Republicans ought to be worried. The Texas Democratic Party held a well-organized convention June 6-7 that contained the most attendees at a Democratic convention in recent memory (well over 10,000).

 When the convention organizers asked first-time delegates to stand, most of the room rose.

The recent interest in the Democratic Party – prompted by the national media attention accorded to the Texas Democratic Presidential Primary – ought to concern Republicans, though it may not be as bad as Democratic partisans would like because primary and general election turnouts differ. Nonetheless, in marginal races, the enthusiasm of new voters attracted to the Democratic Party could make a difference.

Here are a few observations from the recently-concluded Texas Democratic Convention:

Most of the focus was national. There was very little discussion of state issues at the convention. The main speakers were U.S. Senate candidate Rick Noriega and the representatives of the two presidential campaigns, Chelsea Clinton on behalf of her mother Hillary, and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine on behalf of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.

The main controversy was which delegates got to go to the Democratic National Convention. (More than 2,000 wanted to go, yet the party had only about 200 slots to give out.)

The concession of Hillary Clinton made the convention almost anti-climactic. Many political observers expected fights between Clinton and Obama supporters. But Clinton’s acknowledgement that Obama will be the nominee took the air out of most inter-factional fights.

Much of the activity from the podium amounted to a big Kum-bay-yah session, with Democratic elected officials encouraging Clinton supporters to unite behind Obama. Democratic officials, keenly aware of residual tension between Clinton and Obama supporters, actively worked to curtail that tension, almost to the point of sappiness. The party worked to ensure that there were as few racial tensions as possible. Noriega was introduced by African-American Congressman Al Green of Houston, for example.

Even though Clinton carried most heavily Latino areas of Texas, convention organizers scheduled several speeches from prominent Latino elected officials – including a few Clinton supporters – extolling the virtues of Obama and attacking the Republicans’ nominee-presumptive, John McCain.

All this notwithstanding, embers from old fires still glow. Several registration tables had signs telling Clinton delegates that they had not been released and should sign in as Clinton delegates. There were minor, behind-the-scenes skirmishes about who would be picked as a delegate and how to allocate key party positions between the two campaigns’ supporters.

Another possible area of conflict is the possibility of changing the Texas Democratic Party’s current national delegate selection process, which relies both on the primary and the convention (i.e., caucuses). State party chairman Boyd Richie punted this issue to a committee. Many Clinton supporters and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) want to see changes.

There were a lot of disappointed delegates who did not get selected to national convention. Late Saturday night, there was an unsuccessful effort to sink the national delegate slate. More than a few people lamented that they didn’t get named delegates. Some questioned whether the demographic breakdown of the delegation reflected the goals listed in the Texas Democratic Party’s delegate selection plan. (Convention organizers, when presenting the slate of delegates, noted race and minority status, including the qualification of membership in the class known as “GLBT” [gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered].

The most notable disgruntled person not named to the national delegate slate was Rep. Terri Hodge (D-Dallas), who has indicted last year in connection with a federal public corruption investigation. Hodge accused the Obama campaign of holding a closed-door meeting to pick delegates, and asked from the microphone whether that violated Democratic party rules and the Texas Open Meetings Act. Obama’s Texas campaign chairman Ron Kirk told reporters that the delegate slate was adopted in a public meeting that complied with the rules of the Democratic Party.

The convention went later than any in recent memory. The convention adjourned around midnight Saturday night, the latest either party’s convention has gone in more than a decade. This was largely a function of the sheer number of people who wanted to serve as national delegates, which for Democrats is a nice problem to have.

Sen. Kirk Watson (D-Austin) was an effective chairman. All those years of presiding over the Austin City Council paid off. Watson clearly knows how to run a meeting effectively and how a good sense of humor can be used to diffuse potential conflict. The meeting ran smoothly with fewer floor fights than could have otherwise happened.

Democrats had a debate on party strategy. Given the success Democrats had at the Texas polls in 2006, it’s surprising that Richie had any opposition at all for party chairman. But both David Van Os and then-state party vice chairwoman Roy Laverne Brooks ran against Richie.

Van Os said the party should do more to help candidates at the top of the ballot, whereas much of the party’s resources have been focused to date on targeted house races and courthouse races.

Richie won overwhelmingly (much more easily than in his first race), so delegates must be comfortable with the current state of the party.

The delegate selection process is a serious policy issue Democrats will have to resolve. There are a lot of concerns about the delegate selection process. Should a share of the delegates continue to be allocated based on the convention or caucus (the so-called “Texas Two-Step)? Should delegates be awarded based on the primary result in each state Senate district (the current practice) or based on the statewide total? Are there ways to simplify the delegate selection process?

All these questions and more have been handed off to a select commission chaired by Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas) which will take testimony and report back to the State Democratic Executive Committee. There is plenty of time to resolve this issue, as the Democrats will meet again in convention in 2010 before the 2012 presidential race. Anyway, taking a serious and open-minded look at the process might go a long way toward healing any rifts that may still exist between Clinton and Obama supporters.

The speeches weren’t much to write home about. The real story from the convention was the current reinvigorated state of the Texas Democratic Party. The speeches from the convention floor were mostly short and not very noteworthy.

At many Democratic conventions past, the delegates engaged in a circular blame game, trying to decide who to blame for the party’s statewide status. The main difference in 2008 was that delegates were truly excited about where their party is headed, and about the new people who identify themselves as Democrats.

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