Grab Your Cowboy Hats

As some astute observers predicted, Barack Obama is surging heading towards Super Tuesday, with polls showing he’s closing the gap in a number of states. What’s this mean? The election is coming to Texas! That’s right, there’s almost no way Obama or Clinton will secure the nomination tomorrow. After that, Texas has the single largest batch of delegates left.

Get your cameras ready because you’ll be seeing a lot of a very rare creature – the Texas Democrat. Currently, no Democrat holds a statewide office and us Lone Star voters have gone red in presidential elections since native-son Lyndon Johnson won the White House in 1964. Despite all that, this a huge state and there are massive numbers of Democratic voters just itching to vote in a meaningful election. I expect record turnout. If the Republican nomination is also still undecided by March 4th, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a turnout exceeding the numbers who showed up for the last presidential election.

As a late primary state, our influence in the party nomination process has been minimal for well over a generation. Now we may be casting deciding votes. That’s not just exciting for a poli-head like me. That’s going to energize the whole state.