We just got off the phone with a Texas Republican Party official, who tells us that the party had absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about this tasteful button that was for sale at this past weekend's state GOP convention:

The button, which was flagged by AmericaBlog, was sold at a booth run by RepublicanMarket.com, a business that sells a lot of red-meat buttons, bumper stickers and other paraphernalia for GOP voters.

So did party officials know about this button being sold all weekend at their convention? In an interview with Election Central, Texas GOP political director Hans Klingler answered with an emphatic No. "We had hundreds of vendors at the convention," Klingler said. "I don't know what the merchandise is, we don't check the merchandise."

Klingler added that the party would have done something if it had been brought to their attention at the time. "We wouldn't have let him sell it."

Hmmm. This button seems like the sort of thing that would have been hard to miss, doesn't it?

The Obama campaign has released the following statement, declaring a big victory in the Texas caucuses and an overall win for the Texas Two-Step:

Caucuses Guarantee Obama Win In Texas

AUSTIN - With more than 56% of the results tallied from today's 284 Democratic district conventions across Texas, Senator Barack Obama currently is projected to earn a 38-29 pledged delegate win in the Texas caucuses, exactly as projected on the day after the March 4th precinct caucuses. The nine delegate margin in the caucuses means Obama will gain a net margin of five pledged delegates from Texas because Senator Clinton narrowly won the Texas primary by only four delegates, 65-61.

"Despite the Clinton campaign's widespread attempts to prevent many Texans from participating in their district convention, the voters of Texas confirmed Senator Obama's important delegate win in the Lone Star State," said Obama spokesman Josh Earnest. "Today's record-shattering turnout sends a clear message that the American people are ready for change in Washington and new leadership in the White House that will stand up for working families."

The Obama campaign will release a more detailed tally of the results tomorrow.

Today is a big day in Texas: The Democratic district conventions, the second step in the caucus process. The district conventions will elect delegates to the state Democratic convention, which will in turn select the federal delegates.

The conventional wisdom going in is that Barack Obama will get enough projected delegates today to more than beat Hillary's four-delegate advantage from the state primary, thus crowning him the overall winner of the "prima-caucus" system. A clearer picture should emerge tonight, and we'll be updating when that happens.

Late Update: The latest numbers, with 31% of total delegates counted by Burnt Orange Report, stand at Obama 55%, Clinton 45%.

Late Late Update: With just under 40% of the delegate numbers in, it's Obama 58% to Clinton 42%.

Even Later Update: The Obama campaign has declared victory.

The Texas Democratic Party has announced that their district conventions, the second step in the caucus process, will not be delayed as requested by the Hillary Clinton campaign, and will proceed as scheduled on March 29.

The Hillary campaign had asked that the conventions be postponed in order to double-check the eligibility of the more than one-million caucus participants, and potentially discard the votes of people who might have been found to be ineligible. Hillary won the Texas primary by a four-delegate margin, while Barack Obama won the caucuses by more than that, though the numbers aren't known yet with total certainty.

The statement by the Texas Dems practically ridiculed the Hillary campaign: "The Texas Democratic Party will not do as suggested by one campaign and circumvent party rules to set up an unnecessary, ad hoc 'verification' process that could effectively disqualify delegates selected at their precinct conventions after the fact."

The story-line about "Limbaugh Democrats" — Republicans now voting in Democratic primaries simply to boost Hillary Clinton's shot at the nomination — is getting some major pick-up in this morning's Boston Globe.

The Globe notes that the Republican share of the vote in Texas, Ohio and Mississippi was higher than it had been in previous Democratic races, and Hillary Clinton's share of their vote also increased dramatically in the exit polls. The paper also describes it as "possible, though perhaps unlikely" that mischievous crossover voters delivered a win to Hillary in the Texas primary — she received an estimated 119,000 GOP voters there, with an overall margin of victory of around 101,000.

We previously told you about the American Leadership Project, the pro-Hillary 527 running ads in Texas and Ohio. Their first FEC report is in, and it shows just how much they spent to help Hillary win the Texas primary — indeed, it looks like the Ohio race was just a side project by comparison.

The filing shows the ALP spending a full $800,000 in Texas, with only about $31,000 listed in this report for spending in Ohio. The major source of funding was the AFSCME union, which kicked in a cool $1 million, making up the vast majority of their $1,161,485 total contributions.

A lot of readers have wondered why the Texas caucuses have been so slow to report to the media. The answer: They're not reporting in great numbers anymore, and they don't actually have to.

Nonetheless, we might still have a decent estimate of the final result for you to consider.

Hector Nieto, spokesperson for the Texas Democratic Party, explained to Election Central that the caucuses elected delegates to the state Senatorial district conventions that will then elect delegates to the state convention, and weren't required to report to the state party headquarters. The results that have come in came from a voluntary system set up in order to help the media get an idea of what to expect the final delegate result to be.

On the assumption that the current results coming from all around the state represent a decent cross-section of the state as a whole, and that all the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama district delegates show up to their conventions in their proper proportions, we can make an educated guess.

Give or take, Obama would get 37 delegates to Hillary's 30 delegates, netting Obama a +3 delegate advantage for the combined Texas prima-caucus. "This is believed to be a good sample of what's available throughout the state," Nieto said. "And if this trend continues, one could estimate that."

Bottom line: Hillary's overall gain for March 4, which had 370 total delegates up for grabs, will be about +8.

This morning we gave you the latest delegate hard count from NBC, which gave Hillary Clinton a 46-34 delegate edge on the Texas primary, with 46 delegates yet to be allocated. As it turns out, the Texas Secretary of State site has a more up-to-date count based on the totals in the state Senate districts, and Hillary's edge is much closer in their numbers.

With all 126 delegates estimated by the state's site, it's 65 for Hillary to 61 for Obama — a +4 edge for Hillary compared to the ongoing +12 estimate that NBC currently has, assuming the Texas state site's calculations are accurate.

In Rhode Island, Hillary won a 13-8 advantage, while Obama got a 9-6 win in Vermont. NBC currently has Ohio at 73-62 for Hillary, with six delegates left to be assigned. That gives Hillary a net advantage of +17 for the night, without the Texas caucus results factored in. Assuming Obama wins the caucus, this would trim Hillary's lead slightly, potentially leaving her around +10.

Late Update: Using the Ohio Secretary of State's district-by-district numbers, combined with this delegate calculator at BuckeyeStateBlog, Hillary Clinton ends up with 74 delegates to Barack Obama's 65 delegates, with two more delegates up in the air. That would put Hillary at +9 in Ohio, down from NBC's current +11, and +15 overall before the Texas caucus results are known.

So how many delegates did Hillary and Obama pick up last night, and what sort of gain, if any, did she make on him?

According to MSNBC's preliminary analysis, here's how the delegates broke down in the four states that voted yesterday:

* In Ohio, Hillary got 73 to Obama's 62.

* In Vermont, Obama got nine to Hillary's six.

* In Rhode Island, Hillary got 13 to Obama's eight.

The Texas numbers are a bit more complex, because the caucus results are still being tabulated. But here's the gist, according to MSNBC right now: She won 46 delegates to his 34. If you include those numbers, she had a net gain of 23 delegates last night.

But before factoring in Texas, Hillary's delegate gain was only 13 higher than his -- and after the caucus results are tabulated, she could see that total sink to as low as seven, MSNBC says, adding that it's also possible that Obama won't cut into that lead by as much as expected, leaving her with a more-than-10-point gain.

Bottom line: According to MSNBC's current projections she could net anywhere from seven to a bit over 10 delegates.

This, obviously, is hardly major progress, given Obama's overall pledged delegate lead of roughly 150 or more. But it's more than some commentators were predicting she'd gain.

As MSNBC put it: "It's impressive nonetheless since so many folks predicted her not even netting 10 delegates last night."

More when we have harder numbers.

Despite Hillary's big wins in Ohio and Texas last night, some super-delegates are already suggesting that a continued contest risks damaging the party and are calling on Howard Dean and other party leaders to be ready to intervene should the race get dirtier:

"Despite Obama's impressive victories in February, Clinton's comeback is based on sowing political seeds of doubt," said Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist and one of nearly 800 party leaders known as superdelegates for their ability to determine the nomination. "In order to clinch the nomination, he must anticipate the worst attacks ever."...

Some superdelegates are bracing themselves to intervene on Obama's behalf if necessary.

"If these attacks are contrasts based on policy differences, there is no need to stop the race or halt the debate," Brazile said. "But, if this is more division, more diversion from the issues and more of the same politics of personal destruction, chairman Dean and other should be on standby."

Consider that a harbinger of what we're likely to hear from other super-delegates if the race gets uglier without significantly altering the underlying pledged-delegate imbalance between the two candidates.

One outstanding question today: Will that bloc of super-dels who were reported to be ready to bolt to Obama last night materialize, or did Hillary's wins staunch that bleeding for now?

Late Update: The Hotline has an Obama spokesperson flatly denying that any kind of bloc of super-dels was set to get behind Obama.

Obama spokesperson Bill Burton is out with this statement on tonight's results:

“Tonight was the Clinton campaign’s last best chance to make a significant dent in our lead in pledged delegates and they have failed. In our latest projections, we will win the Texas caucus with a double-digit margin and any pledged delegate shift will be absolutely minimal. In fact, Clinton’s chances of regaining the delegate lead actually decreased tonight, as the number of delegates remaining dwindles."

Notwithstanding the shift in momentum and the P.R. victory tonight's results hand Hillary, it's possible that she'll finish the night without cutting into Obama's delegate lead at all.

On MSNBC a few moments ago Chuck Todd estimated that Hillary might pull seven delegates out of Ohio tonight. Todd also presumes that her Rhode Island victory and Obama's Vermont victory will cancel each other out.

And so, if Obama manages to win delegates out of Texas (thanks to the caucuses) that offset Hillary's Ohio delegate gain, she could end the night in pretty much the same position as she was in yesterday, at least as far as the pledged delegate count is concerned.

She won big victories tonight, no question, but it's unclear yet whether the shift in narrative she'll enjoy will transform the race's stubborn underlying dynamic in any significant way.

MSNBC and Fox project that Hillary wins Texas, giving her victories in both her crucial firewall states, and handing her three out of four victories tonight, ensuring that this campaign will continue, possibly all the way until the convention.

She leads Obama 51%-48% in Texas, with 74% reporting. It's a much tighter margin than in Ohio, as expected. But the win allows Hillary to claim that she's won all the big states, an argument that will make it easier for her to argue that she has a fair claim to continuing in the contest, despite her big deficit in pledged delegates.

The Clinton campaign will also seize on the victory in all the big states to argue that despite Obama's big pledged delegate lead, there's no clear victor here, and hence that neither candidate can win without super-delegates -- potentially setting the stage for a bruising intraparty battle with no clear resolution or end.

The Hillary campaign just held an "emergency" conference call in which they made a sharp allegation: They say that Obama officials in Texas are "locking out" Hillary supporters from participating in the caucuses.

The tone is strikingly urgent on the call, with Hillary campaign lawyer Lyn Utrect saying that "the Obama people have managed to take control over the precinct conferences and shut doors when people in line were supposed to be allowed in to participate."

In a sign of just how tense the battle in Texas has become, an Obama lawyer, Bob Bauer, crashed the call, and battled it out pretty aggressively with Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson for several minutes.

Wolfson, separately, sought to confer added urgency by noting that this was the first time that such a call had been convened by the Clinton campaign. More in a bit.

Late Update: Ben Smith has more good color from the call.

Some info from the exit polls that will lend comfort to the Obama camp:

The ability to "bring needed change" beats "experience" as the most important quality in a candidate by about a 20-point margin in Ohio and by about 15 points in Texas, according to preliminary exit poll results.

A possible harbinger of a closer-than-expected outcome in Ohio and who-knows-what in Texas...

At a press avail in Texas today, Obama (finally) pushes back on the Hillary campaign's frequent claim that the press has been much rougher on her...

"I am a little surprised that all the complaining about the refs has actually worked as well as it has for them," he added. "This whole spin that the press is being so tough of them and not tough on us. I just didn’t expect you guys would bite on that."

It does appear that the Obama camp has been caught off guard by the now-obvious success of Hillary's bash-the-press strategy. The Hillary camp kept up its pressure on the press today during a conference call, so it'll be interesting to see if Obama's comments today represent the start of a concerted effort to push back on this.

Separately, as it stands now, most press observers and pundits have basically agreed with the Hillary camp on this question.

If this is an indication of what Dem party infrastructure types will be saying about Hillary and the general election after the dust settles from today's contests, she will need a major win in Texas and Ohio to avert pressure to get out of the race:

State Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern said Mrs. Clinton needs an 8-point victory margin in Ohio and Texas to remain in the race against Mr. Obama, who now has a lead of about 100 delegates and victories in the last 11 contests.

"She must, in my opinion, make that kind of show. It's not an either-or," Mr. Redfern said. "If we don't have a nominee sooner rather than later, it makes it increasingly difficult to defeat John McCain."

People like Redfern, the Ohio state chair, will only grow more vocal in the days ahead, obviously. So it's do or die -- now.

Forget the dog house. The Hillary camp had other ideas for where to stick reporters assigned to cover her in Texas yesterday: In the men's room, right next to the toilets...

It was immediately interpreted as something of a metaphor for the Clinton campaign’s attitude to the press: With Sen. Hillary Clinton at Austin’s convention center for “a Texas-sized townhall,” her media entourage was taken to its work space — in a men’s room of a separate community center.

The tables set up for reporters nearly abutted the urinals. That made for a more spirited rush than usual for the best working space, with female reporters quickly staking out chairs on the small room’s opposite side.

So was the Hillary campaign trying to tell the reporters something? No, claims Clinton spokesperson Doug Hattaway: “For the record, these accommodations should in no way be taken as a commentary on the quality of our media coverage.”

We believe it. If Clinton campaign advisers had situated members of the press in accordance with their attitude towards the media right now, the reporters would have found themselves sitting in the urinals, not near them.

Via HuffPo.

Going into tonight's races in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont, Hillary Clinton has a lot of ground to make up in the delegate race. With 370 delegates up for grabs, She would need a net win of around 15% in order to really make a dent in Barack Obama's lead of 150 pledged delegates.

Here are the latest tabulations from different news organizations, including super-delegates unless otherwise noted:

CNN: Obama 1,378, Clinton 1,269
CNN: Obama 1,184, Clinton 1,031 (Not counting supers)
NBC: Obama 1,194, Clinton 1,037 (Not counting supers)
ABC: Obama 1,385, Clinton 1,275
CBS: Obama 1,389, Clinton 1,267
Associated Press: Obama 1,386, Clinton 1,276
Associated Press: Obama 1,187, Clinton 1,035 (Not counting supers)
New York Times: Obama 1,303.5, Clinton 1,212
New York Times: Obama 1,155, Clinton 1,021.5 (Not counting supers)

And here's how many delegates are up for grabs tonight:

Ohio: 141
Rhode Island: 21
Texas Primary: 126
Texas Caucus: 67
Vermont: 15
Total: 370

Some commentators have said that Hillary should drop out of the race if she doesn't win both Ohio and Texas today, but rank and file Dems don't seem to agree:

Two-thirds of Democrats say a victory in either Ohio or Texas would be reason enough for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) to keep her historic bid for the party's presidential nomination alive, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Two losses, however, would dramatically change the equation. Only 29 percent of Democrats said Clinton should drop out if she loses one of the two big states, but that number jumps to 51 percent if she loses both.

This suggests that rank and file Dems haven't really focused on the reality of the delegate math, which in turn suggests that the onus may be on the Obama camp to get out their message about their sizable pledged delegate lead a bit more effectively.

Whatever the cause, numbers such as these might persuade the Hillary camp that she'd have public support if she stayed in the race despite losing a big state today, perhaps making that decision more likely.

The final Zogby tracking polls for today's big races put Hillary Clinton narrowly ahead in Texas, but only tied with Barack Obama in Ohio. On top of that, the undecideds are a fairly significant amount. Here are the numbers, compared to yesterday:

Ohio:
Clinton 44% (-1)
Obama 44% (-3)

Texas:
Clinton 47% (+3)
Obama 44% (-3)

From John Zogby's analysis: "Among those in Texas who were just making up their minds in the last few days, Hillary now leads by four percent, which pretty much tells the story."

The American Leadership Project, the 527 group that was set up in order to run ads promoting Hillary Clinton in the upcoming primaries, has a new ad airing in Texas:

A new poll from InsiderAdvantage gives Hillary Clinton a five-point lead in the Texas primary. The numbers, compared to the last poll from Thursday:

Clinton 49% (+2)
Obama 44% (+1)

The result is weighted according to the pollster's predictions of the racial, gender and age demographics for the primary — and pollster Matt Towery thinks this is an optimistic projection for Obama.

"Our weighting is designed to discount Hispanic turnout in areas where historically their turnout has been lighter, and to maximize potential African-American turnout," Towery writes. "Even with this model, which we believe to be accurate, though obviously not a perfect situation for Clinton, she leads."

The new SurveyUSA poll of Texas shows that this primary continues to be a tight race, with Barack Obama having a statistically insignificant one-point lead as Hillary Clinton is apparently making up lost ground. Here are the numbers compared to last week:

Obama 49% (+0)
Clinton 48% (+3)

From the internals: Obama wins men 60%-37%, Hillary wins women 59%-37%. Hillary wins whites 50%-46% and Hispanics 64%-33%, while Obama has a 79%-18% lead among black voters. Obama carries 18-34 year olds by a 59%-38% margin, while Hillary is ahead 59%-37% among voters over 65.