses outside the Beltway were far bigger, and collectively wielded far more power than the Ickes and the Podestas. Sure, they could raise a buttload of money and get their new organizations funded (and there's some good ones in that mix, like the Center for American Progress and MediaMatters), but their efforts to dominate and control the party machinery were doomed from the start. The people-powered movement would swamp them out. So Dean became our surrogate and we propelled him to a dramatic victory as chair of the party. Sure, establishment Dems wailed and threatened and tried unsuccessfully to find an establishment-approved alternative to Dean. ...

Those of us outside that DC cesspool knew better and we have been obviously proven right in the subsequent years. It's amazing how responsive the nation gets when you reorient your efforts beyond a few special states and decide that the whole country -- and the grassroots in each state -- actually matters.

But what's surprising to me is that in this day and age, the Clinton people are still so wedded to the early 90s that they continue to misread the political landscape -- a mistake the Obama camp has exploited to full advantage.

Precisely. And also this, from Booman:

Maybe Hillary Clinton's personality blinded people. Maybe her gender was weighed too heavily. Maybe they took her voting record and policy positions at face value. Maybe they just craved partisanship. Maybe they were just afraid to stand up to the 'inevitable' candidate. But, for me, this has always been a contest between the DLC and the netroots/grassroots, with Obama and Edwards on one side and Clinton on the other.

We netrootsers have been going into battle every day for five-six years without the Clinonistas at our side. Half the time, and on the most critical issues, they have been standing on the opposing sidelines or actively undercutting our positions. How could any blogger/activist have ever seen the Clinton campaign as anything other than the mortal enemy of the movement, I don't know.

I have blogger friends (hopefully still friends) whose support for Mrs. Clinton remains steadfast to this moment. It's easy to disagree over candidates in politics, even -- sometimes especially -- those within your chosen party. Obama is going to have to mend fences after Tuesday, irrespective of the outcome in the headlines. Even if he does not 'win' Texas and Ohio, he will almost certainly pad his delegate lead, continue to erode Mrs. Clinton's last remaining base of support -- the superdelegates -- and eventually be conceded the nomination. If not on Wednesday, then shortly thereafter. Much sooner than later, I would hope.

And perhaps the Texas Democratic Party will ripen for change as well, with a groundswell of millions of new voters, an energized base of activists and supporters, and a mandate for change. Pesky word, that.

All thanks to Barack Obama's execution of Howard Dean's strategy.

Dean has always spoken for me.

The Weekly Wrangle

It's the Day Before Primary, and that means it is time for another Texas Progressive Alliance Blog Round-Up. This week's collection is compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex.

This election cycle is all about the change America so desperately needs. TXsharon at Bluedaze implores Texans not to settle for more of the same.

Many wonderful things happened at McBlogger this week, from discovery of a scrumptious new foodstuff, to Hillary's decision to co-sponsor a bill turning back the privatization of our military. And they took a look at Cornyn's pathetic attempt to call out his better, Lt.Col. Rick Noriega.

Who'sPlayin has photos and man-on-the-street interviews from the Barack Obama rally in Fort Worth on Thursday, and his 7-year-old son wonders whether Democrats will change the Pledge of Allegiance.

Off the Kuff has been closely following the early voting turnout data in Harris County and statewide. Read all about R versus D ballots in state rep districts, why some Republicans are voting for Obama, projecting record statewide turnout, and what it all means for November.

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News says for the last time with feeling: Viva Obama! Vote and caucus at your precinct Tuesday. Caucus conventions start 15 minutes after voting at the precinct closes.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that there is some right-wing cash coming into some unexpected Democratic campaigns, and notes that Obama has a push card in Texas highlighting faith issues.

Eye On Williamson has been chronicling the turnout gone wild in Williamson County. Dembones wrapped up the early voting with a final early voting report, and is Fired Up, Ready To Go for the primary. WCNews has a look at the HD-52 8 days out ethics filings leading up to Tuesday's primary election.

Refininsh69 from Doing My Part For The Left thinks it is time that supporters of both Obama and Hillary GROW UP! Doing My Part For The Left endorses Glen Maxey for Travis County Assessor-Collector. And while listening to both campaigns and watching commercials and interviews, Refinish69 realizes it is 3AM and Hillary Seems Desperate.

The Texas Cloverleaf jumps into the final weekend of primary action, meeting up with Forest Whitaker, Max Kennedy, and Ron Kirk in Dallas at Obama HQ. After the star-studded event, attack ads hit the mailboxes in Texas. Find out what half-truths are being spread by the Clinton attack machine before Election Day concludes a raucous primary season.

Jaye at Winding Road asks Hillary Clinton to not quit, and take it to the convention.

Sunday Funnies (Republicans make me Ralph edition)

171,000 Democratic primary early voters in Harris County

Shatters modern-day records. The Harris County clerk, Beverly Kaufman, called the turnout "unprecedented". If EV follows recent trends, then the nation's third-largest county will have over half a million Democrats voting in the primary. That's twice as many as I originally predicted, and that portends a statewide tally of somewhere between 2 and 2.5 million Texans voting Democratic in 2008. A million more Democrats than I thought there would be.

That is a deep, dark blue azure wave sweeping across this red-ass county, and it's going to scuttle a lot of Republicans as it tears across the prairie. We're watching Texas return to its Democratic roots.

But are they all voting all the way down the ballot? Are there a bunch of Republicans making mischief? Or is it independents and ex-Republicans expressing their outrage of the past seven years at the Democratic ballot box? Is it Obama-mania, or just a hotly contested presidential race for the first time in my voting lifetime bearing fruit? Kuffner has several answers, but we'll mostly have to wait for next Wednesday, and a few days afterward, to know for sure.

I'll be making final preparations to participate -- possibly conduct -- my precinct's caucus convention, so expect little here until after Election Day.

Sunday Funnies (Say Good Night, Mrs. Clinton)

TX exit poll: Clinton 41, Obama 38

Other 17% (presumably Edwards, Dodd, Richardson, and other presidential candidates who have suspended campaigns but remain on the Texas ballot) and Undecided 4%.

This outfit -- People Calling People/Texas Voyager (.pdf, scroll to bottom) -- used an automated interactive call to 408 respondents, self-declared Democrats who have already voted in the March 4 primary. The MoE is 4.85%, and calls were conducted between 6 and 9 p.m. on the evenings of February 26 and 27.

Neither Kuffner nor BOR, the real gurus for these sorts of numbers, appear to have blogged this yet so opinions as to validity, integrity and so on I'll leave to them and similar experts as to whether or not this is good data.

It seems to contradict the supposition that the "surge x 10" of early voting is driven by the Obama campaign. I suppose we will have to wait and see.

Update: That 17% 'other' -- as well as the 4% undecided -- calls into question the accuracy of an exit poll, particularly one in which the participants declare as having voted to an auto-dialer. K-T at BOR mentions that the poll doesn't appear in the Pollster.com list, or the Real Clear Politics aggregate.

Update (2/29): Kuffner -- with the assist from John Zogby -- makes it make a little more sense.

Gene Kelly for Senate

Not an endorsement. The reclusive perennial candidate finally has a website:

http://www.genekellyforsenate.com

I did, however, volunteer to work on his outreach campaign. Here's a snapshot of me providing my resume':

To Beaumont to see Rick Noriega today

and a few clients. Light posting ahead to Election Day. Perhaps if the Ohio debate amounts to something besides more mud slung from Mrs. Clinton I'll have something to say, otherwise I'll leave you to play in other peoples' sandboxes for awhile.

Update (2/27) Here's video. Here's another. See if you can spot me.

Update II (2/27): Join me in calling on Senator Box Turtle to match Noriega and release his military records.

Oh yeah ... Student deferments from 1971 aren't actually "military" records. My bad.

The eventual post-mortem on the Clinton campaign

That damned New York Times, having "destroyed" one Maverick, turns its vulturous eyes toward the only other inevitable loser still standing:

There is a widespread feeling among donors and some advisers, though, that a comeback this time may be improbable. Her advisers said internal polls showed a very tough race to win the Texas primary — a contest that no less than Mr. Clinton has said is a “must win.” And while advisers are drawing some hope from Mrs. Clinton’s indefatigable nature, some are burning out.

Morale is low. After 13 months of dawn-to-dark seven-day weeks, the staff is exhausted. Some have taken to going home early — 9 p.m. — turning off their BlackBerrys, and polishing off bottles of wine, several senior staff members said.

Some advisers have been heard yelling at close friends and colleagues. In a much-reported incident, Mr. Penn and the campaign advertising chief, Mandy Grunwald, had a screaming match over strategy recently that prompted another senior aide, Guy Cecil, to leave the room. “I have work to do — you’re acting like kids,” Mr. Cecil said, according to three people in the room.

Others have taken several days off, despite it being crunch time. Some have grown depressed, be it over Mr. Obama’s momentum, the attacks on the campaign’s management from outside critics or their view that the news media has been much rougher on Mrs. Clinton than on Mr. Obama.

And some of her major fund-raisers have begun playing down their roles, asking reporters to refer to them simply as “donors,” to try to rein in their image as unfailingly loyal to the Clintons.

I know the feeling. I went through it with John Edwards, from the morning after the Iowa caucuses to the day in New Orleans when he finally pulled the plug. In between I donated hundreds as part of a fundraiser the campaign itself never acknowledged, blogged like hell, and kept attending meetings and making phone calls though it was painfully obvious that the miracle was not going to materialize.

I did all that mostly because I thought Edwards was the best progressive, populist and electable candidate running, but I also did it because the thought of a Clinton nomination weighed so heavily on my mind and heart for at least a year that it felt like a case of influenza. The sense of imminent relief I feel just knowing that a concession speech is coming some time soon must be matched by a similar feeling of dread and disillusionment in those that have supported and believed in the Clintons.

The article goes on ...

Engaging in hindsight, several advisers have now concluded that they were not smart to use former President Bill Clinton as much as they did, that “his presence, aura and legacy caused national fatigue with the Clintons,” in the words of one senior adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity to assess the campaign candidly.

Yet even today -- well, yesterday and tomorrow -- he's out here stumping away. For her part, Hillary's tried nice, she's tried nasty, now she's trying shame and sarcasm as her flailing, thrashing presidential aspirations swirl the drain, soon to vanish out of sight.

I think the interesting part is that the Clintons looked at some polling and came to the conclusion that they were overwhelmingly popular with Democrats. They weren't. The primary reason for that is because the core of the party between presidential elections -- call them the "grassroots", or "liberal activists" or whatever you wish -- had no connection to the conservative, corporate Clintons that fleshed themselves out from the DLC model in the wake of their departure from the White House in January 2001. These progressives resented the inevitability meme that accessorized Hillary's run for the Senate and subsequent preparations for 2008. Secondly, while many of these loyal Democrats were incensed by Kenneth Starr and the impeachment proceedings (count me as one), they were even more exhausted by it. Third, hindsight doesn't make the Clintons look better, but worse; the Clintons gave us NAFTA. It was Bill Clinton that said the war in Iraq was a good idea and it was Hillary Clinton that voted for it. It was Bill who spent the Dubya years globetrotting with Poppy instead of standing up for the Constitution, the rule of law, and global peacemaking rather than war-mongering.

The Clintons should have taken it as a sign when Connecticut Democrats kicked the 2000 vice-presidential nominee clean out of the party in 2006. The forthcoming progressive years aren't going to have much nostalgia for the leaders of yesterday. (This same thing happened, of course, to Edward Kennedy in the Seventies and Eighties, and the Clintons were -- eventually, in the Nineties -- the beneficiaries.)

Hillary Clinton ran a very good campaign in many respects. She was excellent in all but one of nineteen debates. She was solid, if lacking some of her opponent's evangelical zeal, in town hall meetings. She was well-versed on the facts and detailed in the policy. The Austin debate last week was her best moment. She mixed attack dog -- that cringe-worthy "Xerox" throw-away line -- with den mother, closing on a standing-ovation-worthy emotional appeal that proved effective for her in New Hampshire. But there just isn't another electoral rabbit left to pull out of the top hat.

Hillary Clinton isn't losing because she isn't a good politician. She is losing because the party wants something else ... the country wants something else. She is also losing, as suggested by those unnamed senior advisers above, because Bill Clinton simply isn't very popular any more when it comes right down to it. Every time he showed up in this campaign Hillary took a little bit of a hit. The nostalgia for Bill has been mostly relegated to white women young and middling reliving the mid-Nineties -- or maybe the Eighties, depending on the generation -- when rock stars got undergarments thrown at them onstage. The sad truth is that very few people were comforted by the prospect of the Big Dog, as Mitt Romney put it, "running around the West Wing with nothing to do."

Yes, she also lost because Obama's campaign outsmarted and outworked hers by running a 50-state ground strategy. He was like Muhammed Ali rope-a-doping Clinton's George Foreman.

And where did all the Clintons' money go?

Regardless, I can't wait for it to be over. I'm anxious to begin a totally new and fresh era, a new age of progressivism, accompanied by a super-majority -- somewhere from thirty to sixty new Democrats in the House of Representatives -- and even perhaps, dare we dream, a Senate that will no longer capitulate to fear of conservative boogeymen.

Well, maybe that last is a stretch ...

The Weekly Wrangle

This week's Texas Progressive Alliance Blog Round-Up comes exactly one week and one day before the all-important Texas prima-caucus. Have you voted yet? Did you get your voter registration card stamped if you have, or a "receipt" so that you can attend the caucus on the evening of Election Day? Avoid the long lines on March 4 and vote early this week. The round-up is compiled, as it nearly always is, by Vince from Capitol Annex.

TXsharon has a broken modem so Bluedaze is suffering, but she managed to post about the RRC's approval of Atmos Energy's extravagant spending -- bend over Texans. Also read about how Phil King meets karma in Wise County and hear the horrendous sounds of the Barnett Shale.

Off the Kuff offers his incomplete list of endorsements for the Democratic primaries, and for his birthday rounds up his complete list of candidate interviews.

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News has blogged an eventful week or two climaxing with Paul Burka becoming a believer in the Obama Borg -- Democrats can take back Texas. Wow.

Over at McBlogger Mayor McSleaze commemorates Kirk Watson's deer-in-the-headlights moment while McBlogger, beverage in hand, watches the debate and puts the smackdown on wingnuts still drinking the school voucher Kool-Aid.

The Texas Cloverleaf makes it back safely from Oklahoma City and discusses the national Stonewall Democrats meeting there, as well as the upcoming LGBT Presidential Town Hall in Dallas on Monday night.

PDiddie at Brains and Eggs had a report on Obama's visit to Houston last Tuesday, and also noted the end of the Fidel Castro era in Cuba. Open Source Dem had part three of his "Texas in Play" series, entitled "Jim Crow Lives".

Hal, who writes Half Empty, went to early vote last Wednesday and has some poll observations and some Fort Bend County stats.

Bill Howell of StoutDemBlog reminds us of some Texas election history that is relevant for this year's Democratic Primary, in Don't Be Confused By Names.

Muse was at the Bill Clinton fundraiser in Houston this week where she fulfilled a lifelong dream to touch him –- handshake! She notes that not all college students are for Obama –- witness the Daily Texan endorsement for Hillary. And she receives an email where Obama encourages Republicans to crash the Democratic primary, to vote against the bad, scary Hillary. More Hillary stuff coming this week on musings!

WhosPlayin tries to explain the Obama movement, and has a rundown of which Texas blogs are endorsing Clinton or Obama.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that the Texas Democratic Party has instructed county and precinct officials not to interpret election results for the media or political campaigns, and asks if national Democrats will still respect us (or call or visit) after March 4.

More Funnies (no cartoons)

Spike Lee at the Oscars, LHAO at Jon Stewart, who said: "Usually when we have a woman and a black man as the two leading candidates for President of the United States, an asteroid is about to hit the Statue of Liberty."

"The band Abba wants John McCain to stop using their songs at his campaign rallies. Yeah. When asked about it, McCain said, 'Who cares about Abba? Kids today are into the Bee Gees.'" -- Conan O'Brien

"Experts believe that now that Fidel has resigned, he will either be succeeded by his brother, Raul, or by his idiot son, Fidel W. Castro." -- David Letterman

"And President Bush is now pushing Congress to expand the government's ability to spy on Americans now that the current phone tap bill has expired. In fact, to gain support for a new spying bill, they're bringing in coach Bill Belichick. Yeah. They are going to rename it the New England Patriot Act." -- Jay Leno

"The founders of Ben & Jerry's ice cream are endorsing Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton, which makes sense because Baracky Road is a catchier name for an ice cream than Pantsuits and Cream." --Conan O'Brien

"Have you been watching the Roger Clemens congressional hearings? He denies being injected by his trainer. But what I thought was interesting was every time they mentioned 'buttocks,' Sen. Larry Craig swooned." -- David Letterman