In a letter sent to the state Democratic Party late Friday, the Clinton campaign asked that the March 29 county and state senatorial district conventions be postponed until the eligibility of the estimated 1 million caucus-goers that turned out March 4 are double-checked, the Associated Press reported Saturday.Verifying that caucus participants were qualified by voting in the primary and that they were at their appropriate precinct caucus is the biggest challenge that remains for the party, Mauro said.
Without that, Mauro said, it will be impossible to know whether the regional convention delegates accurately reflect caucus turnout.
"We have to wait and see who shows up (at the regional conventions) and who's qualified to show up," Mauro said.
Boyd seems a little unsympathetic to the Clinton campaign's dilemma:
State Democratic Chairman Boyd Richie said the party has received about 2,000 caucus complaints, ranging from people butting in line to someone possibly stealing caucus sign-in sheets so that certifying a victor will be difficult. But he said with a record caucus turnout, he considered the problems to be a small part of a successful caucus process that energized Democrats.
Most of the whining coming out of the Clinton camp these days regarding the Texas caucuses has to do with the "unfairness" of it all: because Mrs. Clinton narrowly won the primary half (two-thirds, actually) and lost the caucus half (one-third, to be precise) by nearly a two-to-one margin, cries of "It's Bush 2000 all over again" and "one man, one vote" have become nearly a cacophony of squawking. The upshot is that precinct convention delegates and alternates can expect Clinton supporters within the ranks of senate district leadership -- particularly those who have hand-picked their pals to staff the temporary rules and credentials committees at the SD conventions -- to either go out of their way to deny Obama delegates, or slow down an already cumbersome sign-in process on the morning of March 29. They want some payback for the grassroots activists beating them on the evening of March 4, and intend to take it at the end of this month. They'll use the swollen turnout as excuse to try to shaft a whole bunch of green-behind-the-ears Obama delegates showing up for the first time. The Obama campaign has to prepare their delegations for this possible sabotage of the will of the caucuses, else they will be easily rolled by the seasoned Clinton operatives.
More drama ahead, and likely more whining from some quarter.
