OBAMA is winning Texas, NOT Clinton!

The media has been reporting that Clinton won Texas. But in reality, she only won one step of the "Texas Two-Step." In Texas, you see, you can vote twice. And must, if you want your candidate to "win" Texas.

In order to participate in the caucus, you have to vote in the primary. But many fewer people participate in the caucus.

This is actually a really smart system, because it helps vet the candidate against their base. Those with the most committed activists can win over those with better name recognition.

And let's face it. In the rural areas of the state where neither Clinton nor Obama campaigned, Clinton won based on name recognition.

So the caucus vote is important in three ways: 1) it shows who has the better "Get out the vote" (GOTV) operation and therefore the better campaign staff and volunteers, and 2) it shows whose voters are more passionate about their candidate. Those who are only lukewarm about their candidate will vote in the primary, but will not caucus. But those who strongly believe they have the best candidate will attend the caucus to give their vote maximum impact.

In other words, the big winner in Texas is not Hillary Clinton, but Barack Obama. Let me explain.

Texas apportions delegates as follows:

Total Texas delegates (not counting superdelegates): 193
Number of delegates assigned via the primary: 126 (2/3)
Number of delegates assigned via caucus winners: 67 (1/3)

Currently, the counts are as follows:

	Obama	Clinton
Primary delegates	61	65
Caucus delegates	37	30
TOTAL	98	95

In other words, Obama is winning the pledged delegate vote in Texas.

The press is in too much of a hurry to annoint winners before all the data is in. This is outrageous, in a Democracy.

What's the rush?

Let the votes be counted first. And now Hillary Clinton has egg all over her face for claiming a victory that wasn't.

Obama is winning Texas. And that doesn't look likely to change, the way the numbers have been trending all morning.