-- Tipped by Bill King flack Campos several days ago (scroll to the end), Adrian Garcia files at the last minute against Rep. Gene Green. Don't much care who wins between the two; I consider them both tools of the establishment. Green is deeply embedded with the petroleum interests, Garcia with the Republicrat politicos like Tony Buzbee and Bill White. This is a Dumb and Dumber primary, and the voters in the 29th get to decide which one is which. When even Annise Parker is throwing shade, you should be able to figure out you're just another unemployed stooge trying to get back on the public payroll.
-- I do like TMF to prevail in his grudge rematch with state Sen. José Menéndez. But does anybody else wonder why Leticia Van de Putte isn't running for something in 2016?
-- The two "third" parties in Texas are officially in trouble.
Gadfly has the gameplan. There's every opportunity for Texas Greens to take a big step forward: the choices will come down to Hillary and some godawful Republican, be it Trump, Cruz, or Rubio; the GPUS presidential nominating convention is in Houston this summer, and Bernie Sanders supporters have no logical place to go. Texas Democratic votes in the November presidential faceoff -- hell's bells, the same goes for any statewide race -- simply won't matter in the end game. There's no better chance to send the Dems a message they need to hear.
But it's on the GP to make that case.
-- I mentioned D-to-R judicial hopeful Nile Copeland at the end of this post and how it made me feel worse than Chris Bell endorsing King in the mayoral. Copeland, a bit of a gun nut, was disillusioned by the fact that Amber and Steve Mostyn, Dave Mattheisen, and Gerry Birnberg pick the Democrats who will be judges in this county. But his defection is part and parcel of a longstanding dysfunction within the Harris County Democratic Party; with the red unincorporated parts of the county balancing out the blue city, white establishment conservaDems like Copeland and Bell are bailing out as the two main D constituencies, blacks and gays, square off for full control. You'll see that dynamic again in the spring primary for District Attorney (Kim Ogg versus Morris Overstreet) and County Tax Assessor/Collector (Brandon Dudley versus Ann Harris Bennett). County chair Lane Lewis, having done a superlative job keeping the factions united in the runoff just concluded, now has to fend off a primary challenge from neophyte city council also-ran Philippe Nassif. There's a caucus of millennial, neoliberal trust fund babies behind this effort. I don't see a constituency that diverse winning much more than a precinct chairmanship, but stranger things have happened.
-- The best liberal Democrat likely to be on the November ballot, Lon Burnham, might have a shot at defeating Wayne Christian for the RRC if Clinton/Castro's coattails are long enough. The sad part is that he's going to have to stick to them like glue, especially in the RGV. That would be a sellout of progressive principles to electoral expediency for him.
-- Exhaustively more, but only about the duopoly candidates, at the TexTrib.
Funny, I thought he wanted to be Mayor of Houston.-A https://t.co/OMyVmQgEZc
— Annise Parker (@AnniseParker) December 15, 2015
-- I do like TMF to prevail in his grudge rematch with state Sen. José Menéndez. But does anybody else wonder why Leticia Van de Putte isn't running for something in 2016?
-- The two "third" parties in Texas are officially in trouble.
Greens, Libertarians at risk of losing automatic access to '18 general election ballot with Rs and Ds in all seven statewide races #txlege
— TX Election Source (@TXElects) December 14, 2015
Gadfly has the gameplan. There's every opportunity for Texas Greens to take a big step forward: the choices will come down to Hillary and some godawful Republican, be it Trump, Cruz, or Rubio; the GPUS presidential nominating convention is in Houston this summer, and Bernie Sanders supporters have no logical place to go. Texas Democratic votes in the November presidential faceoff -- hell's bells, the same goes for any statewide race -- simply won't matter in the end game. There's no better chance to send the Dems a message they need to hear.
But it's on the GP to make that case.
-- I mentioned D-to-R judicial hopeful Nile Copeland at the end of this post and how it made me feel worse than Chris Bell endorsing King in the mayoral. Copeland, a bit of a gun nut, was disillusioned by the fact that Amber and Steve Mostyn, Dave Mattheisen, and Gerry Birnberg pick the Democrats who will be judges in this county. But his defection is part and parcel of a longstanding dysfunction within the Harris County Democratic Party; with the red unincorporated parts of the county balancing out the blue city, white establishment conservaDems like Copeland and Bell are bailing out as the two main D constituencies, blacks and gays, square off for full control. You'll see that dynamic again in the spring primary for District Attorney (Kim Ogg versus Morris Overstreet) and County Tax Assessor/Collector (Brandon Dudley versus Ann Harris Bennett). County chair Lane Lewis, having done a superlative job keeping the factions united in the runoff just concluded, now has to fend off a primary challenge from neophyte city council also-ran Philippe Nassif. There's a caucus of millennial, neoliberal trust fund babies behind this effort. I don't see a constituency that diverse winning much more than a precinct chairmanship, but stranger things have happened.
-- The best liberal Democrat likely to be on the November ballot, Lon Burnham, might have a shot at defeating Wayne Christian for the RRC if Clinton/Castro's coattails are long enough. The sad part is that he's going to have to stick to them like glue, especially in the RGV. That would be a sellout of progressive principles to electoral expediency for him.
-- Exhaustively more, but only about the duopoly candidates, at the TexTrib.
