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.

A slow-motion self-destruction

And it's all of Greg Abbott's own doing.

The Wendy Davis campaign is slamming both Ted Nugent and Greg Abbott with a powerful new ad that features rape survivor Nicole Anderson.

“I am speaking out because it really bothered me for Greg Abbott to partner with Ted Nugent knowing his history of being a predator. I was at home. I heard about it on the news. It made me feel like the it minimized the fact that Ted Nugent is a predator. I think that it sends the wrong message that he partnered up with this man that is very vocal about liking underage girls. There’s something wrong with that. It’s not okay.”

This ad is important on a couple of different levels. First, it is telling the truth about Ted Nugent. These types of ads should make Republican candidates think twice before they decide to cozy up to, and appear with, a self admitted sexual predator.

Sex with a minor is a felony in Texas. A felony that Ted Nugent has admitted to committing -- frequently -- and is a crime for which there is no statute of limitations.  So why hasn't the top law enforcement officer in Texas prosecuted him for it?

It's probably too late for Abbott to apologize for palling around with a child predator.

Actually, Texans don’t need an apology. They need the top law enforcement officer in the state to do what he has sworn to do — investigate sexual predators, gather all evidence and hold offenders accountable.

Has Greg Abbott investigated Ted Nugent to determine if he has committed sexual acts with underage girls in Texas - a violation of state laws against indecency with a child?

If not, why not?

Perhaps Abbott should turn it over to a special prosecutor, like Terri Moore.

"There is no statute of limitations on second degree felony indecency with a child. If Ted Nugent has engaged in sex with underage girls in Texas at any time, he is subject to prosecution."

"If there has been no legal vetting of Ted Nugent, Texans have no assurance that Nugent has not abused young girls here in our state - a failure of Greg Abbott’s most fundamental duty as a law enforcement official."

"Ted Nugent's public admissions that he has engaged in sexual relations with young girls and had a strong attraction to them would automatically raise concerns with any competent prosecutor."

"If Ted Nugent had been convicted of the crimes he acknowledges, he would be required to register as a sex offender in our State."

Greg Abbott and his army have crossed the Rubicon.

The facts demand a thorough investigation.

THE LAW

-- Indecency with a child by contact is a 2nd degree felony offense in Texas with NO STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS. Those convicted are subject to a punishment of no less than two and no more than twenty years in prison and a fine not to exceed $10,000.

THE EVIDENCE

-- Sufficient evidence exists - including his own videotaped statements - that Ted Nugent regularly engaged in sex with underage girls while touring the country. Musician Courtney Love has recounted that she was only twelve years old when Nugent coerced her to perform oral sex.

THE OPPORTUNITY

-- Ted Nugent currently lives in Texas and during the past three decades, he has appeared here in concert at least 29 times. Nugent has had countless opportunities to sexually abuse young girls in Texas, indulging his admitted compulsion for underage girls, something he has described as "beautiful."

THE RESOURCES

-- Greg Abbott brags that he oversees 160 law enforcement officers and a special Cyber Crimes Unit committed to tracking down and prosecuting child predators. There is no indication that any of these resources have been used to investigate Ted Nugent, a self-confessed sexual predator.

Without such an investigation, there is no way of knowing whether Nugent has violated state law — or still poses an ongoing threat to young girls in Texas.

You don't suppose that, if Greg Abbott keeps trying to ignore this, it might get worse for him... do you?  And not as in 'losing an election' worse, but 'being prosecuted yourself' worse?

Putting the wood to the TexTrib

James Moore isn't done beating Evan Smith and the Texas Tribune down, but here he turns the paddle over to the former Houston Chronicle writer R.G. Ratcliffe.  Yes, it's their polling.

During the course of my journalism career, I wrote about dozens – if not hundreds – of political surveys. The poll is to a political reporter what the tout sheet is to a horse-race junkie. From the perspective of having watched the sausage made, I can tell you all political polls have about them an element of voodoo.

But the opt-in Internet survey methodology used by the U.T. pollsters and the Texas Tribune may be one of the most black magic of all the polling methods. It essentially uses people who have volunteered to be surveyed and then uses statistical weighting to make the results match the expected voter turnout. (Click here to see About These Polls). It’s a survey methodology so suspect that news organizations such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and Roll Call magazine have refused to use it.

Ratcliffe discounts the effect of Nugentpalooza, which erupted after the poll was conducted.  I think that's a gloss-over, as the poll would thus only reflect the brouhaha over Wendy Davis' resume'.  But anyway...

The biggest problem with the U.T./Tribune poll was not when it was done but how it was done. The opt-in survey is fast and cheap and may only be more reliable than one of those television station click surveys because a trained professional political scientist is weighting the results.

(Click here to see the Sampling and Weighting Methodology for the February 2014 Texas Statewide Study. Keep in mind, they say there is a YouGov panel of 20,000 Texans registered, and 1,327 opted to take the survey and then they winnowed that down to 1,200 to create the final dataset. Here’s some key numbers to keep in mind, the Republican primary results were drawn from a panel of 543 voters while the Democratic primary numbers were drawn from a panel of 381.

I'm one of those YouGov surveys.  Actually I am two of them, as I have two separate e-mails and accounts with YouGov.  (But they might have, as Ratcliffe indicates, screened me out.)  You can finish reading the rest of that piece as Ratcliffe dissects the polling methodology and assembles a list of  the various media who refuse to use anything similar.

Let's move on to Carl Lindemann's Inanity of Sanity, where he destroys the whole "donation media" model, particularly as practiced by the TexTrib, PBS (Part II) and NPR (Part I).

Is this entertainment or infotainment? Does this really rate as public journalism serving the PUBLIC INTEREST? Or is PBS, as David Sirota recently wrote, "becoming the "Plutocrats Broadcasting Service"?

Now, this isn't an isolated instance on NEWSHOUR. About two weeks ago, a feature about the union vote at the VW plant in Tennessee fit the same pattern -- a "debate" between a legit source and a Koch-connected State Policy Network propagandist. The propagandist didn't really have an argument. Instead, he spouted an "anti-union feeling masquerading as an argument." Yes, he actually got called out on this -- but not by the moderator.

Do such "contests" in the "marketplace of ideas" help inform us in matters of public interest? Recently, (Ray) Suarez bailed from NEWSHOUR. Maybe he got sick of this charade.

Looking at PBS' flagship news program is especially interesting when considering the Trib; Smith serves on its board of directors. Also, as I've written before, his "confrontational" interview style delivers mild discomfort rather than a moment of truth.

Is this how to "speak truth to power" -- or to cozy up to it?

I don't really think any of this criticism is going to bother the TexTrib all that much... unless their donations begin to wither. And I don't really see that happening.  It IS going to make those of us who read it do so with a far more jaundiced eye, and to that extent I suppose it's worthwhile.

The bloom is definitely off Evan Smith's rose.

Update (March 3): Nobody can deconstruct a lousy poll like Charles Kuffner.  God love him just for reading that Jim Henson defense all the way through; once I got to the "Democratic peanut gallery" crack, I stopped.  And Carl has pinned on his badge and is on the beat.