East Texas may hold key to Democratic primary

[NJSecularist]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5585063.html

AUSTIN — Battleground Texas in the Democratic presidential primary is firming up, with Hillary Rodham Clinton in control of South Texas and Barack Obama apparently owning Houston and Dallas, a new tracking poll shows.

And in the one-time bastion of the Texas Democratic Party — East Texas — the race is swinging back and forth.

Statewide, Obama holds a lead, but pollster John Zogby said the race is too close to call, especially with heavy turnout in early voting. Zogby said Obama is leading Clinton among young voters, men, blacks and holds almost 60 percent support in Houston and Dallas.

Primary election day is Tuesday, and Texas Secretary of State Phil Wilson said he expects a record turnout.

Democratic demographer Leland Beatty of Austin said 65 percent of the early voting turnout in Houston through Thursday included people who had not cast a ballot in the past three Democratic primaries. At least a quarter of the turnout is black, he said.

And 11,213 — 8.2 percent — were people who previously had voted in the Republican primary, he said.

The new voters would seem to favor Obama, Beatty said, but 69 percent of the early vote was cast by people older age 40 and 41 percent of the votes were from older women. Obama's appeal has been strongest with people younger than 40.

[blogslut]

1. This Tueday is gonna shock ya'll, come Tuesday

I just want you folks to know that.

Hell, we're shocking ourselves.

[NJSecularist]

2. You live in Texas?

Where?

What's your thoughts on Texas as a whole?

[blogslut]

5. I live in the Texas Panhandle

I will give some numbers.

In Potter county, 333 citizens showed up to vote Democratic in the 2004 presidential primaries. This year 2331 voted in the Democratic primaries.

Mind you, our fellow Republicans beat us with a total of 3086. In 2004, 2136 Republicans voted early in the primaries.

However, a more personalized indicator of the mood was expressed by an ex-Republican mayor of Amarillo recently. Fox News interviewed local Republicans at a party fundraiser. Most folks hesitatingly backed McCain. There were some shout-outs to Ron Paul. Then our ex-mayor, said this:

"I'm not here to support anybody," said Jerry Hodge of Clarendon. "None of them are impressive for this campaign.".

I know Jerry Hodge. He's not some fool who blurts things out to reporters just to be on teevee. If there were any chance his business could suffer because of his statements, he wouldn't make the statements.

Potter county is one of two counties that includes the city of Amarillo. Amarillo has a population of approximately 200,000 people - not including the surrounding towns that make up our particular Senate district.

Our area probably won't vote for the Democratic candidate come the GE, but it will be the first close vote in a long damned time. People around here have never forgiven LBJ for closing our air-base in retaliation for voting for Goldwater in 1964. That hurt us bad. There's still the fear that a Democratic president will close down our other remaining military facilities. However, Amarillo isn't the DOJ town that it used to be so many decades ago and the generation that told LBJ to get stuffed have seen a lot of crap come and go since then.

link to story: http://www.amarillo.com/stories/022108/new_9662688.shtml

[madfloridian]

3. That is what I am hearing from someone in the Dallas area.

That Texans are going to surprise some folks.

[DavidDvorkin]

4. Gasp! They're going to vote for Lee Mercer?!

[blogslut]

6. It will be the news of the day

That is for sure

[grantcart]

7. how does east texas corelate to this map?

what are the demographics like in East Texas?

[BringBigDogBack]

8. Texas is going nuts rite now...

Houston is crazy-town the last week or two