Saturday, March 01, 2014

Lone Star roundup as early primary voting concludes

-- SOP or a bad portent?
 In person and by mail, 105,508 voters cast ballots at 39 early voting locations throughout (Harris) county during the 11 days of early voting. Of those, 75,400 were Republicans and 30,108 were Democrats. GOP voters typically show up in larger numbers in local primaries, but the gap was particularly pronounced this year.

Lots of work for Democrats to do in order to avoid another 2010-like Red Tea Tide.  ICYMI...

Patricia Kilday Hart (wrote in the Feb.1 Houston) Chronicle that, with only 1.4 million (Texas) voters participating in the GOP primary, as few as half the participants – some roughly 700,000 voters – have selected all statewide officials serving Texas’ 26 million residents in recent years.

“It is a tiny fraction of the population who sets the agenda,” says Steve Munisteri, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas. “It is amazing how much influence you can have if you get involved in politics.”

Update: 700,000 Texans ... roughly the population of El Paso.  Just not nearly the demographic.

-- Meanwhile, Washington is coming to town to use Texas as its ATM again.

President Barack Obama will travel to Houston in April to raise money for House and Senate candidates.

That's according to an invitation to the event obtained by The Associated Press.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California are scheduled to attend. Tickets start at $16,200 a person and go up to $64,800 for a couple. Proceeds benefit the Democratic campaign committees in the House and Senate.

The invitation says the April 9 event will take place at the home of John Eddie Williams, a prominent Texas philanthropist and lawyer, and his wife, Sheridan.

We just read something about John Eddie Williams helping Republicans get elected to the Texas Supreme Court, didn't we?  Hey Charles: when people say Democrats and Republicans are all alike, THIS is what they're talking about, not social issues.  It's Republicans and the Tea Party, of course, that have bigger differences than Ds and Rs.

-- And speaking of Republicans, TeaBaggers, and their social issues...

Calling gay people “sodomites” and U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia a “would-be dictator,” the Harris County Republican Party announced it will host a news conference Monday morning in response to Garcia’s ruling Wednesday striking down Texas’ bans on same-sex marriage.

The event at county GOP headquarters seems like a pretty obvious ploy to energize the conservative base in advance of Tuesday’s primary — when, among others, Chair Jared Woodfill faces a challenger from within the party.

According to a release sent out Friday afternoon, party workers and elected officials will “stand shoulder to shoulder with people of faith to denounce the lawless ruling of a federal court seeking to impose the whims of unelected judges on the people of Texas.”

Ripe for a harsh loud protest, but it doesn't sound like liberals are going to pass muster.  Too pacifist for me (and why my Green peeps don't like me, either).

-- More evidence comes to light that Texas executed an innocent man.  As far as social issues in Texas go, abolishing the death penalty is going to be last on the list.  Not in my grandchildren's lifetime, and since I don't have any children...

-- Greg Abbott seems a little upset over the fact that his wife was mistaken for a Mexican restaurant.  And I thought marriage in Texas was exclusive between ONE MAN & ONE MAN...

-- The Texas Tribune is going to try to do a little better about disclosing where they get their money.  Isn't that special.

Campaign finance reporting is transparent. Transparency don't feed the bulldog of how much money influences politics when Greg Abbott's raking in more than $30 million and Wendy Davis isn't that far off, for example, and both will surely bust $100 million by the general. They can file their reports with the Texas Ethics Commission and be as transparent as they're supposed to be. They're still trafficking in a gravy train of political money, and if Evan Smith wanted to do something about that at the Trib, he'd write columns calling for public financing of Texas elections at a maximum, and at a minimum, caps on financial contributions on state races.

But, just maybe Smith doesn't want that.  

The undisclosed money in media is just as bad as the undisclosed money in our political system.  Full goddamned motherfucking stop.

5 comments:

Gadfly said...

Given that Texas law used to include male-female oral sex in its definition of sodomy, I can think of other ways to fight people using the word "sodomy."

Gadfly said...

I actually just thought of a second protest method. Show up at the Harris GOP with pictures of Abbott + The Nuge and "who's the real pervert" captions.

Gadfly said...

Or a THIRD option ... to revive decade-old rumors, show up with pix of Perry + Roger Williams.

PDiddie said...

It was former Secretary of State Geoff Connor that Anita Perry purportedly found in bed with her husband, after which she threatened divorce.

Here's a photo of him with Joanne Herring (whom Julia Roberts portrayed in "Charlie Wilson's War").

Gadfly said...

That's right, it was Connor, not Williams who was the SOS of rumor (not that Rog hasn't had ethics issues of his own). But, yeah, that's the idea; you gotta fight fire with fire.