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[Milwaukiedave]

March 30, 2008, 11:26PM
Obama gains more ground in Texas conventions

By R.G. RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

AUSTIN � As the smoke cleared from this weekend's regional Democratic conventions, Barack Obama emerged with a majority of the state's at-large presidential nominating delegates and possibly a majority of all Texas delegates.

But Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters vowed Sunday to continue the fight for Texas delegates all the way to this summer's state party convention, promising to cut his lead in delegates.

The actual number of delegates awarded to Obama and Clinton will not be official until the state party convention meets June 5-7 in Austin. The results of Saturday's regional conventions were still being tallied Sunday, but Obama was winning about 58 percent of the delegates to the state convention.

About 100,000 people turned out for about 280 county and senatorial district conventions on Saturday. The final conventions were being held Sunday in Collin County.

While participants waited in long lines and spent hours helping to elect presidential nominating delegates, the chaos wasn't nearly as bad as the March 4 caucuses, which attracted about 1 million voters, Democratic Party spokesman Hector Nieto said.

"Overall, (the conventions) went pretty well," Nieto said. "It was democracy in action."

Clinton won the popular vote in the March 4 primaries and a majority of the primary-allotted delegates, giving her a 65-61 lead.

Obama's campaign claimed he came out of this weekend's conventions with a 38-29 at-large delegate lead, giving him a five-pledged-delegate lead over Clinton.

"We can confirm now that Barack Obama won Texas," said Obama spokesman Josh Earnest.

Clinton state Chairman Garry Mauro conceded that Obama is likely to have a 37-30 advantage in the at-large delegates, which would give Obama a total lead of three pledged delegates over Clinton.

Mauro said Clinton may be able to take at least two national nominating convention delegates away from Obama at the state convention. She is working on convincing a majority of the 351 automatic state convention delegates to support her, Mauro said.

"If we're in a hot race on June 6, we expect to pick up more delegates," Mauro said. "I believe at the end of the day we will run either dead even or come out ahead in the delegate count."

In the national delegate fight, Obama is leading 1,623 to Clinton's 1,499, according to the Associated Press, with 2,025 needed to win.

The automatic delegates to the state convention are party leaders, the members of the State Democratic Executive Committee and county chairs who get to attend the convention as a delegate and can vote for the presidential candidate of their choice. These automatic delegates will make up about 4 percent to 5 percent of the total state convention population.

Earnest said he hopes the automatic candidates to the state convention will reflect their constituents when they make their decisions.

Those delegates "will all make their own decisions, but we would expect them to reflect the will of the voters, especially in these caucuses," Earnest said. There also are a group of national superdelegates from each state who automatically attend the national convention. Clinton has been trying to clinch the nomination by securing a majority of the superdelegates.

The national superdelegates are members of Congress, the Democratic National Committee and certain party leaders.

There are 35 superdelegates from Texas. At present, 12 are for Clinton, 10 for Obama and 13 are uncommitted.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5660779.html

Also from Burnt Oregon Blog:

http://www.burntorangereport.com/

[mole]

My Mom spent 15 hours at a democratic convention yesterday here in Grapevine between Dallas and Fort Worth.
She retired last year and was all fired up about getting to do something "political and stuff."
I haven't gotten to talk to her much about it yet. I just kept her dog all day.

The summary I got was that no Shrillary delegates there are going to the state convention.
I don't know how many Obama's are being sent.

She's disappointed, but has a load of Clinton campaign stuff.
Silly Mom.

[Milwaukiedave]

[stillnotking]

Oh, but caucuses don't count, you see. Only latte-sipping elitists vote in caucuses! (Do they have latte in Texas? Do they give you a funny look if you order it?)

On a serious note, one thing this year has done is to bring some of the glaring problems with the Dem primaries to the fore. I'm hoping that there are some reforms made for next time around (the calendar, the wacky proportional allocation, the super delegates, etc.).

[Milwaukiedave]

SNK,

Hey, this is even better. Yahoo is finally reporting this:

Obama wins most Texas delegates Mon Mar 31, 3:58 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama has won the overall delegate race in Texas thanks to a strong showing in Democratic county conventions this past weekend.

Obama picked up seven of nine outstanding delegates, giving him a total of 99 Texas delegates to the party's national convention this summer. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won the other two, giving her a total of 94 Texas delegates, according to an analysis of returns by The Associated Press.

Texas Democrats held both a presidential primary and caucus. Clinton narrowly won the popular vote in the state's primary March 4, earning her 65 national convention delegates to Obama's 61.

Precinct caucuses began immediately after polls closed primary night and quickly devolved into chaos in many parts of the state because of an unprecedented turnout of more than 1 million Democrats. The state party was never able to provide complete results from the caucuses, which is why the AP withheld nine delegates.

The precinct caucuses elected delegates to about 280 county and state senate district conventions on Saturday. The AP awarded the remaining delegates based on results from Saturday's conventions, showing Obama with about 58 percent of vote, compared to 42 percent for Clinton.

Obama won 38 delegates through the caucus/convention system, and Clinton won 29.

The final delegate allocation will be decided at the party's state convention June 6-7, and the numbers could change if either campaign is unable to maintain the level of support they had over the weekend.

Obama leads the overall race for the Democratic nomination with 1,631 delegates, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates. Clinton has 1,501, according to the latest AP tally


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080331/ap_on_el_pr/texas_delegates;_ylt=ArRo8sPWnQ1J2szF3FdJp0us0NUE

[Dome Vans]

Does it really make the slightest bit of difference WHAT these candidates do? I've never seen so much analysis going on for so long as it does for these horribly drawn elections. Your voting system doesn't work. You only need to look at the last eight years to see the perfect example of what happens with your "Super Tuesday" elections.

The character assassination of candidates is so cut throat it's a disgrace.

[bacasper]

[Kuros]

There were about 3 million votes cast for the primary, and about 200,000 votes for the caucus. Roughly a 15:1 ratio.

Nevertheless, 126 delegates are awarded by the primary, and 67 delegates from the caucus. Thats roughly a 2:1 ratio.

By popular vote, Clinton won 50.9% to 47.4%.

By delegates, Obama won 99 to 94 delegates.

Edit:

[stillnotking]

Interesting stats, Kuros, but I'd reiterate that the popular vote means nothing because -- for the umpteenth time -- this is not a direct election. It's a delegate election, just like the electoral college.

Texas' system is screwy, yes, but its rules were well known in advance by both campaigns and Obama won fair and square.

[Dome Vans]