Dispatch from Texas: What to expect today

POSTED BY Carly Woodsen, 04 March 2008

It's another nice Spring day in Austin, Texas, where it turns out that what happens today might not matter as much as you thought. Over sixty percent of the vote has already been cast, the Texas Monthly's BurkaBlog reported this morning:

CNN is reporting today that 60% of the vote in Texas has already been cast. This means that any local candidate who trails after the early vote will have a hard time overcoming their opponent's lead. Assume, for example, that 10,000 votes are going to be cast in a race, and Candidate X, we'll call him Phil King, has a 52-48 lead after the early vote. What percentage of the remaining vote would candidate Y, we'll call him Joe Tison, have to win in order to overtake him?

EARLY VOTE
King: 52% of 6,000 votes = 3,120
Tison: 48% of 6,000 votes = 2,880
King + 240 votes

ELECTION DAY VOTE Let's say Tison wins election day by 53%
Tison: 53% of 4,000 votes = 1,880
King: 47% of 4,000 votes = 2,120
Tison + 240 votes

Conclusion: Any candidate trailing by 52-48 after the early vote will have to win the election day vote by more than 53% in order to win.

With results still in the red, he most surprising thing this election has thus revealed is that Dems are back in burnt orange. Early bird votes showed that in Houston's Harris County, 42% of voters were planning to elect a democrat to local office and 40% planned to elect a republican. One might contend that Katrina had its effect on the Lone Star state, but it's more likely that the age of conservatism is just getting closer to its end.

When it comes to the national vote, Ron Paul is getting his requisite support down here - an anti-NAFTA, pro-Texas cowboy, even though he's a republican, he keeps our liberal bastion and capital running. Mineral Wells Index reported this morning:

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul might not have many supporters, but those he has are loyal and determined, that is if the group that campaigned on his behalf Saturday at a busy Mineral Wells intersection is any indication.

About a dozen Paul supporters waved placards and flags at the corner of U.S. Highway 180 East and Farm-to-Market Road 1821 North, asking passing motorists to vote for the Texas congressman in today’s Republican primary election.

Most of the group came from Weatherford to rally with Mineral Wells resident and staunch Paul backer Vincent Campos. He likes Paul’s opposition to America’s military presence in Iraq.

Campos speaks from the perspective of a former soldier who served in Baghdad during 2006. He said he supported the war in Iraq before serving there.

“I did before, but after being there and seeing what it is really all about, I’m against it,” Campos said. “It’s all about oil, Halliburton and defense contracts.”

That kind of pragmatism is what keeps Texas running, and all the polls and guesses aside, it means no one knows what's going to happen today. McCain will logically sweep - Ron Paul still has his active fan base here and will remain a pillar of Texas politics - but when it comes to the left, only time will tell.

Fellow Austinite, Jack Grant blogged today for The Moderate Voice:

Last night Senator Hillary Clinton held a “town hall” meeting at the Austin Convention Center followed by a campaign rally in the Berger Center, where many area high schools hold their graduation ceremonies along with using it for various indoor sports and other activities. I had the opportunity to attend the rally and hear Senator Clinton speak. It was very enlightening for me, because I found her a much more effective speaker than I expected, the short sound-bites typically included in the news shows do not convey the emotion that she obviously feels regarding public service. Despite my skepticism, and despite the widely held cynical view of her, she comes across as very genuine in what she wants to accomplish in terms of using government to help the less fortunate.

As the events of the last 8 years have illustrated, my mistrust of the Republican Party in preserving the rights of individuals against the powerful, such as corporations or even the government itself, was very well founded. The intolerance and religious zealotry endemic in the Republican Party has also disturbed me; the embracing of the endorsement of John Hagee by John McCain is a good example of how the party includes such tendencies. I tend to vote Democratic not because I have overwhelming support for the entirety of their platform, but because I feel they are less damaging than the Republicans. This year, my choice for whom to vote in the Texas Democratic primary has been difficult, because I do not like the appearance of political dynasty that would come from a victory by Senator Clinton. The roll of the Presidents starting in the 1980s would read Bush – Clinton – Bush – Clinton, which I do not believe would be healthy for our system of representative democracy. However, I have serious concerns about Senator Barak Obama in terms of both experience along with the feeling that there is more rhetoric than accomplishment behind his candidacy. I believe that only after many trips around the sun does one develop the judgment necessary for an office like President of the United States.

There is strong support for Senator Obama in Austin, likely reflecting the large student population of the University of Texas. I have seen people standing on street corners nowhere near early voting locations holding Obama for President signs. On my route in to work through a sparsely populated area, parked beside the road was an ancient RV with “Obama for President” painted on the front and a cowboy-hatted man standing on the roof with a handmade sign reading simply “Obama”. The Clinton supporters seem to be more targeted, clustering with signs and enthusiasm on curbs near the early-voting polls, and sending emails explaining the caucus process as practiced as part of the “Texas two-step primary”.

Things are different here in Texas, as GW has proved for the last eight years, and for a state that has so prided itself on not being like the others, it's ironic enough that today, we'll finally have a say at the national level.  More from Austin after the caucuses.