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From my (red) corner of Texas

February 26th, 2008
By POLIMOM

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I showed up a few minutes early yesterday to pick up Adorable Child from a birthday party, and as has happened with nearly every adult encounter in the last week, another parent and I began talking about the primary election. While people eddied about us (including an entire family decked out in Obama t-shirts), our dialogue ran along now-familiar lines: he watched the Democratic debate in Austin last week; he still isn’t sure he’s fully informed; he’s leaning toward Obama.

Having these conversations is odd in its own right; I can’t remember ever talking with strangers about politics prior to now. More strange, though, is that nearly every person I’ve talked with has turned out to be a Republican who is a) not impressed with their candidate choices, and b) thinking of asking for a Democratic ballot in this primary.

I’m seeing this everywhere, from my own household to Texas bloggers… and many of them (though not all) sound like this (from the Houston Chronicle):

Michael Jones, a 39-year-old self-described conservative Republican who is involved in marketing, said he will cast his vote for Obama in the primary “so Hillary gets out.”

But he isn’t enamored of Obama, a first-term senator whose experience has come under fire from both Clinton and McCain.

“I just wish he would get some substance,” Jones said. Yet Jones said he is undecided about the general election because he doesn’t like McCain, whom he described as “just another Washington senator.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement — for anyone – but my overall impression is that both McCain and Clinton are in trouble down here.

In my own neighborhood, I’ve seen only one yard sign… and it’s for Mike Huckabee. Similarly, although the early voting location near me is plastered with campaign signs for various candidates, there are none for McCain. And when I posted about that yesterday, the only commenter said, “How can one possibly get excited by a candidate who is soon to be an octogenarian, for crying out loud!“

Yet there’s something more than Republican apathy and anti-Clintonitis going on here in my crimson corner of Texas… because while Fort Bend County includes CD22 (the former seat of Tom Delay), and CD14 (Ron Paul’s district), we have this (from Fort Bend Now, our local online news):

In a county known as a bastion of GOP conservatism, more than twice as many Democrats have cast ballots in early voting so far than Republicans. […]

According to early voting totals compiled by the Fort Bend County Elections Administration, 7,563 people had cast ballots in the Democratic primary as of the end of the day Friday, while just 3,677 did so in the Republican primary.

That represents a major reversal from March 2006 primary numbers, when 9,101 Fort Bend County residents cast early ballots in the Republican primary, while a scant 1,619 cast ballots in the Democratic primary.

Major reversal indeed.

For a wide variety of reasons, it seems that people are highly motivated to participate in this primary. They’ve been energized enough to have conversations, watch the debates, do the research… and most importantly, to vote.

And many of them are voting as Democrats.

It probably won’t make much of a difference for McCain, but if it’s true that Hillary must win both Texas and Ohio to stay in the nomination race, then judging from activity in my neck of the woods, she’s in even bigger trouble than recent polls indicate.

(Cross-posted from Polimom Says…)



This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 8:42 am and is filed under Mike Huckabee, Independents, Newsweek Blogitics, Texas, John McCain, Barack Obama, Democrats, Republicans, Hillary Clinton, 2008 Elections. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 14 Comments

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    Your polling place experience mirrors those of friends and acquaintances as one primary after another comes and goes: Even at this late date Clinton's ground-level operations are extraordinarily half assed, while Obama's rock and roll. That difference in and of itself will not win Obama the nomination, but it speaks volumes about the state of the race.
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    Hi, mom!

    The blogosphere, like the atmosphere, abhors a vacuum, so I understand the penchant to fill it up with something. But, at this point, I'm not so sure the something is really that foretelling.

    Your Fort Bend numbers certainly validate more interest in the D primary, but do those same numbers really support a watershed shift in overall primary activity?

    We will likely get some deterministic skinny on the Clinton/Obama thing shortly, but all this innuendo of the general election seems to me to be at best an extrapolation of the "politically activist trees" and ignoring the passive forest of the tens of millions of general election-only voters that are far from engaged (or appearing) at this point.

    I don't see anyone's tshirts in the lines at the local grocery store.
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    Same thing happening in Collin County, home of Plano north of Dallas. Democratic primary voters have jumped 1300% over 2006. Lots of these folks are moderately conservative Republicans genuinely turned on by Barack Obama. That's happened in Williamson County, Tennessee (south of Nashville) too and in Chesterfield County, Virginia outside Richmond. Obama has not only cut into Clinton's base. He's cut into key Republican bases as well. I suspect he'll do very well in Hamilton County, Ohio for the same reason.
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    Polimom,


    It may be that the same ~11,000 people are voting in the primary this year as in 2006, they are just almost all voting in the Democrats' primary this year since it is more "interesting". If so, it could be bad news for your Representative, Ron Paul.


    One would think that those willing to forgo the opportunity to vote for (or against) the likely Democratic nominee would be those who feel strongly about others on the Republican primary roster. Historically, that group includes a large percentage who want to change the status quo. If most of the regular Republican primary voters switch this year and vote in the Democrats' primary, Ron Paul could lose his primary race, and therefore his seat.


    Were there Ron Paul for Congress signs around the polling place?

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    Polimom,


    It may be that the same ~11,000 people are voting in the primary this year as in 2006, they are just almost all voting in the Democrats' primary this year since it is more "interesting". If so, it could be bad news for your Representative, Ron Paul.


    One would think that those willing to forgo the opportunity to vote for (or against) the likely Democratic nominee would be those who feel strongly about others on the Republican primary roster. Historically, that group includes a large percentage who want to change the status quo. If most of the regular Republican primary voters switch this year and vote in the Democrats' primary, Ron Paul could lose his primary race, and therefore his seat.


    Were there Ron Paul for Congress signs around the polling place?

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    Polimom,


    It may be that the same ~11,000 people are voting in the primary this year as in 2006, they are just almost all voting in the Democrats' primary this year since it is more "interesting". If so, it could be bad news for your Representative, Ron Paul.


    One would think that those willing to forgo the opportunity to vote for (or against) the likely Democratic nominee would be those who feel strongly about others on the Republican primary roster. Historically, that group includes a large percentage who want to change the status quo. If most of the regular Republican primary voters switch this year and vote in the Democrats' primary, Ron Paul could lose his primary race, and therefore his seat.


    Were there Ron Paul for Congress signs around the polling place?

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    While many see the Obma T-shirsts as a sign of hope for American politics, I see them as a sigh of concern.
    As far as I can tell, Obama is an intelligent and honorable man. He is a blank slate, however, on which everyone writes his own hopes, and those hopes are varied. and, often contradictory.
    Should he achieve access to the Oval Office, he will have to choose which hopes to fulfill and which to disappoint. Every disappointment then, has the potential of being seen as a betrayal.
    What then? A backlash?
    Hope is wonderful, but an ill defined and all encompassing hope is impossible to realize in real, complicand and contradictory life . Thus the danger of being the Messaih. Messiahs can be crucified.
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    Master -- Funny you should ask about the Ron Paul signs. No, I didn't see any at all, either for president or for congress. All by itself, that's kind of strange in this congressional district -- and much different from prior elections that I recall. Related to that, btw, is the amusing (to me) Republican primary ballot, which gives voters 2 opportunities to vote for him. (Sample ballot .pdf here.) Don't think I've ever seen somebody listed twice before...

    casualobserver: I'm not trying to extrapolate to the general election. These are merely observations of activity in front of my eyes. My area, though, is pretty reliably Republican, so it's pretty interesting, generally -- and judging by other comments here, it's happening in many places around the state.
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    casualobserver you're sounding a little like Groucho when he said, "Who you going to believe... me or your lying eyes?"

    The negative blow back seems little more than those who oppose Obama trying to 'make less' of this phenomenon.
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