Richie Says Clintonites Must Back Barack

TDP Chair Boyd Richie heads to the media room backstage at the Convention Center. (photo by Lee Nichols)

Backstage at the Texas Democratic Party Convention down here at the Austin Convention Center, party chair Boyd Richie just made a swing through the media room.

On pro-Clinton delegates who might feel disinclined to get behind Obama:

“He is our party’s nominee. And the truth of matter is, when you become a party officer, and that includes delegates and alternates for the convention, you pledge to support the party’s nominee. That’s in the rules. They participated and got themselves elected as delegates, and there was a pledge in there to support the party’s nominee.

“People are passionate about their candidates. And in a political setting, there’s always going to be someone who loses, and those who support the person who loses are going to be frustrated and unhappy. And that’s only natural and it takes some time to get over that. If we begin the healing process at this convention by having the two sides come together then I think we’ll have had a successful convention, but we’ve got to begin that process.”

On a motion supported by some to abolish the state party’s dual primary/caucus system – which caused Texas’ final delegate split to not get resolved until today, more than three months after the primary and caucuses were held – Richie said he hasn’t yet heard the report from the rules committee. But on his personal stand on the matter:

“I’m torn both ways. Obviously it would be much easier on the party if we just had a primary vote and an allocation of delegates. Then we wouldn’t have the precinct conventions and county and senate conventions as a part of the presidential delegate selection process. And it would make it easier. I still think we would have that process to elect party officials and take care of party business. But certainly it would make it administratively an easier job for me and for the staff. But by the same token, we’ve had an opportunity to now get contact information on literally tens of thousands of people that we could never have communicated with. So from a party-building standpoint, it’s been an absolute godsend. So there are pros and cons.

“My position is, it will depend on what Texas Democrats want. If they want to change it, that’s certainly fine with me. If they want to tweak it, that is fine with me. Or if they want to go to a straight primary, that’s fine too.”

Asked about the contention that Hispanics – who heavily supported Clinton – got the shaft in this election because the caucuses allocated fewer delegates to the border regions:

“I disagree. We went through that argument with the LULAC lawsuit and it’s just wrong.”