When's the last time "Texas", "Democrat", and "relevant" appeared in the same sentence?

Texas is the only place in America where you can vote twice without going to jail.

• Bill Clinton

While you’re trying to figure out the answer to the question poised in the title of this post, I’ll go ahead and give your the answer: not since I was a wee small boy. In fact, I’m not sure there’s been a truly relevant Texas Democrat since LBJ. Yeah, you could make an argument for Jim Wright or Lloyd Bentsen, and you might be right, but either way, it’s been a LONG time. Now Texas actually has a reasonable shot at determining the Democratic nominee. Regardless of what happens in Ohio, Texas’ off-the-wall primary/caucus carries a lot of weight, so much so that it just might break Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Until the past couple weeks, Clinton has been well ahead in statewide polls, Barack Obama has been creeping up on her. This trend has continued so inexorably that Rick Casey, a well-respected columnist for the Houston Chronicle, is predicting an Obama victory, based solely on early voting patterns. Based on the evidence Casey lays out, he might just be onto something. While Democratic voting is up significantly statewide, areas in which Obama is expected to do well show increases far surpassing those in areas expected to be favorable to Clinton. The numbers are truly staggering- particularly when you consider that at this time 4 years ago, a Democrat couldn’t have gotten themselves elected 8th grade class President in Texas.

This time around, significantly more Democrats have voted early than Republicans. This certainly speaks to the excitement generated by the Democratic race. It also speaks to the moribund fortunes for Republicans. John McCain doesn’t exactly inspire, does he? It’s too early to go overboard and hope against hope that Obama will carry Texas in November (Hell will freeze over sooner), but you never know.

We’ll have the answers we want on March 4th, but based on Casey’s analysis, Hillary Clinton’s “firewall” may not be the protection she’d been hoping for. Given the increasingly shrill and desperate tone of her campaign, I’d say that’s about what she deserves.