Excellent Adventure

Tonight I hung out at the caucus at the Good Shepherd church on McColl to see how the process would go.

In the words of one of the caucus leaders, it was a nightmare.

Due to a mix-up by the county Democratic party, which reportedly failed to get permission from the church to caucus there, caucus-goers had to hold their event outdoors. In the cold. In the dark.

Meanwhile, apparently, the election judge only had one list of voters available to the caucus leaders - even though two precincts were caucusing there.

And since many dawdlers got in line to vote just before the 7 p.m. deadline, caucusing couldn’t start until nearly 8:30.

Eventually, the boys in blue showed up to try to calm things down. Most people were well behaved and were probably too cold to raise a fit. Temperatures were around 55 degrees.

Did you have a particularly terrible caucus experience? Or a particularly good one? Let me know by giving me a call at (956) 683-4446.

Yesterday, Sen. Clinton delivered a heck of a zinger at her opponent while speaking at a press conference in Ohio that raised some eyebrows.

As reported by Time, Clinton said:

‘I have a lifetime of experienceI will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain [the presumptive Republican nominee] has a lifetime of experience he will bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he made in 2002′ - a reference to the address in which Obama, before being elected to the Senate, had publicly opposed the Iraq invasion that she and McCain had voted to authorize.

Clinton’s logic is a bit confusing. She’s been urging voters to choose her over Obama based on her experience. But she also praises McCain, who has even more experience than she has.

Says MSNBC talking head Rachel Maddow: “That’s what you say when you want to be John McCain’s vice presidential choice.”

New polling data suggests Sen. Obama might be on shaky ground here in Texas.

From Slate’s Election Scorecard blog:

Obama’s supporters aren’t as solid in their support as Clinton’s are in Texas. Eleven percent of voters statewide say they may still change their mind, and Obama’s supporters make up the majority of those respondents. In Ohio, both candidates have similar levels of resolute support.

According to Slate, Obama is also showing a higher “unfavorability” rating than Clinton here and in Ohio.

With the Democratic presidential primary just four days away, candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has added her name to cosponsor S1838, the “South Texas Veterans Access to Care Act of 2007,” a bill that would bring a Veteran’s Hospital to the Rio Grande Valley. The bill was first introduced by Texas Republican Senators John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchinson in July 2007.

Interesting to note is that the bill was also cosponsored by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., on Tuesday. In addition to the Rio Grande Valley VA hospital, Kerry endorses Hillary’s rival, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. — but will Obama also sign on to support the Rio Grande Valley VA hospital? We will see.

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Come on and sing it with me car wash…

In the cleanest of campaign moves by any candidate, the former former First Lady is sending her campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe to wash cars today at Pepper’s Restaurant in McAllen.

McAuliffe, also the former head of the Democratic National Committee, will be at Pepper’s on North 10th Street and noon today at a campaign car wash (I wonder if Obama supporters will bring some filthy rides for McAuliffe to scrub down) .

Okay, it’s not clear that McAuliffe will  be scrubbing rims and bumpers himself, but isn’t it fun to imagine. 

It’s a long ways from strategizing the national Democratic campaign to to washing cars in McAllen.

He’ll also be in Brownsville today at a pachanga at 4 p.m. and in Harlingen tonight at 6:45 p.m.

Saturday he’ll have breakfast with volunteers at Clinton campaign headquarters in Pharr before heading out to Weslaco for “an announcement” at the Tierra Santa Golf Club in Weslaco. Hopefully the big announcement isn’t that his handicap dropped by two strokes.

Check out this video of Sen. Clinton’s campaign stop in Rhode Island today, where she appears to be mocking Sen. Obama.

Sen Clinton says:

Now I could stand up here and say, ‘Let’s just get everybody together. Let’s get unified. The sky will open. The light will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect.’

Maybe I’ve just lived a little long, but I have no illusions about how hard this is going to be. You are not going to wave a magic wand and have the special interests disappear.

Ironically, when Obama stopped in Edinburg Friday, the clouds that had been in the sky all morning disappeared as he took the stage, and the light did come down. There weren’t celestial choirs though.

Red the New York Times blog for more on her Rhode Island stop.

Gov. Mike Huckabee, who will almost surely lose the race for the GOP nomination, had a little fun this weekend, appearing on Saturday Night Live.

In a “Weekend Update” segment, Seth Myers asks Huckabee why he is staying in the race despite the fact that even if we wins every remaining primary, he won’t have enough delegates to secure the party nomination. Huckabee, in on the joke, replies, “The media loves to throw around the term ‘mathematical impossibility.’”

See the YouTube video here .

About 13 years ago, Sen. Obama met with people who protested the Vietnam war 40 years ago, the D.C-based Politico newspaper reports.

The Politico reports:

In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

While Ayers and Dohrn may be thought of in Hyde Park as local activists, they’re better known nationally as two of the most notorious – and unrepentant — figures from the violent fringe of the 1960s anti-war movement. (Full story here)

State Rep. Aaron Pena, who is a big Hillary Clinton supporter, is sitting on the stage below a huge Obama sign along with other politicians and dignitaries. Pena represents Edinburg, though it seems strange that he would have such a prominent place at an Obama event, given his allegiances to Hillary.

Obama will be standing in front of Pena and the other dignitaries as he speaks. Pena was at the Hillary rally at Dodge Arena earlier this week.  

Maybe Aaron Pena, Jr. - his son - convinced him to switch to Obama. Pena Jr. is an Obama supporter.

State Rep. Eddie Lucio III of Brownsville is in the middle of giving a speech about Obama, and someone in the audience just fainted.

Stopping in the middle of his speech, Lucio stammered, “I think someone just passed out,” as he called for water and a medic.

“Someone’s saying I’m such a good speaker someone fainted,” Lucio said. “I don’t think that’s it.”