Texas Democratic Primary Part I: Leadup to Election Day

You may have heard that in Texas, we have this odd two-part way of choosing a Presidential nominee: first you vote, then you caucus. The Obama campaign refers to this as the "Texas two-step," a catch-phrase Hillary Clinton immediately began using without attribution, despite her abhorrence of plagiarism. But I digress . . .

Not content to merely serve my candidate as a volunteer in New Hampshire, I signed up to be a Precinct Captain in Texas. This meant I was assigned approximately 900 or so people in my precinct who were eligible to vote and seen as possible Obama supporters (there are just over 1000 eligible voters in the precinct, so we apparently cut a broad swathe). I was to call and/or visit these people to see who they support, talk about why they should vote for Obama and get them to vote for him in the primary and caucus for him on the night of the primary. If you have ever read this blog, you know I am a full-time practicing attorney and a very busy one, at that. So it was no small feat to make the 820 calls I made to my people over the course of just a few weeks, and I was proud to have accomplished that. In making those calls, I reached about 36 confirmed Obama supporters, but I had no guarantee how many would actually show up for the precinct convention.

On election day, I was at my polling place before 7 am. There I saw that someone had removed all of the Obama signs, plucking them from among all of the candidates' signs, though the Clinton signs still stood in full force. Strangely, this same thing happened in New Hampshire. I had no signs left and neither did the campaign. Utilizing the resourcefulness for which we Midwesterners are known, I left the polling place and marched up to the front door of a house that was displaying an Obama sign, in order to, well, beg for their sign. Turns out, I didn't have to do that, because they had three extras they graciously offered for the cause of ensuring a nice display at the polling place.

Back at the polling place, I watched to see if voting began on time. The election judge was huffing and puffing, apparently having allowed himself all of about 10 minutes to set up, but the polls opened just a minute or two late, with approximately 30 people already in line to vote. I asked if he would have a list of early voters available for our use in the caucus that night, and he said he would. Satisfied that I had done all I could for the morning, I headed in to work.

Next up: shenanigans before the precinct convention begins.