Bill's role with TX's prima-caucus
Posted: Monday, March 03, 2008 10:38 AM by Mark Murray
From NBC's John Yang and NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann
Late last week, Texas newspapers suggested that the Clinton campaign was threatening legal action against the Texas "Two-Step" prima-caucus, the state's combo primary-caucus contest on Tuesday. The Clinton campaign strenuously denied the reports. But one thing is for certain: Bill Clinton doesn't care for the system.
Here's a quote from him campaigning in Odessa late last month: "Now look, this system was set up years ago when Texas was late, late in the primary process. No one ever thought that the votes would determine the nominee of the party. And frankly, the party leaders set this up, so they could go in. 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, but it could happen."
Yet given that criticism, it's worth noting that, according to Texas Democratic Party attorneys NBC spoke with in the last few days, Bill Clinton's campaign helped write those rules for 1992, and Bill Clinton twice won the Texas primary using those rules.