Working The Delegates In Texas? (Update)

In Texas, there's this report that Barack Obama's campaign is targeting delegates Hillary Clinton won from the state's precinct caucuses -- and vice versa.

Nearly 90,000 delegates plan to attend the senatorial and county conventions this week; just 10 percent will move on to the state convention, which formally selects the pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

Right now, Obama has a net delegate lead from the caucus portion of the Texas contest of seven. As happened in Iowa, his lead could expand -- or contract.

Local reports indicate that Clinton supporters plan to challenge the credentials of some Obama delegates, but the campaign has dropped its formal objection to the way the party has organized the caucuses.

Here's an imponderable: since the caucus delegates represent the will of the voters in those precincts, doesn't any effort to get them to change their minds after the fact amount to .... well, actually, what's the difference between working the county delegates and then working the pledged delegates?

Update: Turns out that the culprit is the Texas Democratic Party. The delegate lists they forwarded to the campaigns contain many errors on them, so Clinton delegates are receiving Obama mail and Obama delegates are recieving Clinton mail. Indeed, it wouldn't make much sense for Obama to remind Clinton delegates when the conventions are.

Comments

That's a good point...I hate this poaching crap.

Posted by BLeigh | March 27, 2008 9:40 AM

Isn't this poaching of delegates a rather futile exercise? I mean aren't these delegates chosen by the candidates and known for their loyalty to the candidate?

I can see in Iowa where you had a bunch of Edwards delegates up for grabs, and he was no longer in the race. Then it made sense that those people would seek out another candidate.

But here you have 2 candidates still in the race and very much fighting. So I would imagine that the delegates would by and large remain loyal to their candidate.

On a side note, it's disgusting to see the craven tactics of Hillary Clinton. What's next...is she going to claim that all caucuses should be disallowed by the courts?

Posted by cm | March 27, 2008 9:55 AM

I don't think either campaign is going to convince more than a handful out of 90k (or whatever the real number is) to change their support. What they are trying to do is make sure their supporters show up. If they don't, the balance shifts just as it did in Colorado and Iowa (although with the latter the Edwards supporters had an impact as well.)

Posted by Anonymous | March 27, 2008 9:56 AM

I can't speak for Texas, but here in WA, there's often spotty attendance at the county and state level conventions, where the delegates are ultimately "chosen". If the same is true for Texas, Obama's campaign would just need to make sure they had extra delegates hanging out at the convention, just in case Hillary delegates fail to appear. If they do fail to appear, it is perfectly legitimate (in WA) for another candidate's delegates to take their place. So, you wouldn't be "poaching" another candidate's delegates so much as taking advantage of their potential absence.

Posted by Zeeb | March 27, 2008 10:07 AM

Both sides are working all TX delegates. The Clintons are robocalling and Obama is mailing and phoning. They need to be sure that their people show up--including alternates.

Posted by heather | March 27, 2008 10:27 AM

"What's the difference between working the county delegates and then working the pledged delegates?"

The obvious difference is that "working" the county delegates seems to consist of having tape recordings phone them, or sending them post cards. It's hard to picture even a mildly motivated supporter thinking "Whoa. That was an excellent robo-call, and I see the world in a new way." It seems a lot more like universal outreach, driven by dark stories of a past election when someone messed up the lists and had the wrong candidate down and no one called the alternates. After the Clinton camp's poor showing in Iowa's second round (who knew it wasn't safe to trash the state post-voting?), I could see them trying to be triply sure their people showed up.

If trying to poach pledged delegates consists of giving them a little "Vote Obama/Hillary" postcard, I wouldn't worry. It's the vision of Ickes explaining "Now some of you may think that you were elected to represent a certain candidate, 12 for Obama and 13 for Hillary from this state. But really you were just sent to exercise your best judgment. Vote as you wish."

What's more curious is the thought that the latter could work. I just don't see the point, in the fog of nonsense strategy, of suggesting that democracy is a piddly little concern against the great mission of restoring the Clinton presidency. But then, none of the Clinton arguments remaining is about listening to voters. The mystery is more about why the undeclared supers don't make their grumbling a bit more obvious--if not by endorsing Obama, at least skip the vague "I'd really like the tone to improve" and go straight for "If the Clinton camp keeps talking about ignoring the voters, many of us will be forced to declare against them."

Posted by Deborah | March 27, 2008 10:46 AM

What Zeeb said is exactly right for Texas.

The delegates and alternates were chosen on the night of March 4. The campaigns didn't have precinct captains for all of the precincts, let alone full delegate slates for each of the spots, so the people who ended up delegates were just picked out of the crowd that night. By and large, I doubt their support has wavered, but these are not necessarily hard-core politicos.

If a delegate does not show up, then the best case scenario is that he or she has provided a proxy statement to one of the alternates from the precinct. If there is no proxy, then an alternate from the same precinct is chosen to take the spot, with first priority given to an alternate supporting the same presidential candidate. If there are not enough alternates from that precinct, then I believe that any alternate can take the spot, again with priority to having the same presidential pick.

So it is important to have your people show up so that you can get the appropriate number of delegates at the next round.

Now, one other piece of arcane trivia about the way this is done - there are at large delegates chosen to go to the next round, which ensure that the delegates chosen to the next round are in the correct percentage. So if the sign in of delegates indicate a 55-45 Obama victory, which is about what my convention will be, but the delegates chosen end up being 60-40 Obama, then the at large delegates will have more Clinton people to restore the balance. If the chosen delegates are 50/50, then there will be more Obama people so that the overall percentage is supported at the state convention level.

All of this is to say that all of this poaching and so forth should be really ineffective. What the campaigns need to do is to make sure their delegates and alternates show up, and then there will be virtually no movement from what was decided on March 4.

Posted by Curtis | March 27, 2008 10:47 AM

To a degree, both sides have to be prepared to do a full-court press with the delegates in the event that it turns out that this strategy works.

Neither candidate knows whether the delegates are easily flippable, but if it turns out that they are, the candidate that neglected to lay the groundwork for doing so will get whacked if another candidate was already prepared for that.

Posted by Tyro | March 27, 2008 10:48 AM

In short, the difference is that poaching delegates to county and state conventions has some small chance of success, while poaching delegates to the national convention has no chance at all.

Posted by observer | March 27, 2008 10:50 AM

It's not poaching!

In Iowa Hillary lost one delegate and Obama gained nine (mostly from Edwards). Why? Because his people showed up at the county conventions. That's how the process works. As a lifelong Iowa Democrat it's the first time we actually had a surplus of alternative delegates.

Given the track the Clinton campaign has taken in the past week I would not be surprised if her supporters are like those in Iowa... less to attend and those who do are dispirited.

If the Texas process runs anything like the Iowa process I would expect Obama to make gains.

And it NOT poaching!

Posted by Steve K | March 27, 2008 11:29 AM

I helped run a caucus in Houston and the ground fight has gotten fairly nasty. The credentials committee meetings on Friday will be a good sign of how acrimonious things have gotten. Turns out that most people don't appreciate being accused of voter fraud in official Dem. Party filings.

Still, I expect Obama to expand his delegate lead here. The campaign is making sure all the delegates and alternates turn up for the convention. Given that we don't know what the real numbers are, this should help solidify them and be a major boon to Obama.

I'm also glad I'm not going to be anywhere near one of the SD conventions. They're going to be a tiresome mess.

Posted by Ray | March 27, 2008 12:22 PM

So that's why I've been getting calls and emails from both campaigns-- the party has been giving them bad lists. I was wondering, since in the last two days I've been called by the Clinton campaign to remind me when the caucus is ("Uh, you are aware that I'm an Obama delegate, right?" "Oh-- forget what I said, the caucus is cancelled and you can stay home and sleep in!" We both had a laugh and she went on to the next phone call) and emailed by the Clinton campaign to tell me "Because of your hard work, President Bill Clinton would like you to join him on a conference call tonight to discuss the important next step." Plus the phone calls and emails from my Obama "Delegate Captain" and the national Obama campaign, of course.

I just figured I'd become a major player in the Democratic party. Another illusion punctured....

Posted by Dave Pooser | March 27, 2008 4:23 PM

The Texas Democrat Party appears just as
feckless as its national namesake........
The Keystone Kops, to the MAX!

Posted by hombre | March 27, 2008 4:54 PM