Bloggers are chronicling the continuing war over Democratic presidential delegates in Texas. They're also taking note of the impact of a certain Lake Jackson congressman at Republican conventions, runoffs for primary nominations and the hot seat recently occupied by the Texas House Speaker. And then, some miscellaneous posts.
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Donkey Doings
Barack Obama says he's won Texas; Hillary Clinton says maybe, maybe not, according to Postcards from the Lege, the Austin American-Statesman's blog. The numbers from Burnt Orange Report support Obama, but as Half-Empty muses, "The fat lady, however, doesn’t sing until the state convention this June. That’s the rule here in wild and woolly Texas. It’s not who you vote for, but who shows up... "
Those words rang true in Harris County's SD-6, where Obama no-shows swung the delegate total in favor of Clinton, according to Texas Observer Blog. They say the count was more proportional for Obama in Bexar County, but the convention was just as chaotic. Observer also says it was crazy in Tarrant County: here and here.
KVUE's Political Junkie live-blogged the Travis County convention, and Observer's take is here.
Postcards has the results from Hays County's convention, which earlier had "teetered on the verge of anarchy." Meanwhile, state Rep. Aaron Peña, D-Edinburg, characterizes the event in Hidalgo County as "lengthy, historic and sometimes chaotic," in his A Capitol Blog. And Half-Empty says confusion reigned supreme in Fort Bend County, while a couple of commenters on Texas Kaos report on Kaufman and Wise Counties (once you're there, scroll down to the bottom of the page.)
Obama took off his shoe and crushed Clinton in Dallas's SD-16 and SD-23 conventions (and also in SD-2), reports Trail Blazers, the Dallas Morning News's blog. And Dos Centavos reports that Harris County's SD-14 event went "Smooooooth," while musings says many rules were broken during Fort Bend County's SD-17 convention. Also here.
Political Junkie turns her blog into a lonely hearts forum for Democrats who found amore at the conventions — then lost it. And Burnt Orange has an item on state "superdelegates."
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Republican r3VOLution
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's blog PoliTex predicted partially cloudy skies with a strong possibility of Ron Paul supporters at GOP conventions. They were correct.
Party officials in SD-12 brokered a pre-convention peace treaty, ensuring that a significant number of delegates to the state convention will be flying the Paulistinian flag, PoliTex says. Folks in SD-10 didn't get the memo — latest word from PoliTex was they were still fighting it out. And Paul's r3VOLutionaries hijacked Travis County's SD-25 convention, but didn't muster quite enough support to take over SD-14, says Postcards.
Things were "relatively ho-hum" in Sugar Land's SD-17, says Texas Safety Forum. The most interesting development was the announcement by Austin Furse to run for state Sen. Kyle Janek's soon-to-be open seat. Here's more info from the county seat.
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Runoff Roundup
BurkaBlog analyzes the five GOP state House runoffs on April 8. Eye on Williamson takes a look at the GOP's HD-52, saying Bryan Daniel has more money, while Dee Hobbs has that hometown appeal.
Observer writes a story on the two Democrats still standing in the race for Railroad Commission. And Trail Blazers — paralleling our own covereage — says the GOP's HD-112 race has been so nasty that James Leininger is withdrawing his support for Randall Dunning. (Leinenger didn't say, however, that he's now backing opponent Angie Chen Button.)
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Gone Fishin'
Political Junkie scoped out TomCraddick's deposition for a lawsuit regarding an alleged "threaten" letter to a travel company. She has a screenshot here that is prime for opponent's campaign mailers. The raw, uncut footage is here. And commentary is here, here and here. Trail Blazers' take is here.
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Farrago
Rick Perry for Governor, in 2010? BurkaBlog moans.
Remember Mauricio Celis? TexParte Blog does.
Congratulations to il Duce Ross Ramsey for officially joining the M$M! via Burnt Orange.
An analysis of the pole tax smackdown, by Chronic, the Austin Chronicle's blog.
More maps of presidential primary results, by Greg's Opinion, here, here and here.
A take on the Bexar County needle exchange fight, by Grits for Breakfast.
Mike Falick's Blog won an award.
Cross-tabs of primary results by state representative district, from Off the Kuff.
An interview with Dwight Fullingim, a Democrat running for Congress in District 19, by Texas Blue.
Bloggers love... John Cornyn?
Videos from the U.S. Senate race, via Texas Politics, the Houston Chronicle's blog.
A money fight in an El Paso state House race, from Vaqueros & Wonkeros, the El Paso Times's blog.
This edition of Out There was compiled and written by Patrick Brendel, who hails from Victoria but is spending the spring in the mid-Atlantic region. We cherry-pick the state's political blogs each week, looking for news, info, gossip, and new jokes. The opinions here belong (mostly) to the bloggers, and we're including their links so you can hunt them down if you wish. Our blogroll — the list of Texas blogs we watch — is on our links page, and if you know of a Texas political blog that ought to be on it, just shoot us a note. Please send comments, suggestions, gripes or retorts to Texas Weekly editor Ross Ramsey.
