Texas Greens file for 57 state and local offices in 2016

Kuff and Stace both have your Democratic rundown; I had some first-take POV on Tuesday, and yesterday the Green Party of Texas offered their slate for next year.

A total of 57 filed for offices across Texas, and here's the full list.  (I only counted one presidential candidate because recent polling shows Jill Stein with 63%, but she has four challengers, including Kent Mesplay of Texas).  The GPUS presidential nominating convention will be held in Houston next August, with most events occurring in and around the University of Houston.  The state convention will held in April, in San Antonio.

Regular readers here will note that I have been advancing a vote for Stein for president on the expectation that Bernie Sanders will eventually be eliminated from contention as the Democratic Party's nominee, and that his supporters should be welcomed to join the only real progressive campaign remaining after this spring.  Both Stein and the GPTX agree with me.

“The Democratic Party is not going to allow Bernie Sanders to squeak through, so where would we be if we don’t have a Plan B? When Bernie gets knocked out of contention, there would be no place for people to go if not for our campaign. The difference between our campaign and Bernie’s is that we’re not looking for the Democratic Party to save us. We are establishing an independent base for political resistance where we can continue to grow, because there is no relief on the horizon and we need to get busy right now building the lifeboat we’ll need to rescue ourselves and our children.”

Sanders is riding a populist wave in the Democratic primary that closely aligns with Green positions. For Greens who are committed to building an electoral alternative outside of the Democratic Party, we must be prepared to capture as much of this momentum as possible when the super-delegates and other Democratic Party machinery finally close the door on the Sanders campaign. To do this, we will put forward a solid and coordinated slate of candidates this cycle, and we will conduct a Green Party brand awareness campaign intended to let voters know that they still have an opportunity to vote their values and put people, peace, and planet before profit.

Since Texas Democrats and Republicans finally figured out that the way to reduce the electorate's choices back down to two was to file a candidate for every statewide office and let the mindlessness of straight ticket voting works its magic, it becomes imperative that to avoid having to petition for signatures for ballot access in 2018, a statewide Green (and Libertarian, for that matter) needs to hit the 5% threshold in next year's elections.

The statewide offices on the ballot in 2016 are Railroad Commissioner, state Supreme Court (Places 3, 5 and 9), and state Court of Criminal Appeals (Places 2, 5 and 6).  Multiple Democrats and Republicans have filed for those seats, most of them incumbents, and the primary elections in March will determine who bears the D and R standard in November.

The Railroad Commissioner's contest will be the liveliest, with over half a dozen candidates, including former Republican state representative Wayne Christian and three other goombah Republicans trying to out-"most conservative" each other in the GOP primary.  Former Land Commisioner Jerry Patterson's in-and-out dance prior to the filing deadline last Monday ended when he decided he couldn't be a ticketmate with Trump.

Former statehouse Democrat Lon Burnham, infamous perennial Grady Yarbrough -- you should remember him from his 2012 US Senate runoff against Paul Sadler -- and one other are vying to represent the Blue Team.  The Greens re-submit Martina Salinas, who got north of 2% in a 2014 bid for the RRC in a four-way race.

Gadfly had a good suggestion as the best shot for the Greens to hit their 5% number, and I won't disagree.  Quoting...

Cheryl Johnson is NOT running for Place 5 on the CCA, though. And the Democratic candidate, Betsy Johnson, is in a solo practice, which means she probably doesn't have a lot of legal depth she brings to the race. Her Texas Bar page lists, besides criminal practice, real estate and wills/probate.

Judith Sanders-Castro is the Green here; she got 10.45% against a Republican and a Libertarian in the CCA contest in 2014.  She had a long career as a voting rights activist going back to the '80's and early '90's with MALDEF.  Both Sanders-Castro and Salinas should campaign together and work the RGV and urban areas for Latin@ votes in their respective races.  Their success will be key in the bid for continued ballot access.

Besides those two excellent candidates, longtime Travis County activist Debbie Russell is running for sheriff there.  She and I spent time working on David Van Os' campaign for TXAG in 2006.  Deb Shafto, the Green Party's gubernatorial nominee in 2010, will make a run at Sylvia Garcia in Texas Senate 6, and her husband, George Reiter, the past co-chair of the state party, takes aim at Congressman Al Green in CD-9.

The godmother of the Texas Green Party, katia gruene, is a candidate for the statehouse (District 51, incumbent Eddie Rodriguez) and Joseph McElligott, fresh off his bid for Houston city council, will run against Dan Huberty in HD127.  Harris County Commissioner El Franco Lee also draws a Green challenge from Adam Socki, a transit/urban planner with engineering outfit HDR.

David Collins, the Harris County Green Co-Chair, posts more.

Fear and loathing in Las Vegas

Trump vs. Bush. (Trump, shockingly, lost.)  Cruz vs. Rubio on immigration and funding for troops (both lost on the basis of their respective lies).  Even the kid's table debate was riotous, if only for Lindsey Graham's eye rolls, Princess Bride references, and made for teevee lines like "bring on the virgins".

But the main event did not disappoint.

Republican presidential hopefuls fought to out-tough one another Tuesday night in a raucous debate animated by fears of terrorism and disagreement over how best to prevent attacks like the massacres in Paris and San Bernardino.

Agreeing on the need to destroy the Islamic State terrorist group and eager to blame President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for its ascendance, the candidates quickly squared off in a series of heated exchanges over the line between protecting Americans and trampling their rights.

Yeah, about that...

It was a festival of fraud from Cruz.

His patented formula is a mix of repellent ingredients: misrepresentation of facts, baseless smears, exaggerated sincerity and pretended solidarity with the average person. If Cruz tells you it's raining, you can leave your umbrella at home.

Even fact-checkers were aghast at the mendacity.

TED CRUZ: "You would carpet bomb where ISIS is, not a city."

THE FACTS: The Texas senator's conviction that the Islamic State group can be routed with an air campaign of overwhelming force is hard to square with the reality on the ground. IS fighters are holed up in a variety of cities, amid civilians, raising questions about how he could direct a carpet bombing that only singles out the enemy.

He was asked in the debate if he'd be willing to cause civilian casualties in Raqqa, a major Syrian city that has become de facto capital of the Islamic State group's so-called caliphate.

He answered yes, without saying yes.  Essentially the fear and hate of Trump was unleashed by all nine of these losers.

“Like all of you, I’m angry” is how Carly Fiorina began her opening statement. That sentence encapsulates not just last night’s two-hour debate in Las Vegas but also the entire Republican nominating contest thus far. Donald Trump himself was largely a non-factor in the candidates’ fifth and final showdown of 2015, but Trumpism was the dominant, animating force inside the Venetian Theatre.

Reaganesque the rhetoric was not. Trump catapulted to the top of the polls and has stayed there for six months now because he tapped into deep-seeded anger and frustration of the conservative base that the country is slipping away from them. Chasing the frontrunner’s success, the other leading candidates each tried to varying degrees to show that they get it, that they too are mad as hell and want to take the country back. There was little effort to play to the higher angels of the American consciousness. Instead, in the wake of attacks on Paris and San Bernardino, it often felt like the candidates were preying on the electorate’s fear, anxiety and sense of vulnerability.

Guess how many times the word 'guns' was used last night?

In a two-plus hour Republican presidential debate focused on "keeping America safe," candidates mentioned guns a total of three times — twice by Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a long-shot moderate, and once by Jeb Bush, when he said, "America is under the gun to lead the free world, to protect our civilized way of life."

Before the debate began, GOP chairman Reince Priebus (rhymes with "Rinse Penis") spoke about -- seriously -- competence.

“You know a lot of people ask what does the Republican National Committee do?,” he asked the bored audience. “A competent national party. A competent national party that has its act together on the ground.”

“The one thing that we all need,” he continued, “and the one thing that every one of the candidates need on this stage is a competent national party. And it’s something that we’re all striving to do and working for every day.”

They have a long, long way to go.