I believe voter suppression is more than a simple political crime. I believe it is a crime against humanity. I've fought voter suppression, theft and fraud all my life. Working as a reporter and then as a Democratic consultant, activist and writer based in Texas, I've seen it first hand. I've watched my screams fall on deaf ears. I've lived with a culture that believes that as long as "the right people" vote, every thing is in its little hierarchical place.

It happens everywhere, but it a particularly Southern tragedy, and I can fully understand and fully support the outrage among African-American voters when they believe their voting rights are being trampled once again.

There's a part of me that believes the outrage at suspected voter suppression in North Carolina is healthy. There's a bigger part of me that sees too much vigilantism in the reaction to WVWV.

The first chapter of my book, The Politics of Deceit, opens with a tragic story from Ocoee, Florida during the 1920 election. When a young African-American named July Perry cast his ballot that morning, white racism turned to rage. Perry was shot, hanged and burned. Five hundred people were driven from their homes, which were then burned to the ground. Children spent the night hiding in trees of an orange grove. One of them, Armstrong Perry, returned for the first time 81 years later. He was 93. He said he could still smell the fire.

You can read a PDF of the chapter on voter suppression, "The Threatened Habitats of Democracy," here.

I know many of the critics of  WVWV take offense at being characterized as an unthinking mob. From their perspective, someone is trying to suppress the votes of African-Americans because those votes may help give the Democratic nomination to an African-American candidate. Whatever the facts of the matter, we will know them, sooner or later. It's the tone of the criticism that concerns me, the rush to condemn and convict. It smells like the Ocoee fire to me.

As the Texas returns came in last night I listened to the political professionals in the room with me analyze the results. The consensus was that Barack Obama had failed to counter-attack, giving Hillary Clinton an open-field advantage the final weekend of the campaign. This is smart, if conventional, politics.

But I was distracted by thoughts of my own highly-emotional advocacy for Obama over the last few days and weeks. I have my reasons for supporting Obama, but I'm not going to revisit them here, except that I will make one positive observation of his character in order to make a larger point about the difficulty of acting with honor and respect in contemporary campaign settings. First, my confession.

As this presidential primary has unfolded, I found myself more and more strident and less and less thoughtful about the race. I've been in politics a long time, and I'm competitive. Competition, athletes tell us, can put them in a performance zone that makes them better. But my stridency was not making me better. It was making me unhappy. It was clouding my judgment. It wasn't making anyone around me happy or more thoughtful either.

The presidential primary is about to test us all in this regard, whichever side we may be on. One great difficulty is, attack politics works. Unless I'm wrong, it's about to get even more aggressive and more negative as Obama and Clinton use the proven tactic of negative campaigning against one another. I don't think anything can stop it; as a professional, I couldn't in good faith give either one of them the advice to lay off the attacks. Attacks work.

I am assuming Obama held back before March 4 because he thought he could eke out a victory in Texas and enhance his arguments with super delegates that Clinton, by attacking him, was threatening Democrats' chances for victory in November. I have no inside information. It's just my guess. But now Clinton (for strategic reasons) has proved, once again, that negative campaign tactics have their desired effect. I am not critical of that decision. It worked.

More below.

First things first.  I want to begin by congratulating both the Clinton and Obama campaigns for the enthusiasm and the extraordinary, professional conduct of their campaigns. We have not had the opportunity for national campaigns to descend upon Texas with quite this intensity. Maybe in 1988. Then, and previously, the campaigns were patronizing, ill-informed about Texas, dismissive of local activists, party officials, and other Democrats who live and work here. I believe the respect both campaigns have shown state workers and voters is due to the character of the candidates. I also think it is a consequence of a bottom-up progressive movement that requires respect.

So what's going to happen? Who knows. Looking at the internals of all the public polls, it would appear to be a real toss-up. Obama dominates in the major urban areas, Clinton the rural areas, largely because of Hispanic voters. It boils down to a question of turnout. Who will turn out, and where. This much, I guess everyone knows.

What insight can I give you from decades of experience here?

If early voting is a marker, African-American turnout will exceed all expectations. That will be to Obama's advantage. Hispanic turnout will also be good, and that should be to Clinton's advantage. The question is, with all demographics turning out in larger numbers, will Hispanics' percentage of the electorate actually remain static or shrink. I think +50 year old white women are fired up for Clinton. I think the exit polls will have some surprises there.

I had a conversation with three women at the Houston Progressive Forum last Thursday. All three said they liked Obama and expected him to be the nominee. All voted for Clinton, saying they felt solidarity with her. I think this is an understandable, heartfelt vote deserving respect. And I think the exit polls are going to reveal it.

More below.

There is method to the Clinton campaign's mad preemptive sword rattling over the Texas primary/caucus. They want to delay and disrupt the reporting of the delegate count. They hope that if they win the popular vote, they can avoid, at least for one news cycle,  news reports that even if they do so they will very likely lose the delegate fight in Texas and fall further behind Obama in the national delegate contest.

This is not speculation. This has been the subject under discussion. While I have not been part of that discussion,  plenty of sources last night and this morning confirmed this as the core of the dispute.

It is widely assumed that Obama's organizational advantage will achieve in the caucus portion of the Texas election just what it has achieved in earlier caucuses: a significant victory in delegates. There are 67 delegates at stake in those caucuses. The Clinton campaign would like to delay the reporting of the caucus results, and that is why they have continually "reserved the right to challenge" Texas law and Democratic party procedures.

Throw the Texas delegate results in dispute, and win or lose the popular vote, they will have advanced their case that the contest remains close and should go all the way to the convention if necessary.

The campaign in Texas is close. Delegates selected by popular vote out of the 31 Senate districts will probably be split more or less evenly. This is due in large part to the fact that 15 of those districts have 4 delegates to award. A candidate would have to get more than 62.5 percent of the vote in those districts to win a 3-to-1 split. The most likely outcome is a 2-2 split. In addition, Obama may have a slight advantage in that the districts with the largest number of delegates, Austin and inner city Houston and Dallas, are viewed as Obama strongholds. Still, just about every model shows an even split of primary vote delegates, no matter who wins or loses the popular vote. This is just because the vote will be close.

The Clinton campaign strategy is to justify taking the fight beyond Texas even if they fall further behind Obama in the national delegate count. To do that, they must cast doubt over the fate of the 67 delegates that will be chosen at the caucus level. Hence, their tough positioning in phone calls with Texas Democratic Party officials and others involved in the primary here.

The Texas rules have been in effect for decades. Bill Clinton ran twice under these rules. They are no surprise to anyone, and both campaigns know they have to play by the same rules. There is little point to raising concerns before the election -- except one campaign finds itself running a very unique kind of effort. To remain viable, the results of the caucus in Texas must be thrown into doubt. Almost any legal challenge will do. The Clinton narrative can be maintained-- but only if their falling further behind in delegates is not reported or is at the least cast into doubt for a news cycle, or two or three news cycles.

Texas' hybrid primary/caucus would not be questioned were it not that one candidate appears to have an advantage in caucus settings. Or that in a close race, the popular vote in senate districts will probably translate into an even split of delegates. Consequently, the Clinton campaign finds Texas to be a poor place to build a firewall or mount a comeback. That's an historical accident. Attacking the state party here would be irresponsible and damaging to Democratic prospects here in both the near and long term.

The overwhelming numbers of Texas who have voted early in the Texas primary is symptomatic of the changing political tide here. Much work has been done rebuilding the progressive movement in the Lone Star State. Attempts to taint the primary, and consequently the primary and caucus decisions of Texas voters, will set this effort back.

A capable, experienced candidate well-liked by Democrats runs headlong into a mysterious, almost trans-political force whose supporters just won't listen to reason. Sound familiar?

Well, I'm talking about the 1990 Texas Democratic gubernatorial primary, the one in which Ann Richards beat seasoned former Congressman and state Attorney General Jim Mattox.

Ann and Hillary were friendly. So it's a table-turning circumstance we're seeing here, as Hillary is acting like Mattox did as all his political advantages turned to dust when confronted with a charismatic candidate he didn't believe deserved to win.

Also, the late Richard's popularity isn't helping here like Clinton might have imagined. The problem is, when Hillary took to the national stage, Ann Richards was already standing on it. Ann was the icon for women. They didn't need Hillary the way they had needed Ann. That's just another of the odd and unexpected difficulties Clinton is forced to confront.

Mattox, by the way, was also one of Paul Begala and James Carville's candidates. In fairness, when Mattox refused their disciplined advice and took to hour-by-hour, off the wall attacks on Ann, they backed away from the campaign.

Mattox had been a solid attorney general. There were stories about his heavy-handed fundraising. He was notoriously mean. But his biggest negative was his ongoing negative attacks on Richards.

I get the sense that Clinton's frustration is just like Mattox's in 1990. Voters are simply not being rational by supporting Obama. Rationally, she's the better candidate, she thinks. Choosing against her is choosing against reason itself.

And that frustration is visible in an erratic campaign style, conciliatory at a debate, shouting "shame on you" a day or too later; mocking Obama's supporters as people waiting on a choir to descend from heaven to sing the world to peace.

That Hillary would fall victim to the same sort of disbelieving myopia that plagued Mattox's campaign against her friend Richards presents an odd kind of symmetry.

Mattox this year is supporting Hillary Clinton, the friend of the woman he believes denied him the governorship of Texas.

The most striking thing about the debate in Austin last night:  it was barely news even in Texas, which hasn't hosted such an event in many, many years. Oh, everyone was ready for news. The crowd was keyed up as they entered the hall. They left kind of sagging, a little disappointed, happy enough to have seen the candidates, but not sensing they had witnessed a turning point in history.

I was in the post-debate spin room. The only drama came from the poor volunteers, whose arms got tired holding aloft the little signs with spinners names on them. Oh, Mark Penn talked to some cameras. So did David Axelrod. Penn looked glum and bedraggled. Axelrod was happy, but he's no limelight seeker. It was all very low key.

So what does it mean? Nothing happened that will change whatever is going to happen anyway in the March 4 primary. Everyone assumed Clinton would try to knock Obama down a peg, throw him off his game, do something that would generate at least a fews days worth of news. There wasn't even one day worth of news generated on the UT campus Thursday night.

In that sense, Obama succeeded at his task. Clinton didn't. I was struck when Clinton, handed the question about whether Obama was ready to be commander and chief, passed completely and talked instead about health care.

The old copycat charge was probably put to bed forever. Clinton got booed. There was quite a bit of negative chatter, much of it from reporters, about her slamming of popular state Sen. Kirk Watson for his poor interview with Chris Matthews. It seemed to many of the Texans gathered to be an unfair and politically dumb thing to do. Why further alienate the state Senate from Austin, a place turning out a higher percentage of its population for Democrats than most other American cities?

I thought Obama looked tired. He drew his energy from the supporters in the crowd.

Clinton looked good, more relaxed that she has looked to me the last few days. It was the kind of relaxed you see in a prizefighter in a late round, maybe one who's not going to complain when the judges give her opponent the match on points. Maybe one with supreme confidence in her own contribution to her country, and she's recognized she'll be president, or Senate majority leader.

You can't be in the room with these two candidates without liking both of them.

So the focus is now exclusively on Ohio and Texas. It's an odd political narrative. "Clinton must win Texas and Ohio." But everyone knows a simple Clinton win in either state will do little more than stretch out the ratings jump for Hardball a couple of weeks. Clinton can net no delegates in Texas without winning 65 percent or more of the votes. So she'll be even further behind in national delegates, and that means she'd need even bigger wins in Ohio and subsequent primaries to begin to catch up.

Nonetheless, that's where we are. Neither campaign is really motivated to talk about  these facts. If Clinton is not giving up, Obama needs his supporters mobilized. He can't very well tell them it's over. Clinton needs something to tell her contributors. "I must win Texas" sounds pretty good, unless the prospective donor asks, "How big do you need to win Texas."

What's not getting talked about much is the real reason John McCain has stepped up his attacks on Obama. It has everything to do with the Democratic primary.  McCain wants to drive independent voters in Texas and Ohio away from Obama.  McCain doesn't want another Obama blow-out, especially when it means even more independent voters buy into Obama by voting for him in a primary. So he attacks.

This is probably more true of Ohio than Texas, since conventional belief is Texas electoral votes will probably go to the GOP nominee no matter how many independents vote for Obama. This conventional wisdom is looking a little threadbare, by the way. Texas is not out of the question for the Democrat in November.

I'll write more about this later. But there's been serious de-alignment in Texas, there's little left of the old liberal/conservative Democratic split. We've been down so long we love one another. The Democratic infrastructure here is being rebuilt with focus, discipline and commitment. We've won virtually every seriously contested district-level race over the last two years, including a recent state House special election in a 60 percent-plus GOP district.

Like I said before, Obama and Clinton supporters are even being polite to one another.

Since I detailed the Texas delegate selection process last Tuesday night, there's been a slow awakening to the facts on the ground here. The WPost reports this morning that the Clinton campaign is raising concerns that the process is tilted against her expected (and unproven) advantage among Hispanic voters.

At issue is the apportionment of delegates. They are apportioned by state senate district, based upon turnout in the two previous election cycles. Because Hispanic turnout in 2004 and 2006 was way down, a costly turn of events for Democrats, Hispanic-heavy senate districts don't get as many delegates. The system is intended to reward participation in elections.

It has taken a very unusual and unexpected turn of events to make these rules -- in effect now for a couple of decades -- controversial. As it turns out, turnout in 2004 and 2006 was highest in areas where Barack Obama is expected to do well. So those areas have more delegates than areas with poor turnout records. Hence, the controversy. If Obama is doing well where there are more voters, well, there's not much for his opponents to complain about in that, beyond saying they wish it wasn't so.

Before anyone gets too outraged over this, they should examine the issue all the way down.

The Texas delegate formula disproportionately rewards areas where there have been more Democratic voters participating in general elections. The primary election goes to where the voters are.

Because the Clinton campaign apparently believes their candidate will end the campaign closer to Obama in the popular vote than in the delegate count, they have begun to question the fairness of pledged delegates, period. This is a smart public relations strategy, but it's a little situational.

The Clinton argument is aimed at persuading the superdelegates, whom they hope will ignore the pledged delegate count. But how do you make an ethical case against the voter-selected pledged delegates, whatever the process, if you are going to rely on delegates chosen by no voters whatsoever?

There is a case to be made that delegates should be apportioned without regard to previous elections. But even this has deep structural and mathematical problems. I won't rehearse all those problems here, but read William Poundstone's new book, Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair. Plurality voting is the least fair voting arrangement we could devise, says Poundstone, basing his conclusion on the famous Arrow Impossibility theorem and decades of voting research.

Whatever the outcome, the news is good for Texas. The massive increase in turnout for the Democratic primary is a boon to Texas progressives, no matter which way you cut it. The record is 1.8 million, achieved 20 years ago. Some say we may have 3 million voters this year.

But the good news is that Texas democrats, with discipline and commitment, have been busy building a new infrastructure from the ground up. This time, we are positioned to capitalize on the enthusiasm for both Clinton and Obama. From a state-of-the-art voter file, to a sophisticated and energetic state blogosphere, to the recruitment of highly qualified and attractive candidates at all levels, to the building of a research and message infrastructure that benefits all progressives, to the cooperation among traditional constituent groups and new, vital grassroots and fundraising organizations -- we are ready.

Ten years ago a unique Democratic turnout event would have paid no dividends much beyond the year in which it happened. Ann Richards win in 1990 paid no long term benefit because no one believed in building and sustaining an ongoing grassroots organization.

The Democratic nominee for president should take a lesson from this. If you make it to the White House, don't let the enthusiasm among the voters of your party dissipate.

Ask not what your party can do for you, but what you can do for your party.

Right now, the enthusiasm level is high among both Clinton and Obama supporters. Not only that, but I see little of the rancor that we see nationally. For the most part, we're all just advocating for and working for the candidate we support. No blog fights or shouting matches. I don't think anyone's signs have been stolen yet. It is all very civil.

There are still no solid, reliable public polls. This election is close. The popular vote could go either way. Accurately modeling the turnout is all but impossible. For instance, responsible estimates of the Hispanic turnout range from 25 percent of the electorate to 40 percent of the electorate. That's a big range.