Via Ben Smith, Al Giordano's Texas primer may be the most important thing you read about the next month of the primary calendar:
With 193 pledged delegates at stake, Texas is the biggest prize to come in its upcoming March 4 “primary.” Except it’s not mainly a primary.
126 of those delegates will be chosen at the district level, but differently than in other states where they’ve been allocated based on Congressional district: they’ll be chosen based on totals in 31 state senate districts by caucuses in more than 18,000 precincts. The remaining 67 pledged delegates will be chosen by statewide primary vote.
So the Texas primary gives only a delegate catch of 67 delegates, less than, say, Minnesota. ...
By and large, there’s a situation in more than half of the state in which there aren’t powerful Democratic power brokers - similar to what we saw in Northern Nevada. There’s an opening there for a truly grassroots campaign, prioritizing rural voters, to take enough delegates to win the state on March 4.
Update: The Al Giordano item I linked to has been dramatically revised. See here.
--Noam Scheiber