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Some voters were complaining in Texas that Sen. Barack Obama was saturating the airwaves with commercials. Even supporters grumbled they couldn't click through the channels each night without seeing a flood of his ads. American Research Group poll gives Clinton a whopping 20-point lead over Obama in Pennsylvania in part because of his many ads. Notable in the poll summary is this tidbit: 23% of likely primary voters say that excessive exposure to Obama's advertising is causing them to support Clinton. This compares to 19% of likely primary voters in Ohio who said that excessive exposure to Obama's advertising in...

For those of you in the Baylor University area, tonight is your chance to ask Juan Hernandez about his radical, open-borders agenda and his role in the McCain campaign. The event is free and open to the public. Bring your video camera: Dr. Juan Hernandez, author of The New American Pioneers, will speak at 6 p.m. Thursday in Kayser Auditorium on Mexican immigration. His lecture will be based on his notes, “Why are We Afraid of Mexican Immigrants?”Hernandez, a member of former Mexican President Vicente Fox’s cabinet, will be the final speaker for The Academy for Leader Development and Civic...

AUSTIN — Barack Obama would have the coattails to carry down-ballot Texas Democrats to victory in November and could be crucial to Democratic efforts to take Harris County away from Republicans, Obama's state congressional supporters say. And two of them — U.S. Reps. Chet Edwards of Waco and Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas — said Hillary Rodham Clinton would inspire an increased Republican voter turnout this fall. "In some ways, Hillary Clinton would unify Republicans in a way that John McCain cannot," said Edwards, referring to the presumptive GOP presidential nominee. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, often...

Paul backers won control of GOP confabs in Austin, Victoria. Want a fresh political surprise? How about supporters of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul for president staking a lasting claim in the Republican Party of Texas? As Democrats tussled over their presidential candidates at recent regional conventions, Paul backers unexpectedly took control of a GOP convention in Austin and the Victoria County convention. The results at Travis County's state Senate District 25 convention left old-guard Republicans wondering who lost the party's car keys — and worse. Gail Suttle, active in GOP circles since the 1980s, watched the takeover in horror. Suttle...

Down here in Galveston County, the Ron Paul bots tried to hijack the convention using subterfuge and tactical advantage of surprise, that would have made al Queda proud (high-placed sleeper, multiple coordinated attacks with a goal of causing a larger scale effect at the State convention and later at the National convention. Unfortunately for them it was discovered and thwarted for the most part by perceptive Republicans that took action and alerted others to help block their efforts. But it did make for a long and chaotic mess. Like jihadists, they took advantage of a weak Party leadership in transition...

CORPUS CHRISTI — Nueces County Republican Chairman Mike Bertuzzi survived a potential convention takeover. At the group's county convention Saturday, a man began causing a scene while committees were making reports. Republican county conventions nominate delegates for the state convention based upon the ratio decided in the March 4 primaries. "We were able to stop that and take care of business," Bertuzzi said. "I don't know what their purpose was. They claim they were Ron Paul supporters. I can't imagine Ron Paul would put people up to this." Paul, a U.S. representative from Texas and presidential candidate, is far behind...

Less than a month ago, Texas Democrats turned out in huge numbers for the presidential nominating contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, confident that, no matter who won, the party would have a popular, well-financed candidate. But that exuberance is gone now. Across the state this weekend, tense confrontations -- even shoving matches -- erupted as partisans for Clinton and Obama battled over how to interpret the March 4 election results and how to choose delegates to the Texas Democratic convention. At one particularly raucous session Saturday at Texas Southern University, a leading Clinton backer, U.S. Rep. Sheila...

Packed delegates at times 'a nightmare' for Dallas County districts Barack Obama cruised to victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton in Dallas County's Senate district conventions Saturday, as Texas Democrats continued their arduous and sometimes frustrating process of choosing national convention delegates. Mr. Obama had double-digit leads in all five of the county's Senate districts, mirroring his electoral power here in the March 4 primary. Statewide, the picture was less certain, though Mr. Obama started the day with a caucusing advantage because he won the first round, precinct conventions held the night of the primary. That may mean he can win...

AUSTIN - Spurned by the Texas Democratic Party in its effort to stall this weekend's county conventions, Hillary Clinton's campaign said Wednesday it is mobilizing caucus supporters and helping those who want to challenge the legitimacy of some Barack Obama delegates. The Clinton campaign itself won't challenge Obama's delegates at the approximately 280 county and state Senate district conventions Saturday, said Clinton state chairman Garry Mauro. "I have always known the grass roots to generate credentials questions," he said. "There's no systematic approach that we're taking to challenge anybody at any level." But the campaign is using a behind-the-scenes strategy....

Here is the apportionment so far of presidential caucus delegates to the Texas Democratic state convention based on reports from Saturday's county and senate district conventions. A total of about 7,300 delegates were expected to be selected in this stage of the caucus process, according to the Texas Democratic Party. Results are from 123 of about 280 conventions. • Clinton: 933, or 50 percent* • Obama: 937, or 50 percent* *Results are not official AUSTIN — Traffic jams, long lines, crowds, confusion and chaos marked Texas Democratic regional conventions Saturday as an unprecedented number of political activists turned out to...

On March 4, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to news reports, won three out of the four state primaries held that day -- Rhode Island, Ohio and Texas. Barack Obama won only Vermont, a victory dismissed as insignificant by much of the media because of its size and small number of delegates. On the other hand, some media, in writing about Clinton's victories in Ohio and Texas, said it reaffirmed her ability to win the big states -- states the Democratic Party must carry in the fall if it is to win the general election. By inference, they...

Texas Democrats can send a message of sanity today Let's end the stupidity, agree to support nominee By DAVID BERG I believe it was Lord Acton who said "stupidity corrupts" and "absolute stupidity corrupts absolutely." Or maybe it was his brother, "Bubba" Acton, who ran the family plumbing supply business. In any event, this essay isn't about the Actons. It's about the Democrats, of which I am one. We are acting about as absolutely stupid as it gets — fighting each other, right down to the precinct level, rather than uniting to defeat John McCain this fall — and doing...

The Texas Democratic Party on Friday urged delegates to today's senatorial district and county conventions to ignore e-mails and robotic phone calls telling them that the conventions have either been canceled or had their times changed. The conventions are a crucial turning point in Texas as the presidential campaigns of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama fight for 67 nominating convention delegates who will be chosen through the Texas caucus process. While Obama appeared to come out of the caucuses with a 37-30 lead, the number can change based on how many supporters for each candidate show up for today's...

U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, a superdelegate, is among those to receive campaign contributions from at least one of the current presidential candidates. Records show that Edwards, whose District 17 stretches from suburbs south of Fort Worth to east of College Station, received $7,500 from Barack Obama in the 2006 or 2008 election cycles or both, according to an analysis by the Capital Eye Web site. Edwards, who could not be reached for comment Friday, has endorsed Obama.

Houston, TX- Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman will provide the Harris County District Attorney's office today copies of the Democratic and Republican poll books that show 1147 names of individuals that may have voted illegally or unlawfully participated in both primaries in the March 4th Elections. "Texas law prohibits individuals from voting twice in an election, as well participating in both the Republican and Democratic primaries during the same election cycle. In most elections, there are less than a handful of such cases. In this election, there appears to be a significant number that may call for further investigation," said...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Barack Obama's speech last week, hastily prepared to extinguish the firestorm over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, won critical praise for style and substance but failed politically. By elevating the question of race in America, the front-running Democratic presidential candidate has deepened the dilemma created by his campaign's success against the party establishment's anointed choice, Hillary Clinton. In rejecting the racist views of his longtime spiritual mentor but not disowning him, Obama has unwittingly enhanced his image as the African-American candidate -- not just a remarkable candidate who happens to be black. That poses a racial dilemma for...

Some 50 delegates were reportedly poised to unite behind Barack Obama if he had won by even 1 point in Texas. He lost the popular vote by 100,000 ballots, and now we learn that 100,000 Republicans voted for Hillary Clinton, probably not because of some change in party allegiance but because they thought she would be the easier candidate to beat. This kind of strategic voting often backfires (think Ralph Nader). The Texas crossovers are winners. By helping to prolong the Democratic race, they can claim credit for weakening the eventual nominee, whoever it turns out to be. Obama has...

The Obama camp hotly disputed a claim this week by Galveston County Democratic Chairman Lloyd Criss that on election night, Obama supporters took caucus sign-in sheets to their campaign headquarters and added names to them. Criss, a Clinton supporter, made the claim earlier this week. But he said that since it didn’t change how many delegates the candidates got, he wasn’t that concerned about it. But Aaron Schiller, who ran the Obama campaign in Galveston, insisted it didn’t happen. “He was taking a free shot at us,” Schiller said. On Friday, Criss said he wasn’t sure that Obama supporters took...

For a party that loves to hate the Clintons, Republican voters have cast an awful lot of ballots lately for Senator Hillary Clinton: About 100,000 GOP loyalists voted for her in Ohio, 119,000 in Texas, and about 38,000 in Mississippi, exit polls show. A sudden change of heart? Hardly. Since Senator John McCain effectively sewed up the GOP nomination last month, Republicans have begun participating in Democratic primaries specifically to vote for Clinton, a tactic that some voters and local Republican activists think will help their party in November. With every delegate important in the tight Democratic race, this trend...

The Obama camp hotly disputed a claim this week by Galveston County Democratic Chairman Lloyd Criss that on election night, Obama supporters took caucus sign-in sheets to their campaign headquarters and added names to them. Criss, a Clinton supporter, made the claim earlier this week. But he said that since it didn’t change how many delegates the candidates got, he wasn’t that concerned about it. But Aaron Schiller, who ran the Obama campaign in Galveston, insisted it didn’t happen. “He was taking a free shot at us,” Schiller said. On Friday, Criss said he wasn’t sure that Obama supporters took...