A grad student at UH spoke to an Obama supporter yesterday as they were standing in the "free speech zone" in front of the university library. The Obama person said that it was REALLY important to vote on March 4 because the vote counted twice... and that the voter should ask to attend the caucus meeting (even though they might be discouraged by the precinct people).
The Houston Chronicle published information on this interesting voting situation - and it reminded me of something I wrote about in my book on Fort Bend County*. From 1890 to 1954 there were two primaries in Fort Bend. African Americans and Latinos were not able to vote in the most important primary (which was held first). The regular Democratic primary was open to everyone but was held too late to make a difference. Latinos were finally given permission to vote in the 1st primary in 1937, (after women's suffrage)...and blacks were able to vote after they took the case to the Supreme Court in 1954. With the help of Thurgood Marshall, the court determined that the first primary was unfair...
Fort Bend wasn't the only county that had its special primary... many other Texas counties had the same....
In terms of civil liberties Texas has been behind many other states... this time the old system might help - if only voters are made aware that it still exists ---
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Lisa Falkenberg
Feb. 20, 2008, 11:18PM
COMMENTARY
Texas Dems vote twice on March 4
Kids screamed. Old men pumped their fists and chanted. And, yes, a few women swooned, including one who called out during a rare second of silence in the Democratic presidential candidate's rousing speech, "I love you, Obama!"
But rather than simply feed the frenzy and rally the rock concert that his candidacy resembles at times, the Illinois senator offered a brief but sobering civics lesson to the 19,000 who waited hours to hear him at the Toyota Center Tuesday night.
Showing up to his event isn't enough. Donating to his campaign isn't enough. Even casting a vote for him in the primary isn't enough.
A Texas Democratic voter's duty doesn't end at the polls this primary season, Obama told his supporters. Those who really want to influence the process need to show up at a Texas-style caucus held at each of the state's more than 8,000 precinct locations the evening of the March 4 primary election.
Texas Two-Step
Even though he didn't say it, that message is true for supporters of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton as well.
The number of voters who support either Clinton or Obama at the caucus will help determine which candidate eventually gets 42 at-large delegates and 25 pledged-party and elected official delegates.
The quirky two-part process has been assigned many metaphors, from the "Texas Two-Step" to "an exclamation point on your vote." And there have been a few jokes implying there's something naughty about the whole thing.
"This is the only place in one election that you can vote twice without going to jail," former President Bill Clinton told supporters Wednesday while stumping for his wife at the Galveston County Courthouse.
Stone Age system
The Democratic caucus — technically called a precinct convention — is one of many aspects of Texas' complicated, Stone Age primary-caucus system that many Texans either don't know about or forgot since it's been so long since Texas mattered in a primary.
Campaign officials with both Clinton and Obama say they're fighting for each and every delegate. But Obama, who has proven himself king of the caucuses thus far, seems to have put more emphasis on the issue in Texas.
His Web site makes references not only to getting the vote out but "getting the caucus out."
He's circulating a nifty cheat-sheet of precinct guidelines, complete with a link to a Web site with tools for wannabe precinct captains and grassroots organizers. This past weekend alone, his campaign trained 4,000 precinct captains in more than 20 Texas communities, and continued training this week, said spokesman Nick Shapiro.
"We're kind of putting the campaign into their hands," Shapiro says.
It's a comment that echoes the core message of Obama's campaign, which purports to be less about giving him the power to make change than empowering voters on the ground to aid in that pursuit.
Clinton is holding similar precinct captain training, and has reportedly opened 20 offices and enlisted 4,000 precinct captains, but her campaign indicated to me Wednesday that the former first lady's central focus right now is early voting, which began this week and lasts until Feb. 29.
Clinton acknowledged recently her limited grasp of Texas' archaic system, telling The New York Times that she had no idea how bizarre it was: "We have grown men crying over it," she said.
Every delegate counts
Michael Dukakis may have felt similarly in 1988. Although he won Texas' hotly contested statewide primary with 33 percent of the vote, my colleague R.G. Ratcliffe reported recently that Jesse Jackson's mastery of Texas' caucus rules and attention to grass-roots organization helped him split the state's delegates almost evenly.
In all, the caucuses help decide only 67 of the 228 delegates up for grabs in the Lone Star State, but with polls predicting a tight race, every delegate counts.
While Clinton is trying to overcome Obama's powerful message of change and his support among blacks in major urban areas of the state, Obama is battling Clinton loyalty among Hispanics, who were noticeably absent from the largely black crowd at Obama's Toyota Center event.
For the first time in decades, the Democratic nominee will be chosen in large part by the votes of Texans — both of them.
lisa.falkenberg@chron.com
for link to Chronicle article click the title of this post
*The case went through just before Brown vs. Board of Education. My book title is Cemeteries of Ambivalent Desire: Unearthing Deep South Narratives from a Texas Graveyard
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