Obama Wants my Vote?

I'm a reliable primary voter. Political consultants reviewing voter registration documents can see that I have voted in about 80% of the primaries, both on-cycle and off-cycle. The other thing political consultants will see is that I have only voted in Republican primaries. My mailbox can attest to this. It has been overflowing with Republican TX22 campaign literature. Even GOP candidates for our local state representative seat have been sending me junk mail. Today, though, I received something very unexpected. Barack Obama sent me instructions on his version of the "Texas Two-Step": Vote in the Democratic primary and then attend the Democratic precinct convention.

I think not ... When I vote in the primary, I'll ask for a Republican ballot.

I can't really explain why Barack Obama would send campaign literature to me. Three possible explanations exist:

1. Every voter in the state of Texas got the literature, and I shouldn't read anything into it. That would seem to be prohibitively expensive.

2. Sen. Obama's political consultants know I vote in primaries, but don't know I'm a Republican. I don't think Sen. Obama's political consultants are incompetent.

3. Sen. Obama and his political consultants know I show up for Republican primaries, and they hope I'll cross over to the Democratic primary and vote for Obama.

Honestly, I think explanation #3 is the most plausible. Given that the Houston Chronicle went so far as to publish a story based on anecdotal evidence that Republicans were crossing over to the Democratic primary to vote for Obama, don't you think that the possibility that the Obama campaign is actively courting Republican voters is a story, too?