The Texas Democratic Primaries/Caucuses

Despite feeling sick..headache, cough, sore throat and a bit of a sinus thing making my ears hurt...I stay up late to observe the results of the Democratic Primaries. And it just occurred to me that Ohio and Texas are both my home states. See, I was born in Texas (yes, I'm a Texan) and I spent half my youth in Ohio (including HS and College). Anyway, I kind of figured that Clinton would win in Ohio and keep it close in Texas. Then she goes and wins Texas too! Well actually, she won the primaries and lost the caucuses. Proving once again, that the caucus system favors grassroots politics. And providing further evidence that perhaps the caucus system results in a poor sample of a state's voters.

I've been observing that the turn out for caucuses is really low and heavily favors whoever captures the interest of those most willing to spend the time going. If the candidate with a primarily grassroots campaign gets enough people willing to go, they can swing the caucus votes pretty easily, since they get to talk directly to the voters. Psychologically, people will go with the crowd rather than be alone in their vote even if they were set on an opposite vote prior to the caucus. Those results can then entice (or add to) a groundswell in popularity for the benefiting candidate. And all based on a small sample of people (some of whom voted with the peer pressure rather than how they really wanted to vote). So there in Texas, they had both primaries and caucuses and the turnout was huge for the primaries and very small for the caucuses. And once again, Clinton won in the primaries but lost in the caucuses. Overall though, Clinton still won Texas. So she's still in the race and for that I am glad. I'll share my observations on why, another time.