Fear, Loathing & Delegate Poaching in Texas

This just in The Field’s mailbox, from a Texas Democrat (name of delegate removed):

Al,

(Name of Delegate) just got a robo call from Hiliary Clinton. After she stopped laughing, it dawned on her that they got her name from the delegate list from the caucus here, where she is listed as an Obama alternate delegate.

The call encouraged her to vote for Hillary at the Bexar County delegate convention.

She was wondering if its legal under party rules for Clinton to call delegates for Obama like that, particularly using a robo call.

Just curious, besides I figured you’d be interested to know the tactics underway…

Al replies:

Well, it’s legal to lobby delegates to the county and senate district conventions (they’ll be held on Saturday to select delegates to a later statewide convention, from which 67 Democratic National Convention delegates will be chosen), even if they signed up for a different candidate.

The question, however, isn’t a legalistic one, but, rather, a political one: when similar tactics came up in Nevada and elsewhere, the Clinton campaign denied it was trying to “poach” delegates committed to Obama.

When Politico’s Roger Simon reported on the Clinton campaign’s efforts to poach Obama delegates last month, Clinton spokesbot Phil Singer emphatically denied they would do any such thing:

“We have not, are not and will not pursue the pledged delegates of Barack Obama.”

I’m sure the robo-call machine was acting on its own, without any authorization from the campaign.

Update: Another reader got the same robo-call:

I got a robocall on my cell phone this afternoon. The only place I’ve put that number is on the sign-in sheet at my precinct convention. All about how she has so much experience & will be ready from Day One. Whatever. At the end of the call, I only got an option to press 1 if Hillary could count on my support, so I just hung up on her. And yes, while it’s true that nothing’s official until the sign-in at state, it was pretty much a waste of her money & my cell minutes, if you ask me.

Original here