Obama Campaign Claims Victory in Texas Caucuses

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign says that based on results from some 280 regional conventions in Texas on Saturday, he overtook Sen. Hillary Clinton in delegates. Punch line: She may have won the popular vote in the March 4 primary, but he substantially outperformed her at primary-night precinct caucuses that fed into the regional conventions.

Clinton’s campaign objected.

Garry Mauro, coordinator of Clinton’s Texas campaign, conceded Obama may have gained on Clinton. But he said it was too early to say.

“I’m stunned,” Mauro said. “That’s not the way I count it.”

Obama’s campaign said their candidate landed a lead of nine delegates to the party’s national convention thanks to the caucuses and regional conventions. That’s more than enough to outpace Clinton’s lead of four pledged delegates based on her win of the popular vote.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/politics/index.html

[C_U_L8R]

1. Stunning indeed

http://burntorangereport.com/

2,580 to 1,749 at 9:50 with 39% reporting

These Clinton folks might want to go check out this thing
called arithmetic... might help them put the numbers together better.

[1776Forever]

3. Sweet dreams! Thanks Texas!

:toast:

[SoCalDem]

7. Oh noes..not teh mathz again

HRC is anti-math :)

[sandnsea]

2. How can he be stunned

Do we need another lesson on the "reality based" world?

Anyone who lives in reality knew Obama won the Texas delegates.

[readmoreoften]

4. But the caucus only counts for 35% of the vote. I'm not sure what that means.

Frankly, I'm not sure why there was a caucus in the first place. It's essentially voting twice: once privately and once publicly. I couldn't make the caucus-which was specifically at 7:15. My 80 year old grandmother in law couldn't make it because she couldn't stand in line for hours, and my other rural family members who work couldn't drive back into town to vote again. The whole thing is strange and uncomfortable--and new.

[Asgaya Dihi]

6. Nothing new about them

The caucus used to be all that was used in Texas. According to the following article Up until about 30 years ago, Texas was a strong Democratic state, and presidential caucuses--the preferred system prior to 1976--were little more than local turf wars between the liberal and the conservative wings of the party establishment.

One year one side decided that the other looked too organized and they pushed through the hybrid system we have today to help protect their power, that was in the mid 70's. You can read about it some here. http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=bd26ba8d-d2b4-479f-a949-142a9e5771ff

Lots of people just don't care that much about politics so they just never looked, but if they had bothered to read more about the process in the State or to look over the information at their polling locations the caucus was always there for anyone who wanted to go. It just made the news this year more than in most.

Both sides were running under the same well established and well known to both sides rules, one side won and the other lost. That's the way it goes. It's a strange system and I'd be open to debate about changing it for next time but there's nothing about it that really favored one candidate over the next. It was up to them to learn the rules and run the better campaign.

[SoCalDem]

8. and Bill C won twice with them the way they are.. n/t

[thevoiceofreason]

5. I had a Clinton guy I know (a friend)

Griped at me when I mentioned that the count was wrong - said "Ya'll already won 158-59, why does it matter if it should have been 160-57." Responded with the law of increments: If we switch 2 Clinton to Obama at each of the 284 senate/county conventions, that is a difference of 1136 delegates at state (Obama up 568, Clinton down 568). That is worth about 6-10 national delegates.

[anonymous171]

9. Let's see Penn spin this.

"Texas counted back when we needed it but now its time has passed where it could've been a significant electoral player."