Vote Early and Vote Often…

Although I want "Vote Early and Vote Often" to be attributed to Richard J. Daley, who truly embodied the spirit of the line, it wasn't originally his. (Although he did more to live that line than anyone else, especially in 1960) -- it's actually from someone else. (Answer at the end). Still, from that perspective, it's a great day to be a Texan!

Today the primary polls are open in Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont AND Texas: 370 pledged delegates, 444 total delegates. Everyone except Texans can vote once: you Texans out there can vote (or have voted already) and if you vote in the primary, you can vote again at 7:15 local time. Part of Texas is in another time zone, but as all of you know, I get those persnickety time zones wrong close to 100% of the time, so we won't do the El Paso discussion.

And it's interesting how today's contest has morphed from an actual primary to a war of words of expectation. Coming into today, Obama has won the last 11 contests, and at a minimum has a 100 delegate lead. The campaign says that no matter the outcome, they're going to still be ahead in the raw count, the soft count, and the hard count. And numerically, that's true, unless the far right has its way.

The Clinton camp started out by saying that Texas and Ohio were must-wins or Hillary would drop out. Even Bill said it. Now, they're down to -- if Hillary wins one or the other, they're staying in. The polls are all over the place -- and in case you're wondering how that happens, it has to do with two things: who is polled, and what questions are asked. "Who is polled" depends often on who the pollster is, whether they choose to go after "likely voters" or "registered voters", how big their sample is, which lists they used to select names, and whether the pollster has a stake in the outcome. (Rasmussen and Zogby, for example, are Republican pollsters). "What they ask" can skew anything.

The interesting thing today is that both Texas and Ohio are open primaries -- Rush Limbaugh and the other right-wingers are suggesting that Republicans go vote for Clinton JUST to keep the Democratic race in play. They have accepted that Obama will be the candidate and they want him as bloody (Rush's word, check it out if you don't believe me) as possible for the general. Wouldn't it be funny if they got their wish, they pulled the McCain voters who believed he was a shoo-in, and Huckabee won Texas? (Gotta love them thar' possibilities! -- Romney may have suspended his campaign, but he's still got close to 300 delegates….and he hasn't released them, McCain endorsement notwithstanding. It's all in the details.)

And on that "open primary deal" -- in Texas, you don't actually register with a party. At all. Only state that works that way.

So enjoy -- it will be a long night!

Results and analysis tomorrow.

 

And oh….it was Al Capone -- who understood all systems except those related to taxes.