Obama win appears big in Texas delegate battle
Barrack Obama appeared to have scored a clear victory over Hillary Clinton on Saturday in the second step of Texas’ multi-tiered process for selecting its delegates to the Democratic National Convention. With results available from about half of the district conventions held statewide, the Associated Press reported that Obama had won 59 percent of the delegates headed to the state party’s June convention to Clinton’s 41 percent. That translates into 1,858 delegates for Obama and 1,270 for Clinton. That result made it likely that when the delegate selection process is finally completed, Obama will have more Texas delegates to the national convention than Clinton, despite Clinton’s having won the March 4 primary vote 51 to 47 percent. Under Texas’ delegate selection process, 67 of its 206 delegates are selected by the June state party convention. Tens of thousands of Texas Democrats turned out for Saturday’s district conventions in a chaotic day in which many of the meetings in Texas’ large cities lasted late into the night. Some delegates ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ confused and frustrated by hours-long delays, disorder and disorganization ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ gave up on the process and left, still not sure if their vote counted.
Man, until about a month ago, no one outside of Austin suspected that Texas even had a Democratic Party. Most people figured that “Texas Democrat” was an oxymoron on par with “military intelligence” or “George W. Bush can speak in complete sentences”. I suppose this would go a long way toward explaining why the process of apportioning Democratic delegates in Texas has become the very definition of “clusterf—k”. It seems that no one has ever had to do this in their lifetimes, so no one has a clue as to how the process (which is convoluted under the best of circumstances) is supposed to work.
Perhaps this is why Texas has been so reliably Republican for as long as most of us can remember. It’s just a helluva lot easier. Being a Republican in Texas means little more than reacting and making hard and fast decision based on propaganda, half-truths, and minimal information. Hell, anyone can do that…which is why so many Texans do. Voting Republican sure beats the Hell out of thinking, eh?
Being a Texas Democrat means having to understand and being willing to follow a convoluted set of rules that make the Federal Budget look like a Captain America comic book. Frankly, there aren’t a lot of Texans outside Austin with the willingness or wherewithal to tapdance through that minefield.
You do have to admit that this particularly clusterf—k is quite entertaining, no??
