The Texas Wash

Friday, March 14, 2008

CAUCUSES UNDERCUT CLINTON WIN

The Texas Wash

So, Hillary Clinton got her groove back by winning Texas last week, right? Yes. No. Who knows?

A week and a half after Texas voted, it's still not clear who won. Clinton clearly took the primary, by 51 percent to 47 percent, and that set the tone because those results came out on election night. As her camp notes, it showed once again that she wins the big states.

But the second step of the Texas two-step remains incomplete. One-third of the state's delegates were to be chosen by caucuses held the night of the primary. About 1 million voters participated in those caucuses, and Texas Democrats are still counting their votes.

Actually, in some places they haven't even started counting. In Harris County, which includes Houston, party volunteers are still collecting packets from precincts, the Houston Chronicle reported Wednesday.

As a result, it's quite likely that Barack Obama, who leads in the caucuses that have been tallied, will emerge from the process having won more delegates in Texas than Clinton. At the very least, it appears that Clinton's popular vote win was offset by the caucuses, making Texas effectively a wash for her in the all-important delegate race.

The most recent, though still-incomplete, count by the Associated Press had Clinton and Obama each winning 92 delegates from Texas, with some still to be allocated. The Chronicle had Obama ahead, with 98 delegates, compared with 95 for Clinton.

If Obama holds his lead in the caucuses, he would pick up more of the still-unallocated delegates than she would. The same thing happened in January in Nevada, a caucus state where Clinton won the most votes but Obama ultimately edged her in delegates.

The slow-moving Texas results highlight the fact that, at bottom, Clinton has not moved the needle this month when it comes to the delegate race. She picked up a net of nine delegates in Ohio and five in Rhode Island, according to the AP count, while losing a net of three in Vermont, two in Wyoming and five in Mississippi.

So if Texas is a wash, that means that after six states voting over the past 11 days, Clinton has picked up a net four pledged delegates.

-- Peter Baker

DEMOCRATS TO DEBATE IN PA.

21st Time's the Charm

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama announced yesterday that they had agreed to participate in a nationally televised debate in Philadelphia on April 16, in advance of Pennsylvania's April 22 primary. The debate, the 21st of the primary season, will be hosted by ABC News.

The candidates are likely to cover much of the same ground as in earlier debates: arguments about health-care mandates, the 2002 congressional vote authorizing the use of force in Iraq and who is more qualified to be commander in chief. The forum will also give the candidates a chance to debate issues that will have come up since the end of February, when the candidates held what many thought would be their final debate.

Obama has also accepted an invitation to participate in a debate hosted by CBS News in North Carolina on April 19, in advance of that state's May 6 Democratic primary. Clinton has not said whether she will participate in that one.

-- Garance Franke-Ruta