Ready on day one. Day two? not so much

(h/t to Zell and TPM)

You have to wonder about the Clinton campaign at this point.

Pre-Super Tuesday, they were content with the air of inevitability.
Post Super Tuesday they were minimizing the significance of losing caucuses (and small states, and states with large numbers of African-Americans) and stressing the importance of primaries in states they had advantages in (like Ohio and Texas).

We've all heard the firewall soundbite over and over.

Now, WaPo is reporting that the rules of the Texas primary could dilute the payoff for Clinton's popularity there. Further, WaPo is suggesting that these rules came a surprise to "[s]everal top Clinton strategists and fundraisers."

Now, two things I would say about this:

1) the obvious thing - If this surprise is truly representative of her campaign staff's preparedness - Sen. Clinton is being very poorly advised. Being caught flat footed after Super Tuesday is one thing, a lot in play and the polls were not helping. But it was weeks ago. We've been hearing the 'Texas firewall' talking point ever since that night - and their campaign hasn't bothered to see if their firewall is actually a viable strategy?

2) Why are the rest of us hearing about this two weeks later? I missed it, but I'm nobody. The national news folks have bucks and time. Surely one of them could have read the state primary rules.

They couldn't be bothered project the current polling into the primary rules to see what the delegate breakdown would be?

Sheesh, people. I mean, I know they're busy crafting the next installment of 'Person of the Week' but how's about doing something that matters. Don't take the campaign's word for it - look it up. It's called reporting (you can look that up, too).

Late Edit:
MyDD's Glenn Smith breaks down the Texas rules for those who are interested.

They are pretty interesting, actually.

Delegates are awarded to districts based on the turnout from the past two election cycles. Since Hispanic districts have had pretty low turnout in the last few elections - Sen. Clinton's popularity with Latino voters will not get the same payoff as it would in a traditional primary.

Glenn gives just the what-if scenario I was looking for in this post:

This is a very, very optimistic scenario from a Clinton point of view:

Clinton wins the large Hispanic districts with 4 delegates each by 62 percent or more. This unlikely outcome would give her a 3-to-1 delegate split in those districts. Award her majority wins in Hispanic districts with 3 delegates, splitting 2-1. Award Obama an edge in two African American districts, one in Houston, the other in Dallas. Split the Austin (Travis County) delegates evenly, even though Obama will win Austin comfortably). Split all the other districts, awarding Obama 1 extra delegate to make up for all the African Americans in East Texas and independent and moderate voters in the 20 GOP Senate districts we're just going to split evenly.
How's this turn out? Clinton, 64 delegates, Obama, 62 delegates.

And that's the optimistic scenario. Not much of a firewall, eh?