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Tex-arcana

The rules for choosing the delegates in Texas are a little different than everywhere else (of course), but are not what AS lays out in his Daily Obama.

A poster on the blog that AS links to as a sign that the great O will trump the evil HRC corrects the record:

Joe Garland, on February 6th, 2008 at 7:41 pm Said:

This paints an inaccurate picture of how delegates to the Democratic convention are chosen in Texas. An explanation of the process for selecting delegates can be seen at the Texas Democratic Party’s website: http://www.txdemocrats.org/page/-/howto08.pdf

…and a full list of the rules can be seen here:
http://www.txdemocrats.org/the_party/article_vii_national_delegate_selection_rules

While it is true that 126 delegates are chosen through the caucus process, party rules state that for this subset, “the number of delegates awarded each candidate is based on the results of the Presidential Primary in that district.” Precinct “conventions” are held the night of the primary election, but the senatorial district “caucuses” that choose delegates are held at the state convention in June. These caucuses are not held on the night of the election, as is reported here.

Also, 42 at-large delegates to the national convention are elected at the state convention. These, to the best of my knowledge, are not proportionally chosen based upon the primary results and could end up being very unpredictable in their allegiance. On top of this, 25 pledged and 35 unpledged delegates are also elected at the state convention. These are “super-delegates,” the elected officials who also get to vote at the convention, and they can also be unpredictable.

The ability of a candidate to wage an effective ground game in Texas remains very important, particularly in the June election of the 42 at-large delegates.



It's been a few years since I've gone all the way to the State Convention, but my experience has been that those that can jones the rules at the precinct or senate district level are the ones who ultimately will control the selection of the unallocated delegates to the national convention. The advantage for Hillary is that she locked up many of the local leaders in Houston, Dallas and in the Valley a long time ago. Shelia Jackson-Lee is her co-Chair for Texas... and she can bring the African American insiders with her.

And I won't be holding my breath to see if Sully will actually correct himself when confronted with the facts...

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