It's going to get confusing over the next few months. With straw polls, caucuses and primaries, picking a party's presidential nominee is a complicated process, and voters might not even be sure just how much their ballot counts.

But I'm here to help. And so are the three little pigs.

You know the story - the first pig builds a house of straw, the second builds a house of sticks and the third builds a modest brick home that is subsequently appraised for twice what he thought it should be.

(Ignore that last part. But you know what I mean.)

These roughly correspond with straw polls, caucuses and primaries.

Early in the primary process, presidential candidates are roaming around the countryside just like those little pigs. They're all seeking shelter - in the form of confirmation that voters like them. But in the end, they'll need real bricks - convention delegates, who are won in the later primary elections.

Straw polls are named for straws in the wind - they show direction. But they're also like straw houses.

Straw polls are generally the first votes cast in the party nomination process.

The Texas Republican Party has scheduled its first-ever straw poll for Labor Day weekend. This takes on new meaning now that the Legislature has failed to move the state's primary date from March to February or earlier - something 22 other states have done.

Traditionally, candidates have sought to do well in these early ballots. Success can mean more credibility and more contributions. The Iowa Republican straw poll is scheduled for August.

Like a straw house, though, the straw poll isn't worth much in terms of functionality. It's informal, and the candidate doesn't win convention delegates in it. In fact, two front-running candidates in the 2008 Republican race have announced they're going to blow off the straw polls. Rudy Guiliani and Sen. John McCain will focus their campaigns on later primaries.

Caucuses are a little sturdier than straw polls, in terms of political significance. But they're still unsteady, like a house of sticks.

In addition to its straw poll in August, Iowa will hold caucuses in January. Those can be important - the Iowa Democratic caucus, for example, revived John Kerry's campaign in 2004. But in 1988, Bob Dole trounced George H.W. Bush in the Republican caucus there, though Bush went on to win the nomination and the presidency.

The votes that really count are the ones taken in primaries, because that's where delegates are won, and delegates determine who gets the party's nomination.

The first primary is traditionally New Hampshire - although this year, it will be joined by states with bigger delegate counts, including Florida and South Carolina.

And Super-Duper Tuesday - Feb. 5, 2008 - will see primaries in delegate-rich states such as California, New York, Missouri and Illinois. By the time Texans vote on March 4, each party's frontrunners will likely have won enough delegates to have wrapped up the nomination.

Which leaves us with the last part of this analogy - the Big Bad Wolf. He's the one who's forced to chase the pigs all over the place, asking questions (often through closed doors) and getting the same responses over and over again.

Sure, he may be a little scruffy, but he's misunderstood, underappreciated and he ultimately ends up burned. I'll leave it to you to decide who fits that profile.

I'm all huffed and puffed out already.



Early Returns is the political observations column of staff writer Roy Maynard, who can be reached at 903-596-6291 or at roymaynardtmt@gmail.com