Texas Caucuses

Here's a great article in the Washington Post on the caucus system in Texas. The gist of it is that, for some reason, the Clinton campaign just found out about how we run primary elections down here. Here's the punchline:

"Several top Clinton strategists and fundraisers became alarmed after learning of the state's unusual provisions during a closed-door strategy meeting this month, according to one person who attended."

Now, it's entirely possible this sentence doesn't actually capture the real attitude of the Clintonistas in their top-secret strategy sessions, but if it does and these folks are just learning about the "convoluted delegate rules" it speaks volumes about the competence of her whole operation.

Once again, this demonstrates how judgement trumps experience every time.

(I found this story alluded to on several different sites (Sullivan, Burnt Orange Report, etc.))

Nail? Meet Coffin.

The Service Employees International Union, the fastest growing labor union in the country, endorsed Barack Obama this afternoon. I can't help but believe this is a devastating and unexpected body blow to the Clinton campaign. I also find it difficult to imagine that this doesn't bode ill for Clinton in terms of a potential endorsement from Edwards. I wonder if the SEIU might not have consulted with Edwards before making their decision.

Update: I missed this, but the United Food and Commercial Workers Union endorsed Obama yesterday. Between the two unions, that's a membership of 3.2 million workers. The UFCW has 69,000 members in Ohio and 26,000 in Texas. I have no idea how union endorsements actually affect membership voting patterns, but I'll bet it sure doesn't hurt.

How they do it

As if there weren't enough analyses of how the Obama campaign has managed to succeed against two political powerhouses in Edwards and Clinton, the NY Times has a great article about just that.

I've been remiss

There's been a ton of fascinating stuff about the Democratic Primary that is now hopelessly out of date. Here, however, are a few links to what I think are some interesting developments.

The scorched earth policy that the Clinton campaign appears to be prepared to wage may be short-circuited by the party elders. The NY Times has a story on a Democratic icon having second thoughts about his commitment to Clinton.

Now, I have no more insight into this matter than anyone else, but John Lewis' change of heart seems to me to be as significant a development as anything we've seen in the primary season so far. There is obviously a fight being waged for votes and delegates out in the open, but there is also a quieter but just as vigorous fight being waged behind the scenes for the super delegates that may tell the tale of this contest.

Also, Clinton is running ads in Wisconsin challenging Obama to additional debates. Here's the ad in question.

It seemed to me that the only reason Clinton would want to get back on stage with Obama was to keep him from engaging with voters, which is something she absolutely must prevent to have any chance of slowing his locomotive-like momentum. Here is Obama's reply to her ad. (Courtesy of Sullivan).

It's pretty clear that the Obama campaign is on to her and their response is so perfectly nuanced as to expose the Clinton jibe for the craven and desperate attack that it most surely is.

Here's an editorial from a website that I frequent. I learned a couple of things I didn't know.

It looks to be an interesting week or so; I'll try to do better at documenting the attrocities.

Fareed Zakaria on Hillary Clinton

Zakaria's column in Newsweek articulates better than I can what it is about HRC that rubs me the wrong way. If there weren't somebody like Obama to stand as a counterpoint to Clinton's focus group driven politicking, I'd be more enthusiastic about her, if only because she wasn't McCain or Romney. As it is, Obama's one-two combo of transparent generosity of spirit and cautious political pragmatism is in such stark contrast to Clinton's cynical maneuvering (reneging on seating the Michigan and Florida delegates, for instance) that if I have to pull the lever for her, it won't be with much enthusiasm