Daily News, 3/5/2008: One for the Books

It has been a long month or so, but the Texas primary is officially in the books, and just shy of three million Texans cast votes in the Democratic primary. Senator Hillary Clinton surprised the pundits by running away with Ohio and managed to win on both popular votes and delegates in the Texas primary. The caucus is still being tallied, but there will be plenty to analyze in that and other results as we progress through the day.

If you went to your caucus last night, you know what the scene was like. The turnout in the Democratic primary in Texas was extraordinary, and we all got to truly sample how astonishing it was when we witnessed the human crush of democratic interest in the caucus.

The turnout looked a little spotty throughout the day, and by spotty I mean "not totally off the charts everywhere." However, it picked up in a serious way towards the end of the evening once people got out of work, and the result is plain and quantified.

While the caucus I personally attended went smoothly and wasn't hampered by our unique process, there were reports of various shenanigans around the state, leading the Clinton campaign to hold a late conference call over the alleged problems. That turned into a fight when Obama's lead counsel jumped in on the Q&A, and I have heard from more than one source that they wish they'd been recording it.

So, at this rate, you can expect that as the caucus results are tallied and Hillary Clinton's campaign has renewed energy, her campaign will fully engage in street fight mode and go to war over every delegate. She included Florida and Michigan in her Dean-esque litany of states yet to come last night, and I can't imagine that they will let even a few delegates in Texas slide if they think they have room to make an argument and pick up some numbers. As I write this, Terry McAuliffe is on TV discussing Florida and Michigan and using language like "disenfranchisement."

Of course, he's also talking about a bet the higher up campaign staff made in which if they won three states last night, two of them would have to shave their heads, and today they showed up with the wager paid in full. It is a different image than the infighting we heard about yesterday.

It isn't entirely scientific for me to say that Clinton can attribute her win in Texas to high Hispanic turnout, but the reports showed that they accounted for 3 of 10 votes, and that they broke for Clinton 2 to 1.

Independents were not enormous and the idea of 10% of the vote coming from switched Republican primary voters held throughout the day, and in the end, Hillary Clinton effectively silenced the arguments that she should consider dropping out, which many Democrats didn't think she should do if she won one of the big states last night. She won both, and here we are, looking forward at the very least to Pennsylvania.

Here in Texas, there will be some run offs, and some things to consider about the races in November. Tom Craddick's reach was on display even with hugely increased turnout for Dems and a turnout for Republicans that was puny by comparison. And Texas Democrats have a Senate nominee to work for and be excited about in Rick Noriega, who wrapped up his nomination handily last night.

We still have lots to get in to today, plenty of numbers to crunch, and all kinds of races and results to look at. I am still convinced that today will be more interesting than yesterday, if for no other reason than what we have to learn from what happened.