Primary Day--Dallas

I'm here in the heart of it--the family talks about little else.

My uncle, who lived in Dallas his whole life, was a labor lawyer and a liberal--he worked hard at his politics and was well known within the Texas party back in the days when there was only one party here or, as one of my cousins put it, "the Republicans hadn't left yet". For those who believe that these caucuses have been invented to torment Hillary I can assure you that they go back into history--I have been told funny stories about how my uncle behaved in caucuses sixty years ago. He died about 10 years ago but his legacy lives--his son is the Dallas County Treasurer (an elected post) and a precinct captain; his son in law was a precinct captain a few years back and everyone in the family has always gone to caucuses as a family obligation. My 95 year old aunt has stopped because she doesn't like night driving but the cousins and their children (cousins once removed?) are fierce about it. There is some worry that Hillary's ill-informed troupes will disrupt matters.

We spend a fair amount of time watching television commentary and shouting at the screen when they get the facts on the caucuses wrong, which is surprisingly often.

As for straws in the wind, there are not a lot. Hillary's attack mode does seem to have helped her and the Canadians leaked memo, which is essentially a non event, came at the worst possible time. Obama seems so far to be bearing up well. The early voting has been huge which is very good for Obama. So let's see. I am glad that Jean is still knitting.

My other news is that I have an iPod Touch, bought so that I can more easily carry my contacts and calendar about with me. I've had enough trouble that I had to go into the local store which is fortunately much closer than the ones in Connecticut are to the house there. A "genius" (that's his real title) explained that the problem was the PC-iPod link and that I needed the software that I had downloaded but could not install. He installed it and now the basic stuff works so I now have to slog through learning about how to get on the internet, etc. I did manage to put some pictures on it by myself after I got home. I suspect there will be a lot on this topic before it fades into the background.

So today I will be doing a bit of Dallas sightseeing and then actually attending a caucus in a precinct where 4 people came last time. More are expected tonight.