WCMessenger.com: They're coming to Texas

Usually by the time the Texas political primaries roll around, they're greeted with a large yawn. That's because the major party nominees for president have already been decided by voters in states that held earlier primaries or caucuses. An effort was made to move the Texas primary to Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, because it was presumed that would make politicians come to Texas with their hands out to shake as well as to solicit campaign cash.

The presumption was that the two dozen states that voted on Super Tuesday would determine the winner. Texans would have the usual role of rubber-stamping the pre-ordained choice. That's why the Texas House of Representatives gave moving the primary a thumbs-up. But 11 Republicans in the Texas Senate killed it.

Then, they looked like spoil-sports. Now, with a see-saw battle for the Democratic nomination, they look like seers.

"For those who follow politics and enjoy politics, it's Christmas on March 4th," said state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, whose district contains the Texas capitol. Watson, the popular former Austin mayor who was the Democratic nominee for attorney general in 2002, was abuzz about the excitement level the day after Super Tuesday, when some two dozen states voted. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton, the senator from New York who used to live in the White House, each won several states.

The Democrats' proportional delegate allocation means that both picked up a significant number of delegates even in states in which the other candidate got a majority of the popular vote. Neither could claim a commanding lead.

"And now that it's certain (that Texas' vote will count, at least on the Democratic side), just today the level of excitement, the number of phone calls and e-mails about it, both for the political junkies and the people impacted by the policy that gets made by the people that get elected, they have a unique opportunity ... that I haven't seen in my political lifetime," said Watson, who a dozen years ago was chairman of the Travis County Democratic Party.

On Tuesday, Feb. 12, Watson endorsed Obama.

The conventional wisdom is that Clinton will do better among Texas' growing Hispanic population because of her husband's popularity there.

"If you look at the polls, our big advantage is in the Hispanic community," said Garry Mauro, Clinton's Texas chairman.

State Rep. Rafael Anchia of Dallas, an Obama supporter, disagrees.

"I don't buy the argument that Latinos will not vote for an African-American candidate for president," Anchia said.

Both candidates began running TV ads this week. Early voting begins Feb. 19. And the two have agreed to a debate Feb. 21 at The University of Texas at Austin campus.

The last time Texas was in play in a Democratic presidential primary was 1988, when Michael Dukakis finally beat out Al Gore and Jesse Jackson.

Since Super Tuesday, Obama seems to be gaining momentum. He won the contests held Saturday, Feb. 9, in Louisiana, Washington and Nebraska and the U.S. Virgin Islands. And then in the "Potomac Primary" on Tuesday, Feb. 12, Obama won in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

If the battle goes all the way to the Democratic National Convention, it may be decided by two factors:

- What the Democratic National Committee decides to do about the Michigan and Florida primaries, whose delegates currently aren't going to be counted because their contests were moved early in defiance of the party's mandate. Clinton led in both states.

- How the 796 Superdelegates - congressmen and party officials who aren't bound to vote for any candidate - split.

On the Republican side, Arizona U.S. Sen. John McCain, helped by the GOP's winner-take-all approach to primaries in most states, established such a commanding lead on Super Tuesday that the distant second-place finisher, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, dropped out.

But former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is third, and not too far behind Romney, insists he'll stay in the race to give Republican voters an alternative to McCain, who raises the hackles of many conservative Republicans over matters like immigration and campaign finance limitations. And yet, Huckabee's own populist approach to economic matters, including tax increases while he was governor of Arkansas, bothers some conservative Republicans.

And there's Ron Paul, the Republican-turned-Libertarian-turned-Republican congressman from Clute, who ignites libertarian-oriented true believers. However, Paul indicated over the weekend that he may be turning his attention, at least through March 4, to avoid getting upset in the Republican primary for re-nomination in his Gulf Coast congressional district.

Texas' junior Republican United States Senator John Cornyn, endorsed McCain after Super Tuesday, and urged Republican voters to unite behind him. Over the weekend, President George W. Bush echoed that call to a conservative conference in Washington, D.C., without mentioning McCain by name.

But Huckabee, who told the conservative caucus meeting that in college "I majored in miracles," won the Kansas caucus Saturday (Feb. 9) by a more than two-to-one ratio. He also narrowly led McCain in Louisiana but was apparently a narrow loser in Washington state.

Although Huckabee apparently plans to go on for awhile, perhaps all the way to the convention, political onlookers say he'll need a miracle to get a majority of delegates - something like 85 percent of those remaining.

Contact McNeely at dmcneely@austin.rr.com or (512) 458-2963.