Many of my friends are UT fans, so they won't enjoy this post (if they even read it), but I thought I'd put it up anyway.
First of all, let me say I'm approaching this completely in a non-biased fashion. In fact, if I had to choose which of the three teams is my favorite it would be hands down Texas, but that doesn't change the facts, and they clearly state that OU should be ahead of UT and deserved to win the Big 12 Championship and deserve a chance to play for the National Championship.
Yes, we know. Texas beat Oklahoma. 45-35. Fine. Too bad that argument means absolutely nothing in this case. It isn't just between Texas and Oklahoma. It isn't a 2 way tie. Head to head means absolutely nothing. If it did, Tech would be ranked ahead of OU, it's that simple.
It isn't a 2 way tie at the top of the Big 12, it is a 3 way tie. Ignore the fact that the BCS erased Tech's chances when OU blew them out, the fact remains that they are just as legitimate a Big 12 Champ as either Texas or Oklahoma on the surface of it. They beat Texas. They can make the same argument that Texas is making against OU. "But we beat you! Head to head!"
Texas Tech beat Texas. Head to head. They should therefore be ranked ahead of Texas. After all, they have identical records, conference and overall. But you don't hear Tech making any complaints.
Because they realize that it is a 3 way tie at the top and while they beat Texas by 6 they lost to OU by 44 points. 44 points. In a 3 way tie, it seems to me point differential should be the difference. Match up the three teams in how they played against each other and OU comes out on top big. Texas won one by 10, lost one by 6 (+4), Texas Tech won one by 6, lost one by 44 (-38), OU won one by 44, lost one by 10 (+34). This is a fair and logical tie-breaker that makes more sense then the arbitrary one used by the Big 12 (BCS standings), one that is actually decided on the field.
That being said, the BCS got it right, primarily because of the computers which rewarded OU for playing a much tougher schedule. Out of conference, OU played two teams that finished in the top 15. OU beat #13 Cincinnati 52-26 and #11 TCU 35-10. They also scheduled Washington on the road (which when the game was scheduled was far more daunting then it is now). The only cupcake coming into the season on their non-conference schedule was Chattanooga. Texas on the other hand had perennial cupcakes Rice and Florida Atlantic on their schedule. They also had UTEP (no TCU) and Arkansas, which, again at least coming in looked like it might be a tough game.
You can't know at the beginning of a season what the schedule will look like at the end in terms of strength, but you can help yourself out a little bit by playing teams a little tougher then Rice and Florida Atlantic. As it is, OU is 4-1 against teams in the top 15 of the BCS standings this season, Texas is only 2-1 (so, I might add is Texas Tech, and remember, they beat Texas, head to head.)
Like I said, if I'm biased in any way it would be towards Texas, but the facts are the facts and they say that OU is the team that deserved to be declared the champion. Texas could have beaten Tech and made it all a moot point.
Or we could have a playoff and decide this the way it should be decided, on the field, then even Tech would still be alive to make their case, but, alas, that's another post.
Showing posts with label Texas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Texas. Show all posts
Monday, December 1, 2008
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
A Cause to Caucus For
I'm watching the results slowly come in in my home state of Texas. While it has been called for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama could still get more delegates out of the state. It could be some time before we know what will happen there, but I know what happened in my county.
Hillary Clinton won the county 63% to 35%. A total of 4761 people in my county voted in the Democratic Primary. In the Republican Primary, a total of 7146 people voted.
100% of precincts in both have reported.
The numbers should give you some idea of what type of county I live in. It is small (comparitively) and strongly conservative. I have no doubt that there were a lot of Republicans crossing party lines to vote in the Democratic primary, and I have no doubt that a majority of them were voting for Hillary Clinton. But I also believe that there are far more Democrats in my county then people first assumed.
When I headed to my precinct in order to caucus (part two of the Texas Two Step) there were no parking places whatsoever. It was just before 7:00 when the polls were scheduled to close. Surely, I thought, this isn't just people waiting to vote?
As I parked, far away from where I was supposed to be, I saw in the distance lots of people hanging around outside. I walked up to them, trying to figure out exactly where I was supposed to be and who all these people were. As I listened to some of the conversation (and entered it occasionally) I realized that a lot of these people were Democrats.
There was still a long line inside the building containing our precinct of people trying to vote. We were told that we were not allowed inside until the voting finished. No one complained about this, I think we all understood it. The problem was that I don't think any of us were anticipating the fact that we would have to wait outside for quite some time and hadn't planned accordingly. It was a little cold. As we stood shivering looking 100 feet away at the building where people were voting we tried to tell from what we could see through the windows how many more people still had to vote.
Apparently, the precinct judge was worried about the large number of people standing outside. She called for some police help describing our shivering masses as a "angry mob".
The cop showed up and walked past us to the precinct where the door was unlocked and he was let in. We continued to shiver and talk amongst ourselves. A few minutes later he walked back outside. This was at 7:30. He came up very close to where I was standing and addressed us. He said that the precinct judge wanted us to make sure we were beyond the sign a full 100 feet from the doors. There was one person just on the precinct side of the sign. She quickly took the one step necessary to comply with the rules.
The cop said he hoped we would stay orderly as there were a lot more of us then there was of him. He said it should be fine as long as we didn't have pitchforks. I then responded that it might be helpful if we had some torches, just for warming purposes. I got a large laugh from that.
Finally, the last people finished voting. We still had to wait as they packed away the voting apparatus. Finally, the precinct judge called for the Democratic Precint Chair. She walked up the sidewalk and into the building. About a minute later, the precinct judge came back out and called for the Republican Precinct Chair. About a minute after that, the man who was the Republican Precinct Chair came back out and asked who all was there for the Republican Precinct Convention. Three of the nearly 100 people standing outside stepped forward. Everyone else there was there for the Democratic caucus. I was shocked. I didn't think there were that many Democrats in my county.
Finally, the rest of us were let inside at about 7:45. We were told that we had two small rooms, probably about 12 feet by 10 feet each, to hold nearly 100 people. Then we were told that there were only 5 sheets for us to sign with 12 spots on each one. That meant that there were only 60 slots for us and 30 some more people wanting to caucus. The precinct chair had to call the "hotline" in order to find out what to do about it. A majority of the people went into the room on the left (fitting I suppose since we're Democrats) but I and a few others went into the room on the right. Three of the sheets went into the room on the left, the other two went into the room I was in. I signed third on one of them, stating my preference for Barack Obama. Many people weren't exactly sure what it was we were doing, so I tried my best to answer the questions that people had. They seemed to understand as I did my best to explain the caucus process. Finally, the precinct chair recieved word that she could use notebook paper for those who couldn't fill out the official sheets. Meanwhile, a woman in the room I was in decided that we should split those who had already filled in the sheets into rooms based on their vote. Our room became the Barack Obama room.
As more and more people came into our room after filling out sheets, I found I was explaining what exactly it was we were doing to more and more people. I explained that they would count all of the votes on the sheets for Barack Obama and the votes for Hillary Clinton, and based on those percentages, the delegates would be split up for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Then we would decide who among us would serve as those delegates in the county convention on March 29th.
Apparently people felt like I knew what I was talking about. When it came time for the precinct chair to be voted upon, I actually recieved a nomination causing us to vote between me and the woman who came in as the precinct chair. She won, which I wasn't really upset about, because even though I knew what was going on and what needed to be done, I didn't come in planning to run the caucus.
The next step was for the Precinct Chair to make sure that everyone who caucused had voted and were therefore able to caucus. As we waited for that news. Those of us in the Obama room talked amongst ourselves. I talked a little about why I was a Barack Obama supporter, plus thanks to my internet enabled phone was able to fill people in on what was happening nationally.
There were more people in the Obama room then in the Clinton room, but fully a third of the people who had signed the sheets had left at this point, as they had no desire to serve as delegates, but wanted to vote in the caucus.
Finally, everyone was deemed eligable for the caucus and the Precinct Chair and the Secretary (who we also voted on and who thankfully no one nominated me for) counted up the votes and did the math to split up the 14 delegates available to our precinct.
Although I didn't know it then, the caucus vote in our precinct very closely matched the primary vote in our county. 61% of the vote went for Clinton, 39% went for Obama, meaning 9 of the delegates would be Clinton delegates and 5 would be Obama delegates.
At this point I began to worry about whether I would be able to be a delegate to the county convention, which I really wanted to be. As I said, the majority of people still there were in the Barack Obama room, whereas in the Clinton room, there was just enough people to have the requisite number of delegates and alternates required.
Luckily, I had done a good job of making my presence known and my desire to be a delegate, and I was chosen as one of the five delegates for Barack Obama.
After it was decided, I got a chance to shake hands with most of the Obama supporters, as well as say "See you soon" to the other delegates. I went to speak to the Precinct Chair, who didn't seem at all upset that I was nominated to replace her earlier in the evening. Instead she invited me to the Democratic offices of the county telling me that young democrats such as myself were few and far between in the area and should get involved. I told her that I would be more then happy to do just that. We talked about how pleased we both were to see the turnout that the precinct recieved considering what a conservative strong hold out county was, and hoped that such enthusiasm could continue past the primary and even past the Presidential election in November.
Needless to say, I am very excited about the opportunity to serve as a precinct delegate for Senator Obama, and even more excited about the fact that I was wrong to believe that I was alone as a Democrat in my county and in fact there are far more of us then I could have hoped.
Nearly 100 people caucused at my precinct alone, a small precinct in a small county, a county that is largly conservative, and still almost 100 people came out on a cold night after having previously voted either earlier in the day or in the last couple of weeks, almost 100 people waited in the cold for 45 minutes, then waited to sign their names to paper that was quickly running out. Then half of those people waited to decide on who would represent their precinct in the county convention. The dedication of those people gave me hope. Even though the percentage of delegates didn't go the way I wanted it to, it gave me hope that the people of the Country are ready to make their voice heard, that maybe the government will once again be of the people and for the people.
Change starts from the bottom up.
Yes We Can.
Hillary Clinton won the county 63% to 35%. A total of 4761 people in my county voted in the Democratic Primary. In the Republican Primary, a total of 7146 people voted.
100% of precincts in both have reported.
The numbers should give you some idea of what type of county I live in. It is small (comparitively) and strongly conservative. I have no doubt that there were a lot of Republicans crossing party lines to vote in the Democratic primary, and I have no doubt that a majority of them were voting for Hillary Clinton. But I also believe that there are far more Democrats in my county then people first assumed.
When I headed to my precinct in order to caucus (part two of the Texas Two Step) there were no parking places whatsoever. It was just before 7:00 when the polls were scheduled to close. Surely, I thought, this isn't just people waiting to vote?
As I parked, far away from where I was supposed to be, I saw in the distance lots of people hanging around outside. I walked up to them, trying to figure out exactly where I was supposed to be and who all these people were. As I listened to some of the conversation (and entered it occasionally) I realized that a lot of these people were Democrats.
There was still a long line inside the building containing our precinct of people trying to vote. We were told that we were not allowed inside until the voting finished. No one complained about this, I think we all understood it. The problem was that I don't think any of us were anticipating the fact that we would have to wait outside for quite some time and hadn't planned accordingly. It was a little cold. As we stood shivering looking 100 feet away at the building where people were voting we tried to tell from what we could see through the windows how many more people still had to vote.
Apparently, the precinct judge was worried about the large number of people standing outside. She called for some police help describing our shivering masses as a "angry mob".
The cop showed up and walked past us to the precinct where the door was unlocked and he was let in. We continued to shiver and talk amongst ourselves. A few minutes later he walked back outside. This was at 7:30. He came up very close to where I was standing and addressed us. He said that the precinct judge wanted us to make sure we were beyond the sign a full 100 feet from the doors. There was one person just on the precinct side of the sign. She quickly took the one step necessary to comply with the rules.
The cop said he hoped we would stay orderly as there were a lot more of us then there was of him. He said it should be fine as long as we didn't have pitchforks. I then responded that it might be helpful if we had some torches, just for warming purposes. I got a large laugh from that.
Finally, the last people finished voting. We still had to wait as they packed away the voting apparatus. Finally, the precinct judge called for the Democratic Precint Chair. She walked up the sidewalk and into the building. About a minute later, the precinct judge came back out and called for the Republican Precinct Chair. About a minute after that, the man who was the Republican Precinct Chair came back out and asked who all was there for the Republican Precinct Convention. Three of the nearly 100 people standing outside stepped forward. Everyone else there was there for the Democratic caucus. I was shocked. I didn't think there were that many Democrats in my county.
Finally, the rest of us were let inside at about 7:45. We were told that we had two small rooms, probably about 12 feet by 10 feet each, to hold nearly 100 people. Then we were told that there were only 5 sheets for us to sign with 12 spots on each one. That meant that there were only 60 slots for us and 30 some more people wanting to caucus. The precinct chair had to call the "hotline" in order to find out what to do about it. A majority of the people went into the room on the left (fitting I suppose since we're Democrats) but I and a few others went into the room on the right. Three of the sheets went into the room on the left, the other two went into the room I was in. I signed third on one of them, stating my preference for Barack Obama. Many people weren't exactly sure what it was we were doing, so I tried my best to answer the questions that people had. They seemed to understand as I did my best to explain the caucus process. Finally, the precinct chair recieved word that she could use notebook paper for those who couldn't fill out the official sheets. Meanwhile, a woman in the room I was in decided that we should split those who had already filled in the sheets into rooms based on their vote. Our room became the Barack Obama room.
As more and more people came into our room after filling out sheets, I found I was explaining what exactly it was we were doing to more and more people. I explained that they would count all of the votes on the sheets for Barack Obama and the votes for Hillary Clinton, and based on those percentages, the delegates would be split up for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Then we would decide who among us would serve as those delegates in the county convention on March 29th.
Apparently people felt like I knew what I was talking about. When it came time for the precinct chair to be voted upon, I actually recieved a nomination causing us to vote between me and the woman who came in as the precinct chair. She won, which I wasn't really upset about, because even though I knew what was going on and what needed to be done, I didn't come in planning to run the caucus.
The next step was for the Precinct Chair to make sure that everyone who caucused had voted and were therefore able to caucus. As we waited for that news. Those of us in the Obama room talked amongst ourselves. I talked a little about why I was a Barack Obama supporter, plus thanks to my internet enabled phone was able to fill people in on what was happening nationally.
There were more people in the Obama room then in the Clinton room, but fully a third of the people who had signed the sheets had left at this point, as they had no desire to serve as delegates, but wanted to vote in the caucus.
Finally, everyone was deemed eligable for the caucus and the Precinct Chair and the Secretary (who we also voted on and who thankfully no one nominated me for) counted up the votes and did the math to split up the 14 delegates available to our precinct.
Although I didn't know it then, the caucus vote in our precinct very closely matched the primary vote in our county. 61% of the vote went for Clinton, 39% went for Obama, meaning 9 of the delegates would be Clinton delegates and 5 would be Obama delegates.
At this point I began to worry about whether I would be able to be a delegate to the county convention, which I really wanted to be. As I said, the majority of people still there were in the Barack Obama room, whereas in the Clinton room, there was just enough people to have the requisite number of delegates and alternates required.
Luckily, I had done a good job of making my presence known and my desire to be a delegate, and I was chosen as one of the five delegates for Barack Obama.
After it was decided, I got a chance to shake hands with most of the Obama supporters, as well as say "See you soon" to the other delegates. I went to speak to the Precinct Chair, who didn't seem at all upset that I was nominated to replace her earlier in the evening. Instead she invited me to the Democratic offices of the county telling me that young democrats such as myself were few and far between in the area and should get involved. I told her that I would be more then happy to do just that. We talked about how pleased we both were to see the turnout that the precinct recieved considering what a conservative strong hold out county was, and hoped that such enthusiasm could continue past the primary and even past the Presidential election in November.
Needless to say, I am very excited about the opportunity to serve as a precinct delegate for Senator Obama, and even more excited about the fact that I was wrong to believe that I was alone as a Democrat in my county and in fact there are far more of us then I could have hoped.
Nearly 100 people caucused at my precinct alone, a small precinct in a small county, a county that is largly conservative, and still almost 100 people came out on a cold night after having previously voted either earlier in the day or in the last couple of weeks, almost 100 people waited in the cold for 45 minutes, then waited to sign their names to paper that was quickly running out. Then half of those people waited to decide on who would represent their precinct in the county convention. The dedication of those people gave me hope. Even though the percentage of delegates didn't go the way I wanted it to, it gave me hope that the people of the Country are ready to make their voice heard, that maybe the government will once again be of the people and for the people.
Change starts from the bottom up.
Yes We Can.
Time To Texas Two-Step
First, let's take a look at today's Quote of the Day since we haven't done that in a while...
"This Country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer."
-Will Rogers
How appropriate today's quote of the day is. After all, Fort Worth holds the Will Rogers Memorial Center, and today Texas votes hoping to change that very feeling.
I love it when the Quote of the Day and what I'm talking about match up so perfectly.
That's right, today is the day of the Texas Two Step. If you live in Texas (or Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont for the first part of this) and you haven't already voted, the polls are open from 7:00am to 7:00pm, so make your voice heard.
Then, (only in Texas this time, sorry Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont) return to your polling place (or head to your polling place if you voted early) to caucus for the candidate you want to win. The caucusing begins at 7:15, or to be more precise, 15 minutes after the poll closes. If there is a long line at 7:00 to vote, they will let those in line vote before beginning the caucus.
Hopefully, today will be a day when we as Texans (and people from Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont, see I brought you guys back into it) can stand up for change, make our voices heard, and make the quote from the esteemed Will Rogers a belief of the past as we return to a Government for and of the people.
"This Country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer."
-Will Rogers
How appropriate today's quote of the day is. After all, Fort Worth holds the Will Rogers Memorial Center, and today Texas votes hoping to change that very feeling.
I love it when the Quote of the Day and what I'm talking about match up so perfectly.
That's right, today is the day of the Texas Two Step. If you live in Texas (or Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont for the first part of this) and you haven't already voted, the polls are open from 7:00am to 7:00pm, so make your voice heard.
Then, (only in Texas this time, sorry Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont) return to your polling place (or head to your polling place if you voted early) to caucus for the candidate you want to win. The caucusing begins at 7:15, or to be more precise, 15 minutes after the poll closes. If there is a long line at 7:00 to vote, they will let those in line vote before beginning the caucus.
Hopefully, today will be a day when we as Texans (and people from Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont, see I brought you guys back into it) can stand up for change, make our voices heard, and make the quote from the esteemed Will Rogers a belief of the past as we return to a Government for and of the people.
Friday, February 22, 2008
About Blogged Out
After my massive post yesterday on the democratic debate in Austin (as well as my Oscar Prediction post at josue23) I really can't bring myself to say too much today, but as I'll be out of town this weekend, I felt like I should put something up, so here's the quote of the day.
I was going to buy a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking, and then I thought: what the hell good would that do?
-Ronnie Shakes
I really don't have anything to add, because I think that says it all. Very funny.
Anyway, good debate yesterday as we come down to about a week and half until the primary here in Texas, so if you live in Texas, remember that early voting is going on now. You don't have to wait until March 4th.
In a later post, I'll see if I can explain the odd way that Texas does their Primary/Caucus.
I was going to buy a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking, and then I thought: what the hell good would that do?
-Ronnie Shakes
I really don't have anything to add, because I think that says it all. Very funny.
Anyway, good debate yesterday as we come down to about a week and half until the primary here in Texas, so if you live in Texas, remember that early voting is going on now. You don't have to wait until March 4th.
In a later post, I'll see if I can explain the odd way that Texas does their Primary/Caucus.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Primaries Plus Democrats in TEXAS?!?!?
The trouble with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.
-Patrick Young
Today's quote of the day is rather appropriate, I think. But the forecasting that I'm thinking of today is political not weather.
If you think back to June of 2007, back before everyone knew that Clemens was a steroid user, political forecasters foresaw a couple of things for sure, John McCain was done, the Republican Primary would probably go to Rudy Gulianni, but if Fred Thompson entered the race, he could become a viable candidate, and on the Democratic side, Barack Obama was interesting, for sure, but the race would be over very quickly with Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee.
Well, as we travel from the past back to the present, we can see that Gulianni and Thompson are both out of the race, and with the backing of Mitt Romney and former President Bush, McCain should have the nomination sown up by early next month at the latest. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, while prognosticators where correct in regards to the interest the nation has taken in Senator Obama, they handed Senator Clinton victory a little too quickly.
Sticking with the idea given us by Mr. Young in the quote of the day, we've seen many projections and polls in politics that have proved to be false. As recently as the New Hampshire Primary, polls showed Hillary Clinton trailing, and yet, she won the Primary.
As it stands right now, Senators Clinton and Obama are polling neck and neck in Wisconsin (the State of Cheese). A victory here would be huge for Clinton as just last week she was given no chance. She appeared to be following a "keep your eyes on the big states" type of strategy looking ahead towards Texas and Ohio next Tuesday and Pennsylvania on April 22nd, conceding everything in between to Obama. Her strategy shifted, however, perhaps due to the critiques her plan was recieving throughout the media, and she began to spend some time and money in Wisconsin.
At the very least, she's made things interesting again. I'm beginning to believe more and more that the Democratic nomination will not be decided until the Democratic convention in August.
Texas remains important, though. If Senator Clinton pulls out a victory in Wisconsin tonight, then getting less delegates from Texas then Senator Obama doesn't become as big of an issue as it would if she gets swept out of February after Super Tuesday.
The interesting thing about Texas is the fact that Clinton could win the overall vote in Texas, but be awarded less Texas Delegates then Obama. The reason for this is that the Democratic delegates are weighted by the amounts of Democratic voters in the county in the last election for Governer. A county in which 75% of the vote went Democratic will award more delegates then a place where only 25% of the vote went Democratic. So, if you're a Democrat in Texas, your lonely vote for Chris Bell might actually have meant something after all. What makes this important is that in that election, the areas with a strong Latino presence, Hillary Clinton's strong constituancy, are in primarily Republican counties.
You may recall the redistricting scandal a few years back when the Republican controlled State Congress redrew the voting lines primarily to break up the strong Latino voting districts (which voted primarilly Democratic) and placed them as smaller pieces into largely Republican districts, removing some seats from Democrats. This is the main reason why the areas with Latino voters will have a smaller number of delegates to give then other areas, areas with younger, more affluent, and better educated voters, and areas with a large number of African Americans, all of whom tend to vote in larger numbers for Barack Obama. Add to that the fact that polls now have Obama nearly spliting the woman's vote and the elderly vote with Clinton, the gender and age group that she used to dominate, and Clinton's one remaining strength (the Latino vote) is less of a strength then one might have originally thought it would be in Texas. So while Senator Clinton is counting on the large number of Latino voters in Texas to propell her to victory here, the delegates will be larger in the areas where Senator Obama has the edge, meaning Clinton might win the state, but Obama's delegate lead will still grow.
But, like I said at the beginning, polls and predictions can often be wrong, at least often enough for us to be stupid to put our faith in them completely, but they also are right often enough for them to be worth paying attention to.
Either way, the fact that today in the city of Houston, Barack Obama will be giving his post primary speech in the Toyata Center excites me. Last week, Hillary Clinton was in El Paso. Thursday they will be debating in Austin. How crazy is this, Democrats who are running for President are campaining in Texas? W.'s state?
Enjoy it while it lasts Texas Democrats, because things like this don't happen too often around here.
-Patrick Young
Today's quote of the day is rather appropriate, I think. But the forecasting that I'm thinking of today is political not weather.
If you think back to June of 2007, back before everyone knew that Clemens was a steroid user, political forecasters foresaw a couple of things for sure, John McCain was done, the Republican Primary would probably go to Rudy Gulianni, but if Fred Thompson entered the race, he could become a viable candidate, and on the Democratic side, Barack Obama was interesting, for sure, but the race would be over very quickly with Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee.
Well, as we travel from the past back to the present, we can see that Gulianni and Thompson are both out of the race, and with the backing of Mitt Romney and former President Bush, McCain should have the nomination sown up by early next month at the latest. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, while prognosticators where correct in regards to the interest the nation has taken in Senator Obama, they handed Senator Clinton victory a little too quickly.
Sticking with the idea given us by Mr. Young in the quote of the day, we've seen many projections and polls in politics that have proved to be false. As recently as the New Hampshire Primary, polls showed Hillary Clinton trailing, and yet, she won the Primary.
As it stands right now, Senators Clinton and Obama are polling neck and neck in Wisconsin (the State of Cheese). A victory here would be huge for Clinton as just last week she was given no chance. She appeared to be following a "keep your eyes on the big states" type of strategy looking ahead towards Texas and Ohio next Tuesday and Pennsylvania on April 22nd, conceding everything in between to Obama. Her strategy shifted, however, perhaps due to the critiques her plan was recieving throughout the media, and she began to spend some time and money in Wisconsin.
At the very least, she's made things interesting again. I'm beginning to believe more and more that the Democratic nomination will not be decided until the Democratic convention in August.
Texas remains important, though. If Senator Clinton pulls out a victory in Wisconsin tonight, then getting less delegates from Texas then Senator Obama doesn't become as big of an issue as it would if she gets swept out of February after Super Tuesday.
The interesting thing about Texas is the fact that Clinton could win the overall vote in Texas, but be awarded less Texas Delegates then Obama. The reason for this is that the Democratic delegates are weighted by the amounts of Democratic voters in the county in the last election for Governer. A county in which 75% of the vote went Democratic will award more delegates then a place where only 25% of the vote went Democratic. So, if you're a Democrat in Texas, your lonely vote for Chris Bell might actually have meant something after all. What makes this important is that in that election, the areas with a strong Latino presence, Hillary Clinton's strong constituancy, are in primarily Republican counties.
You may recall the redistricting scandal a few years back when the Republican controlled State Congress redrew the voting lines primarily to break up the strong Latino voting districts (which voted primarilly Democratic) and placed them as smaller pieces into largely Republican districts, removing some seats from Democrats. This is the main reason why the areas with Latino voters will have a smaller number of delegates to give then other areas, areas with younger, more affluent, and better educated voters, and areas with a large number of African Americans, all of whom tend to vote in larger numbers for Barack Obama. Add to that the fact that polls now have Obama nearly spliting the woman's vote and the elderly vote with Clinton, the gender and age group that she used to dominate, and Clinton's one remaining strength (the Latino vote) is less of a strength then one might have originally thought it would be in Texas. So while Senator Clinton is counting on the large number of Latino voters in Texas to propell her to victory here, the delegates will be larger in the areas where Senator Obama has the edge, meaning Clinton might win the state, but Obama's delegate lead will still grow.
But, like I said at the beginning, polls and predictions can often be wrong, at least often enough for us to be stupid to put our faith in them completely, but they also are right often enough for them to be worth paying attention to.
Either way, the fact that today in the city of Houston, Barack Obama will be giving his post primary speech in the Toyata Center excites me. Last week, Hillary Clinton was in El Paso. Thursday they will be debating in Austin. How crazy is this, Democrats who are running for President are campaining in Texas? W.'s state?
Enjoy it while it lasts Texas Democrats, because things like this don't happen too often around here.
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