Llano County Democrats were ecstatic last Saturday as delegates from all the county’s precincts crowded in to the county Ag building on SH 71.

“We had well over 100 people and a full complement of 85 delegates that showed up from the precincts,” said Democratic chair Bill Jennings. “It is easily the most interesting year of politics in my 40 years of voting he said.”

Llano Mayor Roger Pinckney said he had not seen such interest in 25 years of attending county conventions. The final headcount was 130. His wife, Kathy, was an Obama organizer.

Bob Gammage was in the audience. The number of delegates afforded the county was based on votes cast for Democrat Christ Bell in the 2006 gubernatorial election. Bell won out over Gammage in the primary for that election. His wife Lynda was a Clinton organizer.

The room rustled with Hillary Clinton placards that surrounded a few islands of Barack Obama supporters as Jennings explained the complicated process of combining precincts for delegate selection.

In the Texas Democratic Primary, Obama received 1,348,758 votes to Clinton’s 1,459,814 votes, but delegates will depend on the state convention. Texas will send 228 delegates and 32 alternates to the Democratic National Convention in 2008 and they will be selected at the Texas Democratic Convention June 5-7 in Austin by delegates like those selected here Saturday.

Clinton has vowed to stick to the race to the end in deference to her solid base in places like Llano County. Five local delegates were dedicated to her and two, to Obama.

Clinton delegates will be John Gray, Marie Osowki, J. Ann Davenport, JackLynn Hampton and Jenny Lou Leeder. Alternates are Michael McDavid, Nancy Stanford, Wendy Briggs, Janice Zimmerman, Bob Gammage and Sam Gammage.

Obama Delegates are Jose Carlos Perez and Janie Chambless. The alternate is William Prather.

The local Democrats would not approve a resolution to the state convention without someone to present it, although the lack of their endorsement will not stand in the way of its being presented.

They did pass unanimously a resolution presented by Gammage. It provides that the rules of the Texas Democratic Party regarding delegates to the national nominating convention would be changed so that delegates will no longer be apportioned by precinct/caucus attendance, but would be based entirely on the popular vote in the primary.

A more sedate scene greeted a crowd equal to the Democrats when the Llano County Republican Convention convened at the courthouse Saturday morning.

The meeting was conducted by the new county chair Ron Hewitt and his predecessor Jay Harris was roundly applauded. With John McCain secure in the Republican Presidential nomination, local party members had only to select delegates to the state convention and review resolutions that might be recommended to state leaders.

Only one, a resolution opposing the release of personal information by Internet search engine companies such as Google and Yahoo, received debate. The vote was more than two to one to send the resolution on to the convention, but naysayers contended that everyone from insurance companies to departments of motor vehicles already releases private information. People who wanted to protect information, they said, should never release it.

The delegate count was based on votes for Rick Perry in the 2006 governor's election and Llano County had earned 12 delegates with its 3,489 votes for Perry.

The Llano County Delegation to the Texas State Republican Convention in Houston, Texas June 13-14 includes Jay Harris, Ron Hewitt, Donald Graham, Jerry McIntyre, Jimmie Bennett, Jim Simmons, Billye Fietz, Tommie McDonald, Lynn Snider-Lane, Martha Williams, Dorothy Crockett and Llano County Commissioner Johnnie B. Heck.

Alternates are Illene Harris, Charlotte Hewitt, Donna Stevens, William Stevens, Therese Simmons, LaFon Frydenberg, Kathy Jones, Shelby Spangler, Maxcey Williams, Mary Kay Heck, Frank Crockett and Louis Bien.