I Want a Voice Part 7 – The Texas Primary Lessons Learned

Looking back on the whole thing I have to say that I am glad to have taken part in the process. I am still not sure what part, if any that I played in the whole Texas Two Step, as our primary process has been dubbed. What I know is this:

· The method by which Texas selects the delegates it sends to the national conventions is extremely flawed and not at all democratic. The one person one vote idea does not exist and while folks will parrot the party line that everyone has equal access to the primary and caucus, they certainly do not.

· I have no idea how any of the calculations are made to determine the number of delegates that each candidate is awarded as a result of the voting and caucusing. I am sure that somebody somewhere knows but even after being through the process all the way up to the state convention it is not clear how the numbers that are eventually derived for delegate assignment to the national convention are determined. Although I have no proof and everything may be easily explained by someone “in the know”, I suspect that this process is intentionally vague to permit the party leadership to do just about anything that they wish, regardless of the outcome of the primary/caucus voting.

· Delegates to the state convention are assured repeatedly that they have an important role to play and must make every effort to attend the convention. Aside from showing up and being counted as having been there I had no discernable impact on anything. Plus I do not think that my showing up was really that significant.

· My guess is that the Democratic leaders wanted everyone there for fundraising. Attendance at all of the “can’t miss” receptions, dinners, and events always required a fairly expensive donation disguised as a cover charge or fee.

· All of the events, from the caucus through the state convention were very poorly managed. Very little advanced thought or preparation appeared to go into any of these disasters. The worst was the state convention. There is absolutely no excuse for any of this. Except for the caucus they knew in advance the number of attendees and still did not spend the time or effort to prepare. They also do not get a totally free pass on the caucus because the large turnout during the early voting should have been a clue that there would be larger than normal numbers at the caucuses. The Democrats need to spend some of those donations on a professional conference organizer who can manage large groups of people.

· After the state convention I received a number of email messages asking me to for donations that would be used to send the alternate delegate from our district to the national convention. We were told at the meetings before the national convention that the estimated cost to attend the national convention was between $3,500 and $6,000. I am not sure why this is so steep but numerous officials assured us that this was an accurate estimate. I found these multiple requests for donations extremely annoying. Anyone who could not afford to either foot this bill or take out a loan to do so should not have run for this position. Needless to say I did not send her a donation.

· This experience reinforced my lifelong commitment to maintaining independence from any political party. The Democratic Party is an extremely disorganized and dysfunctional group of people. After taking a peek on the inside of their act I want nothing to do with anything remotely associated with them. I tire quickly and easily of their “we-they” rhetoric that is spewed constantly. They seem no better than the Republicans in this regard. Their processes seem only to be designed to get Democrats elected and not to make anything better for the people of this country. I guess we will have to live with this until the country wises up and eliminates the stranglehold that the two parties have on politics in this country. Based on how they have stacked the deck against third parties I do not see this changing in my lifetime. Hopefully future generations will wise up and change this system.

So, OK, I am still an Obama supporter. But my enthusiasm is dwindling as we get closer and closer to Election Day. His changing position on various issues is making him appear to be just like another politician. I am losing confidence that anything will change if he is elected. We all know that McCain will be four more years of what we have now so I cannot vote for him. So I guess it is Obama, for now.