Notes on the Lone Star State

I thought I'd post some observations on the Texas primary, this morning. There's no particular moral here, I just thought this stuff was interesting.

Some of you may be aware that Rush Limbaugh was calling for Republicans to vote for Clinton in the Democratic primary. (Texas has an open primary, so this is legal.) The idea was that keeping her in the race longer would hurt Obama, should he become the nominee, by prolonging the negative campaigning against him. Many Republicans also seem to feel that Clinton, with her strong negatives, would be easy to beat in November. As it turns out, there was unusually heavy crossover voting — about 10%. However, exit polls suggest it split, with a slight advantage to Obama. I guess in the end Texas Republicans couldn't bring themselves to check a box marked "Clinton."

Clinton's attempts to portray Obama as inexperienced paid off big, with people who cited experience as the most important voting issue breaking 10 to 1 for her.

Voters divided evenly between the two on the economy, which I think is likely to be one of the biggest issues in the general campaign. While unemployment is still low in much of the country, middle class incomes have been largely flat during the Bush Administration, and the housing slump is creating a "reverse wealth effect" that makes people feel even poorer. This is the first national decline in real estate prices since the Great Depression, and recovery is unlikely any time soon &mdash adjustable-rate mortage "resets" don't start to tail off until 2011. In short, a recovery that felt lackluster for most people is now showing signs of slumping off into another recession.

Clinton broached the idea of a Clinton-Obama ticket should she win the nomination. Now that it's a given that Clinton is still in the running, I hope this possibility stays open, because I think a Clinton-Obama ticket could actually be quite powerful. Obama's charm would help a lot in smoothing over Clinton's rough edges.