Garcia announces... something today *Updates: He's in

What he's announcing does not seem to be clear from the Chron story.

Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia will address his expected bid for Houston mayor on Wednesday afternoon, according to sources close to his campaign.

Garcia's expected announcement would end months of speculation about whether the longtime lawman and former City Council member would run to replace term-limited Mayor Annise Parker.

Should he run, Garcia would join a crowded field of some half-dozen competitors. He would also be required to resign as sheriff.

Nor the KHOU report.  The assumptions made by the reporters lean toward yes, but they've left enough doubt to cover their asses in case he says he's not.  Rarely does a politician extend this kind of fanfare to an "I'm not running" press conference, after all.  The departed Teddy Schleifer covered all of the 'in' speculation seven weeks ago.

So is he in or is he out?  Anyone want to speculate, offer some scuttlebutt, start a rumor ahead of this afternoon's 'announcement'?

Update: Sure enough... in.

Update II:

County Judge Ed Emmett, who received Garcia's resignation letter Wednesday, has not decided who he wants to replace Garcia, though he prefers someone who wants to run for office in 2016, said Emmett's spokesman Joe Stinebaker.

Noting that it would be beneficial for Garcia's replacement to have a combination of law enforcement and management experience, Stinebaker added that "speed is of some importance here."

In his letter of resignation, Garcia said he hoped the Commissioners Court would appoint an independent or Democrat to serve the remainder of his term.

Those speculated to be interested in the job -- none of whom are Democrats, to be clear -- were also previously named here.

Update III: More on who might be the next sheriff here, with a decision coming in about a week.

Update IV (5/8): State representative Allen Fletcher jockeys himself into the lead for the interim appointment, to be made in short order by Harris County commissioners.

2016: Same as it ever was

A sure sign that voter turnout in 2016 is going to set another record low.

This map feels like déjà vu: It’s effectively the same map we featured for much of the 2012 cycle, and it unmistakably suggests the Democratic nominee should start the election as at least a marginal Electoral College favorite over his or (probably) her Republican rival.

Let's add the qualifying 'but'.

However, at the starting gate it is wiser to argue that the next election is basically a 50-50 proposition.

Florida remains swingy, I would posit, because of Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio.  Otherwise not so much, despite what portends to be a spirited Republican primary to replace Rubio in the Senate.  Colorado and Iowa elected right-wing freaks for US Senators in 2014 because Democrats stayed home on Election Day.  If John Kasich makes it onto the ballot somewhere, then Ohio is more red than not.  Nevada is bound to have a lively Senate contest because Harry Reid is retiring, so that's an ongoing development that could send its electoral votes either way; the truest of tossups.  Vermont (or is that New Hampshire?), irrespective of Bernie Sanders' ultimate fate, doesn't seem likely to be anything but blue.  I would have to think that Virginia is more red -- despite what Larry Sabato's Crystal Ballers say -- than they are letting on, and North Carolina (not currently considered a swinger) somewhat bluer.  Then there's Wisconsin, which could outright flip with Scott Walker somewhere in the mix, causing Hillary Clinton a multitude of problems.

In other words, this election is going to be as boring as being alive.

Americans still want taxes raised on rich to adjust for inequality

There's a lesson in these 30-year polling results for every single one of the Texas House Democrats who voted to cut state taxes last week (in conjunction with their Republican brothers and sisters).

Despite the growing focus on inequality in recent years, the 63% of Americans who say that money and wealth should be more evenly distributed among a larger percentage of the people is almost the same as the 60% who said this in 1984.

Americans' agreement that money and wealth need to be more evenly distributed reached a high point of 68% in April 2008, in the last year of the George W. Bush administration, and just before the full effects of the Great Recession began to take hold. Americans became slightly less likely to agree with the idea later that year and in surveys conducted in 2009, 2011 and 2013. This year's increase to 63% is close to the average of 62% agreement across the 13 times Gallup has asked the question since 1984. The latest data are from Gallup's April 9-12 Economy and Personal Finance survey.

Worth emphasizing: the percentages deviated steadily during the Reagan and Bush the Elder years, narrowed sharply after Bush the Lesser's election selection in 2000, rose to its highest separation levels as the economy slid off a cliff at the close of W's Debacle in 2008.... and then cramped again, as it became apparent to Fox News consumers that Barack Obama was, indeed, a socialist.

Stop the wars, tax the rich.  That's an easy campaign slogan, but the Democrats don't use it because they know they can't follow through on those promises.

"Don't extrapolate a national poll to Texas", you may be thinking, especially since Republicans who quite clearly don't stand with the majority dominate the Lone Star electorate.

Yes, I'm sure that all this has nothing to do with historically low voter turnout in Texas, particularly among former Democratic voters.  You can blame a bit of that on the most restrictive photo ID legislation in the nation, of course.  But at some point Democrats have to take responsibility for their collective fate, and when they decline or refuse to do so when the votes get called in the legislature, or the Congress, then you get what we had here last week: failure to communicate.

Is anyone really surprised?

Update: Thanks to Gadfly for the link to Gallup. And more from Vox.

But in some ways the most interesting demographic sub-sample is the age one. Respondents ages 18 to 34 are supportive of redistributive taxation by a 59-38 margin, while those over 55 are much more skeptical — 47 percent say tax the rich, and 50 percent disagree. In other words, the age stratification of American politics isn't just about gay marriage or marijuana; it cuts to the core economic policy divides in Washington and state capitals around the country.

Now if they would only vote.

Matt Drudge and Martin O'Malley

(What?  You were expecting some Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, or Mike Huckabee?)

As Cillizza at the WaPo notes, Drudge made his bones on the Clintons twenty years ago.  The problem is that he continues to do so, and the lazy corporate media lets him keep doing it by sniffing his ass like he's a dog in heat.  You may need to click over to catch up on the backstory;  this news is now a week old, which means it was out there before the rumors broke about Bernie Sanders' announcement on Tuesday, and then Sanders' fairly dominant news cycle (from Thursday, the day he declared, to the coverage about his campaign cash haul, and all the way through to the Sunday talk shows).  Because of last week's many other breaking developments -- but particularly due to the Baltimore, Maryland connection -- Drudge's pimping of O'Malley hasn't registered in the plus column yet for the former Terrapin State governor.

As usual you should read it all, but here's the last three grafs.

And it's not just that Drudge is deciding what pieces of content from the biggest media outlets in the country are the ones that get attention/traffic. It's also that he remains extremely influential as a sort of daily booking guide for cable television.  Bookers from every network check Drudge religiously to see what stories he's chosen to feature. Often those stories wind up getting airtime.

So, if Drudge promotes Martin O'Malley, then O'Malley will almost certainly get more attention from the media, which should translate to a higher level of interest — or at least recognition — among average voters.

How long will O'Malley's Drudge honeymoon last? Probably up until (or, really, if) Drudge succeeds in helping to make O'Malley a semi-credible Clinton challenger. At which point, if history is any guide, Drudge will turn on him.

I think the honeymoon is already over, for reasons previously ascribed.  But if it isn't, and you start to see shirtless O'Malley pics on Good Morning America and the like, just know who's behind it.