-- I was kind of saddened to read this.
It's chock full of all the fear and loathing of Trump that you have come to
expect from various quarters of late, but the saddest part of it buys into the false logic, repeated ad infinitum, that
voting for a third-party candidate -- particularly in a swing state -- is a waste. A spoil, as even poor Bernie Sanders revealed when he declared himself to be a Democrat running for president a year ago.
Brother Neil formerly advanced that if he lived back in his home state of Ohio, he would vote for Clinton. That's logic I share (although many Greens don't). But that's not the same as considering a vote for Jill Stein in Ohio a waste, and if you believe that Texas is suddenly in Electoral College play -- and were also a Democrat, or Democrat-leaning -- then your vote for a third-party would suddenly be in danger of being accused a "spoiler". Which tells you why some Democrats are so busy spinning that Texas is about to flip blue. (Hillary's 'powering through' her pneumonia has surely ended whatever surge of that kind existed before last week).
There's both a public debate and a mathematical analysis that disproves the premise of wasted or spoiled votes, but I wouldn't expect any quivering Hillary fans to get it. It's those folks still straddling the fence that I hope will be braver and smarter than this.
No, wait; the saddest part is that Neil's reason for switching to Clinton is that he thinks Julian Assange is a Russian agent, or in cahoots with Putin, or some of the other conspiracy theories advanced by the DNC after their email servers were hacked. To be fair, there is a veritable mountain of circumstantial evidence that this could be the case, but no actual proof. Smoke but no fire, as Clinton herself might say. My opinion has always been that the content of what was in the leaked DNC emails was more critical than who hacked them, but that's another story Hillbots don't speak of.
Candidly, I think he's spent too many hours standing out in the sun holding a sign of late. Anyway, if this is the kind of progressive you claim to be, then the word has lost all meaning.
-- Let's hold the lady at the beauty shop to account for the rumor she's spreading about Hillary leading Trump by double digits in Harris County. She ain't writin' no blog down there in Fort Bend, after all. It's going to be extremely difficult to hold a ten-point lead after Sunday's developments had it existed, either by rumor or something else, and I wouldn't have believed it a week ago.
Once again, for the sake of fairness: Clinton should win Harris County, and handily, and she should have some nice coattails for the judicials and others down the ballot. But before 'a basket of deplorables' and 'overheated' became walking pneumonia, it could have been a much bigger win.
Not ever 55-45 Clinton, though. I'll pull a Kuffner and remind you that Obama only carried Harris County by 50.5% over McCain in 2008, and by a scant eight-hundredths of one percent -- 49.39 - 49.31, or less than 1000 votes out of more than one million, one hundred thousand cast -- in 2012. Somebody's pulling ten percent out of their deepest, darkest nether region. Maybe it's her big blue butt, probably someone else's, I don't know.
And speaking of Kuff ...
-- In this post a few weeks ago, the Betsy Johnson he linked to as running for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 5, is not actually the Betsy Johnson running for that office. I know this because I called the San Antonio office of her firm, which directed me to Austin, and the person answering her phone said specifically that she "is not a candidate for public office".
The funny part is that Betsy Johnson worked in Greg Abbott's OAG for ten years. Which wouldn't necessarily make her a Republican... or a Democrat, for that matter. But if she were a Democrat running for statewide office, what she would have to say about working for Greg Abbott might be newsworthy. The Texas Democratic Party might even be trumpeting (no pun intended) it.
This is just an uncarefully researched mistake on Kuff's part, I feel certain. But if you're going to pick fun at political candidates in other parties who don't have websites, or Facebook pages, or essentially any online presence whatsoever save a state bar listing, then you should be prepared to acknowledge your own party's. (I contacted Cliff Walker, the man in charge of candidate recruitment for the TDP, who provided me the contact data for the Betsy Johnson in the most previous link, and the addresses match. She did not return my phone call.)
Which is what I should do at this time with respect to Judith Sanders-Castro, the Green running for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 5. She has not returned my calls, either.
My chastened blog brothers and sister:
I kid because I care. I feel embarrassed by the fact that our Little Alliance has withered and become such a joke over the past few years, and claim my share of responsibility for running some folks off with my abrasive manner. But y'all need to get it right, especially since there's no Republican blogosphere locally or statewide remaining (Breitbart doesn't qualify as anything but propaganda) to keep you accountable, and our mainstream media remains a big fat corporate fail.
Now if I have made some mistakes or errors in judgment, I'm prepared to either admit them or defend them. I expect no less from each of you.
Brother Neil formerly advanced that if he lived back in his home state of Ohio, he would vote for Clinton. That's logic I share (although many Greens don't). But that's not the same as considering a vote for Jill Stein in Ohio a waste, and if you believe that Texas is suddenly in Electoral College play -- and were also a Democrat, or Democrat-leaning -- then your vote for a third-party would suddenly be in danger of being accused a "spoiler". Which tells you why some Democrats are so busy spinning that Texas is about to flip blue. (Hillary's 'powering through' her pneumonia has surely ended whatever surge of that kind existed before last week).
There's both a public debate and a mathematical analysis that disproves the premise of wasted or spoiled votes, but I wouldn't expect any quivering Hillary fans to get it. It's those folks still straddling the fence that I hope will be braver and smarter than this.
No, wait; the saddest part is that Neil's reason for switching to Clinton is that he thinks Julian Assange is a Russian agent, or in cahoots with Putin, or some of the other conspiracy theories advanced by the DNC after their email servers were hacked. To be fair, there is a veritable mountain of circumstantial evidence that this could be the case, but no actual proof. Smoke but no fire, as Clinton herself might say. My opinion has always been that the content of what was in the leaked DNC emails was more critical than who hacked them, but that's another story Hillbots don't speak of.
Candidly, I think he's spent too many hours standing out in the sun holding a sign of late. Anyway, if this is the kind of progressive you claim to be, then the word has lost all meaning.
-- Let's hold the lady at the beauty shop to account for the rumor she's spreading about Hillary leading Trump by double digits in Harris County. She ain't writin' no blog down there in Fort Bend, after all. It's going to be extremely difficult to hold a ten-point lead after Sunday's developments had it existed, either by rumor or something else, and I wouldn't have believed it a week ago.
Once again, for the sake of fairness: Clinton should win Harris County, and handily, and she should have some nice coattails for the judicials and others down the ballot. But before 'a basket of deplorables' and 'overheated' became walking pneumonia, it could have been a much bigger win.
Not ever 55-45 Clinton, though. I'll pull a Kuffner and remind you that Obama only carried Harris County by 50.5% over McCain in 2008, and by a scant eight-hundredths of one percent -- 49.39 - 49.31, or less than 1000 votes out of more than one million, one hundred thousand cast -- in 2012. Somebody's pulling ten percent out of their deepest, darkest nether region. Maybe it's her big blue butt, probably someone else's, I don't know.
And speaking of Kuff ...
-- In this post a few weeks ago, the Betsy Johnson he linked to as running for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 5, is not actually the Betsy Johnson running for that office. I know this because I called the San Antonio office of her firm, which directed me to Austin, and the person answering her phone said specifically that she "is not a candidate for public office".
The funny part is that Betsy Johnson worked in Greg Abbott's OAG for ten years. Which wouldn't necessarily make her a Republican... or a Democrat, for that matter. But if she were a Democrat running for statewide office, what she would have to say about working for Greg Abbott might be newsworthy. The Texas Democratic Party might even be trumpeting (no pun intended) it.
This is just an uncarefully researched mistake on Kuff's part, I feel certain. But if you're going to pick fun at political candidates in other parties who don't have websites, or Facebook pages, or essentially any online presence whatsoever save a state bar listing, then you should be prepared to acknowledge your own party's. (I contacted Cliff Walker, the man in charge of candidate recruitment for the TDP, who provided me the contact data for the Betsy Johnson in the most previous link, and the addresses match. She did not return my phone call.)
Which is what I should do at this time with respect to Judith Sanders-Castro, the Green running for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 5. She has not returned my calls, either.
My chastened blog brothers and sister:
I kid because I care. I feel embarrassed by the fact that our Little Alliance has withered and become such a joke over the past few years, and claim my share of responsibility for running some folks off with my abrasive manner. But y'all need to get it right, especially since there's no Republican blogosphere locally or statewide remaining (Breitbart doesn't qualify as anything but propaganda) to keep you accountable, and our mainstream media remains a big fat corporate fail.
Now if I have made some mistakes or errors in judgment, I'm prepared to either admit them or defend them. I expect no less from each of you.
