Best-of-election-2008 Wrangle

Time for another Texas Progressive Alliance weekly blog round-up -- with a twist. In this edition, TPA member blogs bring you some of their best posts from the past year of election coverage. Enjoy this trip down memory lane, courtesy of the TPA.

Muse enjoyed all things Hillary leading up to the March 4th Texas Primary. There was the Hillary endorsement post that made her mom cry. A high point was the event where Muse fulfilled her lifelong dream to touch Bill Clinton. (Little did she know there would be a more up close and personal opportunity.) She got to see Hillary four times in person, including this event. Even her hybrid got in the act: Prius Owners for Hillary!

BossKitty at TruthHugger is angry that Sarah Palin's nasty rhetoric has ignited hateful fallout; she let the white Supremacist Genie Out Of The Bottle, Thanks Sarah. There are still 'stone aged' creatures marching around calling themselves Christians, wearing NAZI paraphernalia! Woe be to anyone who would harm the first family of America! On a more personal note, BossKitty has ideas about what to do when you lose your job ... but, the most daunting agenda on our plate is that our New America Must Reduce Its Seven Deadly Sins if we want to survive as a nation.

Brains and Eggs had the good, the bad, the ugly, and some TBD in a series of election postmortems, and then a little more of each. PDiddie wrapped last week with the finger-pointing and recriminations that marked the last throes of the McCain-Palin campaign, which included a luxury undergarment update.

It's been a tumultuous week for everyone, but at McBlogger it was remarkably calm. We're chalking it up to a change in prescription medications. First up was Donna Keel attacking Austin Interfaith. Then there was an attack on Diana Maldonado by her parish priest and for us that was enough religion for all week. The funniest thing we saw was a commercial shot by former celebrities going after Al Franken that made us want to move to Minnesota and vote for him. There was also some funny about people upset that they weren't getting help from the Federal Government, even though they didn't need it. Wrapping everything up was our final farewell to those who loved them some Austin Proposition 2.

Justin at AAA-Fund Blog covered the presidential prima-caucus in Texas including Clinton’s sweep of Asian American surrogates and both candidates' Asian American outreach . Justin also scolded Hubert Vo, evaluated Rick Noriega’s immigration plan, and was amazed that both Barack Obama and Sherrie Matula were "That Ones."

Off the Kuff has some early observations about what happened on Election Day, plus a look at turnout figures and statewide trends.

At Texas Kaos, the bitter and the sweet mix together as we look back on an amazing rollercoaster of an election season. While it looked like there was a contest for the U.S. Senate nomination, Boadicea put together Rick's answers for Democracy for Texas to paint a picture of the candidate: This is Rick Noriega-Texas Progressive Leader. Covering the snark beat, our friend from the Soggy North, Fake Consultant, gave some pointers to a hockey mom thrust onto the national stage in On Dressing for Success, Part One, or How Much is Armani, Anyway? and followed up with more helpful tips in On Dressing for Success, Part Two, Or We Costume Palin… for 2/3 off! Lightseeker took a reasoned and sober look at a more serious element this election: Respecting Life, Making Hard Choices and finally makes the point that the Nov 4 vote was not an ending, but a beginning, Looking Now, Looking Forward.

Ah the memories, at The Texas Cloverleaf during the 2008 election season. The candidates would make their case on WWE Monday Night Raw. We learned that McCain would lose early on, with our own Congressman Michael Burgess advising him on healthcare. We wished Governor Palin well on her first Grandparents Day. We learned Texas Republicans can't figure out education, much less spell it correctly. But we finally came out on top with Barack Obama, and some mixed Texas results. Here's to a classic 2008!

Vince Leibowitz of Capitol Annex focused a considerable amount of energy this cycle covering Texas Democrats' attempts to retake the Texas House of Representatives. From racist mailers and decitful TV ads in Dallas and Houston area House districts to the battle to unseat Texas' most ethically compromised legislator, down to catching Republicans telling blatant lies, this was a busy cycle in Texas. In the primary, he was one of a few Texas bloggers who supported Senator Hillary Clinton, and offered her this open letter when she left the race.

Neil at Texas Liberal offers up his post on early voting in downtown Houston. The post tells which Democrats Neil enjoyed voting for and also has colorful pictures that will please the eye.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme debunks 10 Republican excuses.

In the 2008 primary and election, Jobsanger continued his penchant for supporting losing candidates by backing Bill Richardson, Rick Noriega, Sherrie Matula and Nancy Moffatt, before finally breaking through with a winner in Barack Obama.

What a long strange journey it has been for the Easter Lemming. Gary has started pushing for a poll-workers union after working the primary and then another election this Spring. He found out people read blogs about as much as newspapers! Guess who the Easter Lemming supported? And finally, he ended too tired to party but not too tired to blog with a special mention that MoveOn.Org is bigger and more important than the NRA in politics now.

Hope you caught the Texas Blue on Election Day -- we did a "heckuva job" picking out the states that would and wouldn't matter for an Obama victory on Election Day. We also ran down the biggest federal, statewide and local results in our Election Day '08 executive summary, checked out how the fight for the Democrats' 75th seat in the Texas House is looking, and did some deconstruction of why the Republicans were never going to win the presidential election, Sarah Palin or no Sarah Palin.

Additional Funnies

All-GOP Texas will lose clout in DC

That's what we get for sending a bunch of minority party hacks back to Washington when the rest of the nation is trending blue:

From some Texans' point of view, Tuesday's election bought the Lone Star State a one-way ticket to the political wilderness.

A Democrat from Illinois won the presidency without Texas' help, potentially diminishing the state's leverage after it had provided two of the last three chief executives. Added to that, the state's voters reaffirmed the GOP's domination of their sizable congressional delegation — sending 20 Republicans and 12 Democrats to the House — while the Democrats strengthened their overall hold on Congress.

The upcoming departures of President Bush, the White House staff and several thousand presidential appointees are expected to cut dramatically the number of Texans working in the top echelons of government. Sensitivity to all-issues-Texas could ease. The White House and Cabinet's response to state-level crises could be slower.

"It's just going to be harder for Texas to look to Washington for a bailout next time," says Bob Stein, a Rice University political scientist.

Obama took money out of Texas and spent it in places like Nevada and Virginia for TV advertising and GOTV, but more critically he sapped manpower and shipped it to New Mexico and other states. It's been a history of recent Democratic presidential nominees to use Texas as an ATM but the Obama campaign also vacuumed up the cheap (as in volunteer) labor.

But this post is about what Texans did to themselves, particularly in the rural counties of the state, who voted to send all the Republicans back to the Congress and the Texas Supreme Court. (And the Houston suburban Republicans sent a crazy one to replace poor old Nick Lampson.)

Adds Republican Pete Olson, a former Senate staffer who defeated Democrat Rep. Nick Lampson in a Houston-area district, "We're just going to have to work harder to be unified and look for opportunities to stand together."

In addition, the Republicans in the delegation must look elsewhere in Congress for help.

"My advice to Republicans in the Texas delegation in the House is to make friends with your Senate delegation," says Christopher Deering, a political scientist at George Washington University.

Texas is, in short, the last remaining power base for a withered GOP buried deep in the minority in the nation's halls of power. I expect them to do what they do best: obstruct, obfuscate, and prevaricate. Whatever New Conservatism arises from the focus groups and conference calls held going forward for the battered conservatives, Texas -- more so than Utah or Alabama or anywhere else -- will have a strong hand in the mix. They'll be influenced by their state party apparatus, whose chair also has higher ambitions -- which means they will be dominated by extremists, such as those 23-percenters who believe Obama is Muslim.

Pridefully ignorant, powerfully dishonest, xenophobic to uncharted extremes. Clinging tighter to their guns and Bibles than a pair of rednecks double-teaming a table vise.

The urban areas -- Austin, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, El Paso (notably not Fort Worth) -- and a swath in the Rio Grande Valley as well as my old stomping grounds of Jefferson County are thankfully blue oases in the sea of crimson, but nowhere else in Texas outside of those areas considered "votin' for the ni@@er", unlike say, Western Pennsylvania.

We have another uphill climb ahead electing a statewide Democrat in 2010. And no, neither Bill White nor Kinky Friedman honestly qualify as real Democrats.

As the proud signature at the top of this blog says, Texas remains icy even as the rest of the country enjoys the warm sunshine of Obama and strong Democratic majorities. We just have to keep fighting 'em on the ice.

Update: One area of significant concern for the Houston area would be the future of NASA. Sending a freshman Republican -- under investigation for his own personal voter fraud -- to represent the interests of the massive government project was an epic fail on the part of Clear Lake voters.