Boring, yet important information.

The Democratic “Texas Two Step”
The Texas Democratic Party’s rules to award delegates is causing some controversy. That’s because even if one candidate wins the primary, they may not get the most delegates if the other candidate’s supporters know to stick around for the caucus. The Clinton campaign has threatened to sue the party because it fears that exact situation may happen. Some would say Sen. Barack Obama has a better organized grassroots effort in Texas, which means his camp may be able to inform more voters on the importance of sticking around for the caucus or precinct convention.

“We sent a letter to both campaigns, saying the process is what it is. We don’t get to the change the rules in the middle of the game,” said Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie.

Democratic Delegate Breakdown
Texas has 228 democratic delegates.
126 of those delegates are divided proportionally among the candidates according to the primary votes.
67 delegates are chosen at the caucus or precinct convention.
35 are super delegates (made up of elected officials, the party chair, etc) who can make their own choice.

At the caucus, neighbors will gather and choose delegates to go on the county convention. Let’s say they get to choose two delegates. If there are an even number of Obama and Clinton supporters at the caucus, one delegate will be chosen for Obama and the other for Clinton. If the great majority of people who go to the convention are Obama supporters, however, he will get both delegates.

The delegates chosen in every one of the 3000 precincts across the state will then go their individual county conventions. At the county convention, they can offer themselves up to continue as a delegate and if they are selected, they go on to the state convention. There, 67 delegates will be chosen from that pool to go on to the national convention and vote for the candidate they were chosen to represent at the caucus on the night of the primary.

“This two step process was formed to force people to get involved at the grassroots level,” said Richie.

In this case, the grassroots could end up picking the Democratic nominee.

The Republican Precinct Convention
The Republicans also have a precinct convention after the primary at their polling locations. However, this has no impact on your vote. This is the place to go, however, if you want to represent who the voters chose on the ballot and go on to the county convention, state convention and national convention.

Republican Delegate Breakdown
Texas sends 140 delegates to the Republican National Convention.
96 are chosen according to the vote in each of the state’s 32 congressional districts. If one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote in a district, they will get all three delegates for that district. If no one gets the majority, the delegates are divided proportionally among the candidates who got more than 20% of the vote.
41 of the delegates are called at-large and are awarded also either as a winner takes all (if the candidate gets more than 50% of the Republican votes overall in the state) or they are divided proportionally if no one gets a majority (again, they must get at least 20% of the vote to get delegates).
3 are uncommitted delegates and can vote as they please. They are position holding members of the party.

It was a $100 million January for presidential contenders, according to the Center For Responsive Politics. That’s the latest information, fresh off the press, from campaign reports filed last night.

In case you wanted to read a bit more about local fund-raising, find it here:

Fund-raising Suggests Tight Race in Ohio,

Slight Edge For Clinton In Texas
Following the money, you could have predicted how Tuesday’s Democratic
primaries in Wisconsin and Hawaii were going to turn out — Barack
Obama had a commanding fundraising lead over Hillary Clinton in both
states. As for the Republican primary in Wisconsin (the GOP in Hawaii will
assign delegates at a convention in May), the top Republican fundraiser
last year was Tommy Thompson, the state’s former governor, who ended his
presidential campaign way back in August. John McCain was the top
fundraiser among the remaining Republican candidates. Looking ahead to the
next big contests, the fundraising in Ohio suggests a tight race
between Clinton and Obama. And McCain was far outraised in the Buckeye State
by dropouts Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. In Texas, Clinton has a wide
lead over Obama among larger donors. Both Democrats have raised more
in Texas than McCain has.

*Fundraising in Ohio:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/presstatetots.asp?State=OH

*Fundraising in Texas:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/presstatetots.asp?State=TX

*Presidential primary calendar:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/calendar.asp?cycle=2008

Deece Eckstein is our eyes and ears in the Obama camp tonight. You may remember Deece — well-known in Dem circles — from his stint at People For The American Way.

Today, Deece has been doing some of the peripheral volunteer work for the Obama camp. For instance, one of Deece’s tasks today was to find a half-hour yoga class to give some Obama campaign staffers a brief respite from the stress. And I know he was organizing some volunteer group activities, too.

The more glamorous business was Obama’s visit with Coach Mack Brown today at Darrell K Royal Stadium. We got some notice from the Obama camp about the event…

“Senator Obama’s meeting with Coach Brown comes in the midst of his ‘Stand for Change Tour’ across Texas. Tuesday and yesterday, Senator Obama headlined rallies and town halls in San Antonio, Houston and Dallas attended by tens of thousands of Texans. Tonight, Senator Obama will be in Austin to participate in the Texas Democratic Party/CNN/Univision Debate and tomorrow he will headline rallies in Edinburg, Corpus Christi and Austin.”

As for the debate… Obama’s camp is having a watch party/fund-raiser over at the Austin Music Hall tonight. The campaign staffers are old hands at this… I mean, isn’t this debate 42 or something? How nervous can you get after 20 or 30 of these?… but the locals are excited. It’s raising the energy level. To Deece’s recollection, this is the first time Texas has played a significant role in a presidential nomination since 1988.

Hillary’s motorcade departs from the Four Seasons.
Wonder what kind of traffic tie-up that causes? Who wouldn’t stop to gawk?

Charlie counts six motorcycle cops, Secret Service and four CNN vehicles.

Can I get Candy Crowley’s autograph?

Some of my friends from the Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers will be catching the debate tonight with Bill Clinton in San Antonio. AFT was one of the first groups to endorse Clinton, back in October. The Clintons are showing their gratitude by inviting the locals to witness the Clinton-Obama debate.

Education has not risen to the top in this primary. Still, the ed lobby has much to like in Clinton’s pro-labor anti-voucher positions. (Barack Obama, on the other hand, told supporters in New York last week he was open to vouchers if research showed they worked.) Clinton’s comments on the subject have been the subject of some ridicule amongst conservatives. Blogger Alexander Russo called it “her jihad on vouchers.”

Our man Charlie Ray is on scene at the Four Seasons, where the HRC motorcade is about to depart. For the uninitiated, that’s Hillary Rodham Clinton. Charlie had his eyes on Chelsea in the lobby. She’s dressed in jeans and blazer. Secret Service are everywhere, Charlie reports, but no one gawks. This is the Four Seasons.

I’m Chelsea Clinton. Remember me? I used to live in the White House!

 The motorcade is expected to depart in the next 10 minutes for the debate venue. That gives Hillary just under an hour to meet-and-greet before the Texas Democratic Party’s opening speech.

 Stay tuned.

I’m here inside the “spin room” at the UT rec center. I’m pretty impressed CNN is even providing food for us…a luxury us local news crews are certainly not accustomed to. It was a bit of a down and out fight when we got inside in order to get space for the camera, but we managed. If you only knew all the behind the scenes chaos that leads up to every newscast, you would appreciate the news more!  I sent some video from inside the room to our web team, so check KXAN.com and you’ll be able to see it.

I plan to liveblog the debate as I get everything together for T.V., so hit the refresh often!

I’ll be in the spin room all night as the debate happens and I’ll be blogging in between all my T.V. duties, so keep it tuned to KXAN and keep your browser here for insight you won’t catch on the tube!

Tonight: Both Clinton and Obama plan to show up at the TDP party tonight at the Hyatt Regency between 10 and 11pm. Check out Guero’s too..heard the Clinton family might make an appearance there late tonight.

Tomorow: The Obama campaign is hosting a big rally Friday night from 6-9 pm. It will be at 11th and Congress, public entrance is at 10th Street. You must RSVP to attend.

Though he won’t go on camera with a statement, Sen. Kirk Watson has issued a statement about last night’s embarrassing moment (or several moments) on Hardball.

“On Tuesday night, after an important and historic victory in the Wisconsin Presidential Primary by Senator Barack Obama, I appeared on the MSNBC post-election program. “Hardball” host Chris Matthews (who is, it turns out, as ferocious as they say), began grilling me on Senator Obama’s legislative record.

And my mind went blank. I expected to be asked about the primary that night, or the big one coming up in Texas on March 4, or just about anything else in the news. When the subject changed so emphatically, I reached for information that millions of my fellow Obama supporters could recite by heart, and I couldn’t summon it.

My most unfortunate gaffe is not, in any way, a comment on Senator Obama, his substantial record, or the great opportunity we all share to elect him President of the United States.

Had I not lost my mind, here are the accomplishments I would have mentioned:

• Senator Obama’s fight for universal children’s health care in Illinois.
• His success bringing Republicans and Democrats together (a huge selling point for me in general) on bills such as the one in Illinois requiring police interrogations and confessions to be videotaped.
• His leadership on ethics reform in Washington (the bill that lobbyists and special interests are complaining about right now has his name on it).
• His bill to make the federal budget far more transparent and accessible to Americans via the Internet – we could use that openness in Texas.
• And his vital work with Republicans to lock down nuclear weapons around the world.

Of course, it would have helped to remember all of this last night. I encourage anyone who wants to know more (especially Mr. Matthews) to log onto texas.barackobama.com.

In the meantime, let’s not lose focus on what’s important in this election. It’s not my stunning televised defeat in “Stump the Chump.” Thankfully, it has nothing at all to do with me.”