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Why the popular vote in Texas is so crucial

James Forsyth

Tuesday, 4th March 2008

It is pretty much certain that Barack Obama will win more delegates in Texas than Hillary Clinton. It would be a major surprise if Obama did not win the vast majority of the third of the delegates awarded in the caucus element of the process: as before in this race, the Obama campaign is just much better prepared for the organisational complexities of a caucus than the Clinton one.

Yet if Hillary wins the popular vote but loses in the delegate count because of the caucus part, she’ll be able to launch a campaign attacking the undemocratic nature of caucuses. Already, her campaign are describing today as a science experiment to show how much caucus results differ from primary ones. If the gap is significant, Hillary will be able to claim that Obama’s 11 caucus wins should be discounted as they are based on the effective disenfranchisement of significant chunks of the Democratic electorate.

Hillary has closed like a champ in the last few days. She has won every news cycle since Sunday morning and appears liberated by Obama’s seeming inevitability. If she wins Ohio and the popular vote here in Texas, this thing might not be over after all.

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Rob

March 4th, 2008 4:12pm

Could you get your head from out of the butt cheeks of HRC. You sound like a schoolboy describing a teacher he had his first crush on!

Ganpat Ram

March 4th, 2008 4:37pm

Bravo, James Forsyth, for having the gallantry to recognise the fighting courage of Hillary Clinton in the face of endless setbacks. She does seem a different woman now, full of spirit and good humor.

TGF UKIP

March 4th, 2008 11:08pm

James, thanks enormously for all these brilliant posts. Back here in the UK they really do give a blow by blow feel to the contest. Over the last few days I have begun to get more and more of a sense that all those evangelical Republican prayers may be answered and Hillary will indeed be the November Candidate. Interestingly, too, recent days have appeared to demonstrate just how fragile Obama is. Indeed, it has become much more of a toss-up who would be the easier to beat, Obama or Hillary. What did give me great amusement though was your link to the Washinton Post's online coverage of Obama's NAFTA problems. In the comments that followed it really was hilarious (no pun) to see Clinton supporters whining about excessively favourable media coverage to Obama. Nearly as cheeky as Blair complaining about his "feral" media.