Texas two-step political contest

Carrie Dann NBC/National Journal Reporter

EL PASO, Texas - Perched on the back of a pickup truck at a rally for his wife, the former president of the United States paused from his speech, and with a mischievous grin, said: "Think of it as the only time in your life that you'll get to vote twice without going to jail."

It's a line that Bill Clinton delivers at every stop he makes on the campaign trail here in the Lone Star State. Crowds of supporters giggle and cheer as he pokes fun at the state's peculiar electoral system that splits its delegate selection process between a daytime primary and an evening caucus.

He promises supporters who attend the caucuses on March 4 that they'll be greeted with dinner and music. "Think of it as an excuse for a massive party," chuckled Clinton.

But beneath the banter there's apprehension within Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign that Texas' hybrid nominating contest, which allocates two-thirds of its delegates in the primary and one-third in the caucus, could prove to be her last stand.

Delegate uncertainty
Since the Nevada caucuses on Jan. 19, Barack Obama has defeated Clinton in every state that's held traditional caucuses, open meetings that reward grassroots organization and vigorous commitment to a candidate. Clinton could conceivably win the Texas primary but still see her delegate advantage there evaporate if Obama supporters turn out in droves for the meetings held in over 8,000 precincts after polls close across the state.

Bill Clinton paints that possibility as undemocratic and even sinister. "Many people in the other campaign believe that you will elect Hillary in the daytime and they'll come into the caucuses and take the delegates away at night," he tells crowds across the state. "We can't let them do that."

Even as the Clinton campaign maintains that the uncommitted superdelegates should exercise their own judgment on whom the party should nominate, the former president slams the Texas system as a political anomaly that smacks of cronyism and party elitism.

Previous largess
With the last tones of a mariachi band hanging in the air at a rally in Odessa, he launched into his critique. "Frankly, the party leaders set this up," he said. "They knew nobody else would go to these conventions, and they could make sure they had a fair share of the folks that went to the national convention."

"It was never intended to basically reverse the results of a popular election in the daytime," warned the former president. "But it could happen."

What Clinton fails to mention is that in 1992, when he first ran for the White House, Texas and its hybrid system were very good to him. He captured 66 percent of the primary vote over his leading rival that year, former Sen. Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, and won 94 of the pledged delegates at stake in the primary while Tsongas took 31 -- a 3-to-1 margin that Sen. Clinton can only dream about today.

And in the caucuses, which allocated another 69 pledged delegates, Clinton ended up walking away with 63. His campaign outperformed Tsongas in large part because he was supported by many of the "party leaders" -- such as the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party at the time, Bob Slagle, and two of Slagle's predecessors, Calvin Guest and Billy Goldberg -- whom Clinton seems to chastise today.

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