March 5, 2008

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.


6 comments:

Forward Thinker said...

Hi. Saw your blog address on your AE profile after you wrote me back regarding my comment about the AE Ami Cusak interview (Flannery). DON'T YOU LOVE INTERACTIVE INTRODUCTIONS?

Well, your blog is great. So there.

The Texas Caucus defies explanation, and I lived there too. I was glad that Hillary is still in the race even if she's delegate poor.

TheWeyrd1 said...

Hey Forward...thanks for popping by and checking out my random observations! Hope to catch up with you again...to talk Texan!

RED MOJO said...

I'm glad she's still in it too. Feel better.

TheWeyrd1 said...

Thanks red.

yenbar said...

You're slipping RED!..you tend to be the first comment on here..what happened?
Sorry..back to you WEYRD..I couldn't even bear to watch the results.It was too nerve wracking for me so I avoided all news coverage till Wednesday morning..the results were alot better than I was expecting but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for Hillary..remember, BITCH IS THE NEW BLACK!(gotta love Tina Fey)
Don't even get me started on caucuses..it makes my brain hurt just to try to understnd them..sorry.

Websketch (Web Sass) said...

I am thrilled Hillary won, lets hope she can sway the super delegates and come out victorious. Still think the popular vote should trump all. Hope u are feeling better.