Embedded in Texas: Obama Volunteer Discusses NV Caucus "Ugliness"

cross-posted to goodCRIMETHINK

This is my final video dispatch from working in Texas for Obama. It's an interview I did with Greer Westerink (whose video I posted almost a month ago). Greer lives in the Bay Area but was a caucus precinct captain for Obama in Las Vegas, NV. She and I spent hours working together in South Dallas, and she was always referring to the "ugliness" she saw from the Clinton campaign in Vegas.

I finally found a moment to ask her about it on camera. Here's what she had to say

Hillary " Tonya Harding" Clinton Attempts to Mess with the Voting in Texas - AGAIN

Hat tip- a reader.

Clinton campaign looks to locals to challenge Obama delegates
03/26/2008
By KELLEY SHANNON / Associated Press

Spurned by the Texas Democratic Party in its effort to stall this weekend's county conventions, Hillary Clinton's campaign said Wednesday it is mobilizing caucus supporters and helping those who want to challenge the legitimacy of some Barack Obama delegates.

The Clinton campaign itself won't challenge Obama's delegates at the approximately 280 county and state Senate district conventions Saturday, said Clinton state chairman Garry Mauro.

"I have always known the grass roots to generate credentials questions," he said. "There's no systematic approach that we're taking to challenge anybody at any level."

But the campaign is using a behind-the-scenes strategy. It is giving legal advice to some voters who are mounting challenges and is having volunteer lawyers closely watch the proceedings, Mauro said.

"Are there going to be corrections in mathematical errors? Yes," he said, describing hypothetical examples of how a local delegate count might be changed.

Obama's campaign also has people looking closely at delegate counts and individual counties, said spokesman Josh Earnest.

"Our people are there to ensure that the process goes well and not to try to obstruct the process, and hopefully that's what their people will be doing as well," Earnest said.

Both campaigns have staffers in Texas to round up supporters and hold training sessions before Saturday's convention caucuses.

Hundreds of thousands of people attended Texas Democratic precinct caucuses after the party's primary concluded March 4. Those caucuses began the selection of 67 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention. The next step is the county conventions this weekend, which will pick delegates to the state convention in June.

The candidate with the most supporters signing in at each convention level will benefit in the awarding of caucus delegates.

Last week, the state Democratic Party refused a request from Clinton's campaign to postpone county conventions and take extra steps to verify the signatures of election night caucus-goers.

Rest of Article is HERE.

From the beginning, she has attempted to de-legitimize the Caucus part of the Texas voting process.

Just keeping you up-to-date on her chicanery.

Embedded In Texas: Insight From A Fellow Volunteer On HRC's Primary "Win"

I worked with Robert Swann. This man is the shiznits. He's a Dallas native, and posted a comment on my personal blog I thought worth sharing....

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Baratunde! For those of you following the blog, I’m one of the four men (the local guy) who responded to Baratunde’s call to unload food and drink when he first rolled up to the Dallas Headquarters from NYC.

To add to your impressions of the Texas Primary, here’s what I think is the biggest (almost) unreported story from the Primary/Caucus:

HRC’s “win” in Texas is being credited to fears inspired by the “red telephone” ad and to last minute doubts about Barack’s experience. As a Dallas native who canvassed seven turfs in South Dallas and Pleasant Grove (see video at dallasnews.com or google “canvassing dallas news”–our video is #1 for that search term) and then went to his own precint caucus in very Republican, very white Highland Park, I can assure you there were NO last minute doubts about Barack. Better than 90% of hundreds of doors I knocked on were strongly supporting Obama, both at Primary polls and at Caucus.

At my own Caucus location, all four precincts went resoundingly for Obama, with margins varying from 7 to 5 up to 11 to 3. My own precinct, 1226, went 9 to 4 for Obama. This trend held across the state of Texas, resulting in a caucus win for Barack. So where did all these Primary votes for Hillary Clinton come from?

Answer: REPUBLICANS!

Sabotage or “mischief” voting across party lines in the open primary is as old as Texas politics. We here in Texas know this. We want to be sure that voters in the upcoming primaries understand that what they saw in Texas was NOT a show of support for HRC, but rather an attempt by cynical Republicans (who have nothing interesting to attract them to their OWN primary in Texas) to choose a Democratic nominee (Hillary Clinton) that McCain can beat in November.

The Republicans in my neighborhood were smirking and winking at each other as they went in to cast their Clinton votes. Ask any Texan who watched the polls in Republican precints. Why didn’t they do the same thing at the Caucus Tuesday night? Because at the Caucus, you have to show your face in order to participate. We tend to know our neighbors around here, and it would be hard to fool anybody about one’s true convictions in an open Caucus. The real vote, the principled vote, in the Democratic Primary in Texas in 2008, was the vote we cast at Precinct Convention (same thing as Caucus, for those of you observing Texas and scratching your heads.)

In this neck o’ the woods, a vote for Hillary Clinton is considered to be a vote for John McCain. The only thing Texas Republicans (those not already supporting Obama, and I met quite a few of them on my turf walks) fear is having to run against Senator Barack Obama in November. Those favoring Hillary Clinton in Mississippi and Wyoming and Pennsylvania (to name just a few) should think long and hard about this unless they want to see 4 more years of Bush/McCain.

HRC likes to claim that caucuses discriminate against working class folks. She can’t really believe that, and if you’d been with Baratunde and Greer and all the rest of us to see the Caucus lines in South Dallas and Pleasant Grove and Duncanville and Desoto and Oak Cliff, you wouldn’t believe it either.

Sent Barack another $25 last night. Time for all of us to do the same.

Robert Swann
Dallas, Texas

Oh And Obama Won Texas Officially BTW

Thanks to this diarist over at DKos for pointing it out. Makes me feel better as someone on the ground in Texas. Further irritation at the media for not doing its job. But what else is new?

Embedded In Texas For Obama: Interview w Bernice Montgomery

A video I shot while workin it for Obama in Dallas. Check out Bernice Montgomery. I love to see our people get down with politics like this. I hope Bernice and people like her stay engaged well beyond the election.

Embedded In Texas - NPR News & Notes Segment

cross-posted to goodCRIMETHINK

First of all, big up to rikyrah and the entire JJP fam for holding it down while I walked the streets of South Dallas for Obama over the past few days. This site continues to grow and impress me. Apologies to all for my absence. I'm still exhausted but am ready to start my steady comeback like Hillary ;)

Today, I returned to News & Notes, and it was energetic as a mug. I shared the mic with Arlene Fenton (Shecodes) of Black Women Vote and Kevin Ross of Three Brothers and a Sister. Add two bloggers to your blogroll and bookmarks because these two were incredible.

Here's a link to our segment (13min) plus photos from my time in Dallas.

As always, there is never enough time to do justice to our topics, but I got most of my main points for the topics we did hit.

• The mood in Dallas after the results: frustration and determination to go to PA
  
• The late-breaking Clinton voters responding to C