The Battle for Texas: The Clintons’ Last Stand?

For the next five days I will be reporting from the Clinton campaign office in El Paso, Texas. keep scrolling down for new entries, all on this post.

Friday February 29th

Day 1: El Paso Bound

I’m not even sure myself why I am headed to Texas today. In part I’m driven by the absurdly stilted pro-Obama coverage from the national media. Lisa sent me a link to the Volunteer for Hillary site, and I filled it out at halftime of UT-Vanderbilt on Tuesday while watching the MSNBC commentators fawn for Obama and grill Hillary in the Ohio debate. It was almost a reenactment of the Saturday Night Live parody of the media’s love affair with Obama. I find his populist posturing disturbing, though not nearly creepy as the vibe I get from his supporters. JFK was a young senator too, they tell me. That’s right, I say, the man, with a decade more of congressional experience, who brought us the Bay of Pigs and to the brink of nuclear war. Though it is a near consensus that he has already won, I cannot believe this race is over. How could the Clintons go out without one last comeback? I like a good underdog, and yes, I like Hillary Clinton.

I believe Hillary represents the best combination of experience and competence of the remaining candidates. Though she remains a polarizing figure for many Americans she has demonstrated the ability to work with colleagues from both sides of the aisle and had gained the respect of her peers in the Senate. Her experience on the Committee on Foreign Relations and eight years in the White House has her better positioned to begin her term as a competent Commander in Chief. Yes, she voted to authorize the War in Iraq, but she did so after reviewing what turned out to be at best dismal, at worst manufactured intelligence. Obama did not vote for the war because he was not yet in the Senate.

And maybe that’s all bullshit. Though I carry a vague dislike of Obama-mania, and nostalgia for the Clintons, I don't see myself the kind of political partisan who flies half way across the country to join a campaign. So maybe I’m here for the story, for a closer seat for what might be the Clintons’ last campaign. Credentialed journalists have an easier time getting access than a lone blogger lacking readership and ad revenue. The best way to for me to get more than the CNN coverage is to embed in the trenches of a campaign office. I chose El Paso, because it was the first city the organizer in Austin mentioned where there was a need, especially for bilingual volunteers. And it’s a hell of a lot closer than Laredo or Brownsville.

There was a group of six young men and women seated in the boarding area I immediately pegged for campaign types. By their enthusiasm I could have guessed their candidate. Sure enough, two of them were wearing their “HOPE” pins. Three staffers and three volunteers, this flight is 6 to 1 for the Obama people. Limited sample size, bad omen.

I sat next to one of the volunteers, a SF State political science grad student interning with Barbara Lee, the congresswoman representing Oakland. He was pretty smug about their chances, smug about everything, and kept talking about how Texas would be the knockout punch for the Obama campaign.

Two volunteers, one from Marissa from LA and Rachel from Brooklyn (Rachel had grown up in El Paso), picked me up at the airport and delivered me to my host house. They were still pumped up from tonight’s visit and speech by General Wesley Clark who is making the rounds in Texas for the Clinton team. After a thorough replay of his speech, most of which centered on Hillary’s superior foreign policy resume, I learned that for the Clinton camp, El Paso is a turnout game. This is Clinton country. Eighty three percent of the population is Latino and NAFTA is not an ugly word here. Rachel, the woman raised in El Paso, pointed out the window to the city lights as far as I could see south of where we were driving along I-10.

“All of that is Juarez, with all the factories. The lights are new, that side of the border wasn’t lit up like that when I was growing up here.”

My hosts are a friendly older couple, Eric and Reb. He is a public defender and she is a painter. We had the obligatory political chat over a late night grilled cheese, and though I mentioned my concerns about the love-sick journalists, I tried to keep my comments positive and pro-Hillary rather than anti-Obama. But I had been delivered to the right household. Eric was an easy going Atticus Finch type until the subject of Obama came up. He delivered a tirade against Obama, a man, who he claims has yet to finish job in his life. Obama-mania is driving him bonkers.

Early voting ended today, and El Paso cast approximately four times more votes over the 2004 turnout.

Time for bed.

Day 2: Understanding the Texas-Two Step

"Hello?"
"Hello, is this Dolores."
"Yes"
"Hi, my name is Bill. I'm calling for Texas for Hillary."
"No English."
"Esta bien. Me llamo Bill. Soy volantario en la campana de Hillary Clinton en Tejas."
"Todavia vote."
"Gracias por su apoyo! Martes hay OTRA eleccion, un caucus..."

A day at the phone banks. More than two thirds of the Hispanic households in El Paso are bilingual, so I did most of my pitching today in English. Most of our work focused on people we know attended early voting and voted for Hillary. Because Texas has to do things bigger and more outlandish han the rest of the country, in addition to a primary, Texas holds a caucus held as soon as the last voter walks out of the booth in each precint on Tuesday night. The caucus counts for 30 percent of the delegate count, so turnout is vital. Unfortunately, El Paso has a disportionately low number of caucus delegates since the allocation is based on voter turnout on previous years' elections. Austin a comparably sized city has 8 caucus delegates to the 3 delegates for El Paso.

Tomorrow I will dive into the mechanics of a caucus, Texas style.

Tonight we are going to a monster truck rally. I have always wanted to go to a monster truck rally.



Day 3: Sunday Morning Sidewalk


This morning a group of us politicked in the old school. We loaded up with flyers about the primary and caucus and hit the local churches. We did not encounter a single Obama canvasser on the religious stump. Later in the evening we passed the Obama office in El Paso, and out of curiosity went inside to see the state of things.

Bleak. There were only a handful of people in the small office on the corner of a strip mall facing the interstate. The volunteer at the desk didn’t offer us stickers, or ask us to sign up to volunteer. Obama has officially pulled the plug on his El Paso operations. The two remaining staffers felt abandoned and were now locked in their office chain smoking.

The disorganization in the Hillary camp is not much more encouraging. The staffers in charge are kids straight out of college, and they don’t have the experience to function rationally given their chronic sleep deprivation. I was given an assignment yesterday to call a list of people who were already confirmed to be attending a meeting at our headquarters later that day. I was to tell them that there would be a special meeting for them since they were being asked to be precinct captains, the rep. in charge of the Hillary caucus goers, in a district where they may not be pre-assigned chair of the meeting (more on that below). The net of it is, I spent two and a half hours calling people who could have been informed of this special session in a 15 second announcement at the meeting we knew they were attending. I suggested this option to the young man who gave me the assignment. For a second I thought he was going to slap me.

The state machine is not exactly well-oiled. The campaign sent out a nationwide call for volunteers with a phone number to call, which turned out to be the cell phone of the one volunteer coordinator for the state of Texas. Understandably she is overwhelmed in her position, I can personally vouch for dozens of volunteers who have given up on their plans to come to Texas because she either did not answer their requests for information, or was snippy with them on the phone.

I promised an explanation of what both candidates are now calling The Texas Two Step. In addition to a primary, a regular ballot vote, in Texas there is also a caucus, which resembles a political pep rally with a head count at the end. Only people who have cast a ballot in the primary are eligible for he caucus, which begins after the last ballot is cast at a given precinct. The voters must sign in with proof they have already voted, usually a stamped voting card, though the voter rolls can also be checked, and they file into the caucus room. After the primary vote, when signs and campaign literature cannot be brought within100 feet of the school, anything goes, and partisans can bring all their gear to the caucus sight. The campaigns are encouraging their supports to be loud, and to try to sway anyone who looks unsure to join their side of the room
Eric, the public defender who is my host, fears the worst for what might ensue in these rowdy caucus rooms.

“Do they know what they doing asking people to get riled up like that? I don’t think they realize the violence here in El Paso. People don’t think anything about getting into fist fights. I don’t know where else you can go in this country and see the women get into brawls,” Eric, my volunteer host, said.

In many precincts the party will have designated a caucus chair responsible for running the meeting, though in cases where this person does not show or has not been assigned, anyone eligible to caucus is eligible to take charge of the meeting. For this reason the Hillary office has spent days seeking out precinct captains from among the voter rolls and has held training sessions for these individuals so they know how to come to the front of the room, seize the caucus packet and nominate themselves to chair the meeting. I have no idea what will happen in a room where the precinct captain from each contingent makes a grab for the materials.

If order holds, the chair will certify the precinct captains from each candidate and will then oversee the nomination of a secretary who will be in charge of the final count of caucus goers. Then count begins, in a procedure determined by the chair. Once the count is finished and deemed satisfactory by observers on both sides, the math begins. Each precinct has a predetermined number of delegates, this number I used to divide the total number of attendees, and the result is the number it takes to form a caucus, the threshold of voters needed to support a candidate in the caucus. So if a few unrepentant Dennis Kucinich voters are in attendance, but the caucus number (total persons/delegates) is more than there number, then they are asked to switch to their second candidate. And then the pep rally begins, sign wielding supporters trying to sway the uncommitted to join their side of the room. Once the caucus groups have been determined, the number of supporters for each candidate is divided by the total number of people present at the caucus. The resulting fraction is multiplied by the total number of delegates and rounded down to an integer. If the rounding leaves one delegate unaccounted for, the last delegate is awarded to the group with the highest decimal value before rounding. If there is a tie out to three decimal places, the chair flips a coin.

Got it? That’s the theory anyway. We’ll see what happens Tuesday.

Day 4: Bill visits El Paso



If Hillary pulls out Texas, it is thanks to the people along the US-Mexican border. From Brownsville to El Paso, this is Clinton land. Obama didn’t visit the border until late last week, his only appearance in south Texas.

Today’s focus was President Clinton’s visit tonight at 8pm in a hanger at the El Paso airport. Hundreds of supporters braved an unusually late cold snap, 40 degrees and howling winds, as they waited for an hour in line before entering the hanger. I walked up the line explaining the caucus procedure to anyone with questions and helping people identify their precincts. Most of the people I have talked to in El Paso, on the phone, on the street, and here at the rally, had no idea about the caucus. It is difficult to answer the "why?" of the caucus, I explain it is more of a party than the primary, an opportunity to celebrate your candidate, as caucus goers are allowed to carry signs and wear buttons into the precincts. They can bring their kids, non-registered relatives and friends to the site, and we are encouraging everyone to try and sway any undecided in the room. The rally got off on time, and a number of local and New Mexico dems warmed up the crowd by repeating the message that in Texas you can vote twice and it’s not against the law.


I had never seen Bill live before, and he was every bit the speaker I expected. Even though he shows all of his 62 years, half the room swooned each time he reached out and pointed to another member (woman) in the crowd. The speech covered bread and butter issues from health care to national security, with an ample serving of Bush bashing. Bill can preach to the choir with the best, and he warmly recounted the many instances of Latino contributions and support to the Clinton family.

The Hillary campaign here has focused a majority of its energy on caucus turnout over the past week, canvassing people who have already participated in the early voting to come back on Tuesday night. All this energy is a fight for 1 extra delegate to the national convention. El Paso has 3 delegates in total, and Hillary would need about 85% of the vote to pick up all three.

The real difference El Paso can make, in my opinion, is in closing the gap in the popular vote, which will be crucial when jockeying for the super-delegates as the winner of the national popular vote will have a strong case as the deserving nominee in the possibility of a brokered convention. But I’m not on the payroll here, and I imagine those are the marching orders that are received from the national office--to win the caucus sites tonight. This is a crucial strategy in Houston, Dallas, and Austin where there are a disproportionate number of caucus delegates to be won, but less sensible in the under-represented Brownsville to El Paso corridor. And they are competing strategies; it’s a depth of support versus breath of turnout play, asking for additional support from select early voters as opposed to reaching new voters. Given the size of the Latino population along the border, this could prove a crucial mistake, especially given the razor thin margins in the polls. It begs the question of who is running the national campaign. According to recent reports, it’s not Mark Penn. I couldn’t imagine that Penn, the acknowledged guru of micro-trends, would fail to recognize a need for multiple strategies in a race in such a large and complicated state as Texas. Apparently Penn just wrote a letter to the LA Times distancing himself from the campaign, noting that he had no one answering to him and was not part of the executive decision making.

Tomorrow we’ll get out the vote.