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.

Sunday Funnies (one, not so much)

New dealer shuffles the race card

Shortly after leaving the voting booth, 70-year-old community activist Donald E. Robinson had a thought: "Why do I have to be listed as African-American? Why can't I just be American?"

The answer used to be simple: because a race-obsessed society made the decision for him. But after Barack Obama's mind-bending presidential victory, there are rumblings of change in the nature of black identity and the path to economic equality for black Americans.

Before Tuesday, black identity and community were largely rooted in the shared experience of the struggle — real or perceived — against a hostile white majority. Even as late as Election Day, many blacks still harbored deep doubts about whether whites would vote for Obama.

Obama's overwhelming triumph cast America in a different light. There was no sign of the "Bradley Effect," when whites mislead pollsters about their intent to vote for black candidates. Nationwide, Obama collected 44 percent of the white vote, more than John Kerry, Al Gore or even Bill Clinton, exit polls show.

In Ohio, domain of the fabled working-class white swing voter, where journalists unearthed multitudes of racist quotes during the campaign, 46 percent of white voters backed Obama's bid to become the first black president, more than the three previous Democratic candidates.

Remember "we're votin'for the ni@@er"?

Obama did not define himself as a black candidate. So Robinson now feels free to define himself as something more than a black community activist.

"We've taken that next step. It's moving toward what we call universal brotherhood and sisterhood," Robinson said after voting for Obama in his northwest Washington, D.C., neighborhood. "We shouldn't be split and have all these divisions. That's why I say it's a bright day."

L. Douglas Wilder, the first black person to be elected governor of Virginia, shares Robinson's sense of American identity. "But I can tell you, when you say that, people take umbrage," Wilder said. "They believe that you are dissing them, putting blacks down. I don't have to tell you what I am, you can look at me and see that I'm not white. So what difference does it make?"

It took Obama's election, however, to make that idea real.

"It's immediately transformative," Wilder said. "It immediately changes the level of discussion. This thing is bigger than we thought it was. It's too big to get our arms around, and it grows exponentially each passing day. It sets us on a brand-new course."

It's honestly the most remarkable thing about the Obama phenomenon to me; the ability to have conversations about race, about race relations, about racial taboos with people of other races that simply weren't happening before.

To acknowledge the attitudes without being invested in the emotions. You know what I'm talkin' about, right?

Yet the past is a heavy burden to shed. U.S. Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, a former civil rights activist who was jailed during the protest marches of the 1960s, said that Obama's election does move America toward a "more perfect union." But when it comes to self-definition, he believes the current state of that union leaves him no choice.

"We don't come into this world defining ourselves," Clyburn said. "I was born into a world that had defined limits for me. I had to sit on the back of the bus, I couldn't attend the nearby school. My wife had to walk 2 1/2 miles to school, walk past the white school to get to the school for blacks. She didn't define that role for herself. That role was imposed upon us."

Certainly racism did not disappear after Obama's white votes were counted. No one is claiming that black culture and pride and community are no longer valuable. Many also dismiss the idea of a "post-racial" America as long as blacks and other minorities are still disproportionately afflicted by disparities in income, education, health, incarceration and single parenthood.

Ah yes. Still a long way to go in terms of economic and not just social justice.

So the prospect of a black population that is more of "America" than "black America" has profound implications — especially for the civil rights establishment that continues to battle for blacks who remain at the bottom. ...

"My grandmother told me when I was 5, 'Boy, if they ask you what you are, just tell them that you're an American," said Benjamin Jealous, the 35-year-old president of the NAACP. "The reality is that our heritage, our culture, our families, our community have been extremely important to us. It's always been our right, and in many ways what we fought for, to be seen simply as Americans."

Progress.

Update: "Mutts like me"...

"Obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me," Obama said with a smile. "So whether we're going to be able to balance those two things, I think, is a pressing issue on the Obama household."

In his first postelection news conference, the man who will be president in just over two months described himself as a mutt as casually as he may have poked fun at his jump shot.

If he thought nothing of such a remark in his first news conference, doesn't that signal that over the next four years, the country is likely to hear more about race from the White House – and from the perspective of a black man – than it ever has before?

It's not necessarily that he will make a crusade about the issue once he takes office. There was little sign of that in his election campaign, in which he ran on issues like the economy with a broad appeal to all Americans.

But it does underscore that the president-elect clearly does not see race as a subject best sidestepped or discussed in hushed tones. To Obama, race in all its complications has long been a defining part of his life, and he is comfortable talking about it.

And many of the rest of us will get there, too.

Houston ATB (After the Bushes)

Former Texas Monthly writer Mimi Swartz, from the New Yorker blog:

It was a quiet evening for the precinct captains working the polls at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, partly because so many people had voted early, but mostly because an era had already passed. The once modest and now grand St. Martin’s—it was converted, in 2004, into an updated, Texas-sized version of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres—sits in Tanglewood, a once modest and now grand Houston neighborhood that has been, and is now, home to George and Barbara Bush. St. Martin’s, known here casually as “the Bushes’s church,” seemed to grow and expand with the family fortunes, and it was icing on the cake that its vast expansion coincided with George W. Bush’s reëlection. Houston, after all, is dotted with tributes to the Bushes, from public libraries to elementary schools to the major airport. But on this night, St. Martin’s, the polling place for the staunchly Republican precinct 234, seemed almost vestigial. The television cameras were nowhere to be seen—the Houston Chronicle hadn’t run the traditional photo of George and Bar heading proudly to the polls—and people seemed sanguine about the election’s outcome. They looked more like well-moderated ’41 Republicans than fire-breathing ’43 Republicans: whites who were prosperous but not flashy, the men in khakis, the women in sturdy, appropriate heels, younger people who looked slightly older than their years. The poll workers’ snacks were ample but reasonable: homemade cakes and brownies, tuna fish—canned with mayo, not seared—chips and dips, pimento cheese, and, of course, salsa. Voices were politely hushed.

Since the election of George W. Bush in 2000, Texas in general and Houston in particular have had the feel of occupied territory. The senior Bushes served as local proctors, whether they meant to or not, Barbara playing bad cop to the Senior George’s good. They thrived surrounded by courtiers in their beloved Tanglewood, and their appearance at social events (rare) and charity events (frequent) made everyone stand up just a little straighter, lest they be found wanting. Except for a handful of people who had really known “Junior” growing up—they were the ones who quietly admitted they awakened each morning stunned that “George” was President—it was accepted that the 43rd President was “a good guy,” and part of proving your loyalty involved ponying up for Barbara Bush’s literacy galas and 41’s birthday benefits. Book signings for assorted memoirs generally produced queues of fans that would rival those for Beatles- reunion tickets. Contributing to Neil Bush’s entrepreneurial ventures, such as Ignite!, an educational software company for “different” learners, was not a bad idea either. The Houston Independent School District got in on that one.

This loyalty took on a maniacal edge after 9/11, with what you might call the Dinner Party Litmus Test. Suddenly, at events in fancy, deeply Republican neighborhoods like River Oaks and Memorial, there were more closeted Democrats than closeted gays. To mention opposition to the war was to risk excommunication, not just from the Houston social scene, but from the kind of friendly business deals that grease the city’s wheels. The writer John Judis once sucked the air out of a room at an otherwise cheery River Oaks gathering by voicing the sentiment—not so uncommon elsewhere—that the Iraq war was a catastrophe. No one dared put a Kerry sticker on his or her car in 2004, lest a crazed Tanglewood carpool mom take aim with her Ford Explorer. “You weren’t allowed to speak. If you weren’t on the team, you might as well have left town,” one longtime social observer noted, still cautious about speaking for attribution.

Then, like the tide ebbing, or a glacier slowly melting, Houston—which, by the way, voted Democratic in both 2000 and 2004—came back to itself. Certainly Bush’s lame-duck status, in 2004, cleared the air a bit, as did the quagmire in Iraq. But it was Hurricane Katrina, in the fall of 2005, that made many here take a second look at their favorite first family. While the rest of Houston busily displayed its beneficent side—reaping copious international praise in the process—Barbara Bush looked around at the shell-shocked evacuees in the Astrodome and voiced her fear that they might stick around: “…so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.” It wasn’t that she said it—people knew she talked that way in private—but this time she was quoted locally, and the spell was broken. The run-up to 2008 turned into an old-fashioned Houston free-for-all, and for the first time in ages, the Democratic Presidential candidate carried Harris County. Even if Tanglewood went for McCain, the people at St. Martin’s knew it was over. They packed their tuna fish in plastic containers, and went back home.

Latinos DID turn out ...

... it just could have been so much more and better here. First the good:

A record 10 million Latino voters helped carry President-elect Barack Obama to victory on Tuesday, supporting the Democrat by a 2-1 margin over Republican Sen. John McCain, according to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of national exit poll data from Edison Media Research.

The overall percentage of Latino voters was in line with 2004, roughly 8 percent of all voters, the exit polls showed. But this time around, the vote was "more potent" because it swung Republican states to the Democrats, said Andy Hernandez, an Austin-based pollster who specializes in Latino politics.

"Latinos are flipping red states to blue," Hernandez said. "In this election, Latinos contributed to Virginia flipping. They were responsible for Nevada flipping. They contributed to Colorado flipping. And New Mexico went overwhelmingly Democratic, and Latinos were responsible for that."

Obama even had a strong performance in Florida, where Cuban-Americans have historically supported Republicans by large measures, taking 57 percent of the total Latino vote Tuesday, the exit polls showed.

And now the not-so-much here in H-Town:

In Texas, Obama received about 63 percent of the Latino vote, compared with McCain's 35 percent, Hernandez said. Latinos in the state cast an estimated 1.6 million votes, he said. They made up about 20 percent of Texas voters, according to the Pew analysis.

In Harris County, the Latino vote fell short of some expectations amid lower-than-predicted overall turnout (although African-Americans came to the polls in record numbers).

"I'm a little disappointed looking at the (local) numbers that more Latinos didn't come out and vote," said Maria Isabel, a 53-year-old naturalized Cuban-American who helped organize for Obama in Houston. "But my family voted. My children voted. My mother is a Republican from the Reagan days, and she voted for Barack Obama."

I would rather focus on what Democrats did well, so perhaps the local party can get the feedback necessary to improve Hispanic turnout in Houston for 2010 -- when we're really going to need it.

I can't accept that Barack Obama at the top of the ticket, and not Hillary Clinton, was the difference (since it wasn't anywhere else in the United States). We had high-profile Hispanics running in Harris County; Rick Noriega and Linda Yanez and Adrian Garcia all near the top of the ballot, and Garcia won more votes than any Harris County Democrat. There is something we're not doing effectively enough locally to drive Latino Democrats to the polls, and I really want to know what it is.

McCain-Palin: the recriminations *underwear update*

RNC lawyers are on their way to Alaska to audit Palin's wardrobe expenses.

“I think it was a difficult relationship,” said one top McCain campaign official, who, like almost all others interviewed, asked to remain anonymous. “McCain talked to her occasionally.”

Some of this is the typical Monday-morning quarterbacking when you lose. Some is SNL satire-worthy:

The disputes between the campaigns centered in large part on the Republican National Committee’s $150,000 wardrobe for Ms. Palin and her family, but also on what McCain advisers considered Palin’s lack of preparation for her disastrous interview with Katie Couric of CBS News and her refusal to take advice from McCain’s campaign.

But behind those episodes may be a greater subtext: anger within the McCain camp that Palin harbored political ambitions beyond 2008.

As late as Tuesday night, a McCain adviser said, Palin was pushing to deliver her own speech just before McCain’s concession speech, even though vice-presidential nominees do not traditionally speak on election night. But Palin met up with McCain with text in hand. She was told no by Mark Salter, one of McCain’s closest advisers, and Steve Schmidt, McCain’s top strategist.

On Wednesday, two top McCain campaign advisers said that the clothing purchases for Palin and her family were a particular source of outrage for them. As they portrayed it, Ms. Palin had been advised by Nicolle Wallace, a senior McCain aide, that she should buy three new suits for the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in September and three additional suits for the fall campaign. The budget for the clothes was anticipated to be from $20,000 to $25,000, the officials said.

Instead, in a public relations debacle undermining Palin’s image as an everywoman “hockey mom,” bills came in to the Republican National Committee for about $150,000, including charges of $75,062 at Neiman Marcus and $49,425 at Saks Fifth Avenue. The bills included clothing for Palin’s family and purchases of shoes, luggage and jewelry, the advisers said.

The advisers described the McCain campaign as incredulous about the shopping spree and said Republican National Committee lawyers were likely to go to Alaska to conduct an inventory and try to account for all that was spent.

That's not even the funny part. And no, I don't mean the crankyanking that happened when Palin thought she was talking to the president of France, either:

At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Palin was completely unfazed by the boys' club fraternity she had just joined. One night, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. "I'll be just a minute," she said.

You realize what this means, don't you? It means we get to see Tina Fey in just a towel this weekend. Hawte.

Update: Is Africa a country or a continent, Sarah?

Update II: "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast". Sounds more like a couple of grifters to me:

On top of the $150,000 first outlined in Federal Election Commission filings, Palin spent "tens of thousands of dollars" on additional clothing, makeup and jewelry for herself and her family, including $40,000 in luxury goods for her husband, Todd, our colleague Michael Shear reports. The campaign was charged for silk boxer shorts, spray tanners and 13 suitcases to carry all the designer clothes, according to two GOP insiders.

"The shopping continued after the convention in Minneapolis, it continued all around the country," one source said. "She was still receiving shipments of custom-designed underpinnings up to her 'Saturday Night Live' performance" in October. Sources said expenses were put on the personal credit cards of low-level Palin staffers and discovered when they asked party officials for reimbursement.

Good, Bad, and Ugly: more of each

-- The Good: disappointing turnout on Election Day notwithstanding, Harris County voting proceeded with only the most minor of hiccups. Beverly Kaufman added extra polling locations, made technical improvements such as barcode and driver's license scanning that shortened wait times and reduced data-entry error during EV, secured the transfer cases (cardboard boxes) of e-Slates with an improved seal, added two extra seals on the e-Slates themselves that restricted election judges from setting up and activating the ballot boxes until the morning of Election Day, and took other precautions that John Behrman and others have urged, from parallel testing to quarantining of suspect machines. Berhman also was granted additional access to areas and information that were previously deemed ministerial and confidential.

I'm usually the critic, so when a compliment is due I don't want to run a deficit. Good job, Ms. Kaufman and the same to all of your staff, including elections supervisors John German and Randy Roberts and the platoons of assistant clerks.

-- The Bad: Hispanic precincts turned out their vote at 40-45% -- outstanding in any other election year, but lame compared to the countywide average of between 60-65%. No one seems to have a good answer beyond latent racism, lingering disillusionment at Hillary Clinton's primary loss, or lack of GOTV efforts in that community:

Local Democratic Chairman Gerald Birnberg said his party struggled to get former supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential primary candidacy to return to the polls and vote for Obama and the rest of the party's slate. Clinton was immensely popular among Hispanic voters in Texas.

"The head wind was the demoralization of many of the Hispanic Hillary Clinton supporters and that was a reality we faced throughout the election," Birnberg said.

As Democratic political consultant Marc Campos of Houston pointed out, Tuesday's election totals put turnout in mostly Hispanic state House districts at 40 to 45 percent, compared to 60 to 65 percent in mostly white, suburban districts as well as mostly black districts.

Campos, a Hispanic, said his party's efforts to motivate Hispanic voters was substandard. Birnberg disagreed, saying that among other things, Democrats aimed at Hispanic households with a recorded telephone message from Clinton urging voters to back every candidate.

Birnberg pointed out that all countywide Democratic Hispanic candidates won their contests except one, while district attorney candidate C.O. "Brad" Bradford and other black candidates lost.

Regardless, "clearly we must continue to do better year in and year out in the Hispanic community," Birnberg added.

Bob Stein offers another clue, which goes to Paul Bettencourt's strenuous efforts to clerically suppress the vote:

About 100,000 people who voted in the spring Democratic primary failed to vote in the county's general election, according to Rice University political scientist Bob Stein.

"I don't think they're disinterested in politics. I think it's the way we conduct our elections and how we make it very difficult for people who move around a lot to re-register," he said.

Republican Paul Bettencourt, the voter registrar re-elected as county tax assessor-collector, rejected Stein's theory.

About 100,000 other people easily updated their registrations for the general election, he said. Also, he theorized that turnout would have been much higher if Obama or John McCain or their running mates would have campaigned in Houston.

I'll be damned; Bettencourt is right. Obama not only never came back to Texas beyond a fundraiser, he sucked hundred of volunteers out of the state to work in New Mexico and other swingers, and many who couldn't leave spent their weekends calling battlegrounds on Obama's behalf.

I fault the Texas Democratic Party for allowing this to happen. This is where it gets ...

-- Ugly:

(T)he Obama campaign gobbled up the potential volunteer base for a statewide sweep campaign by exhorting Texans to campaign in other states, both physically and over phone banks. But I don't blame the Obama campaign. At least they had something for the vast Texas Democratic volunteer base to do. How can we blame the Obama campaign for making use of this huge volunteer base when the Texas Democratic party did not intend to make use of it?

Can anybody identify a single specific action or statement from the State Party demonstrating that it seriously wanted Obama to put Texas in play?

MoveOn wore me out asking me to work for Obama. Meanwhile I was busy working my precinct for all Democrats. And the TDP apparently sent a mailer to GOTV, which I'm told they spent hundreds of thousands on to send all over the state.

Ah, so the Democratic political advisors specializing in direct mail got remunerated handsomely.

So long as we Texas Democrats continue to listen to the self-inflated consultants and other "pundits" who insist on running targeted campaigns instead of sweep campaigns, we cannot expect a sweep-campaign outcome!

Hellllloooooooooo ...

Post-election day toons

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from yesterday: still to be determined

-- Chris Bell and Joan Huffman will be in a run-off to serve as my state senator. Republican stalking horse Stephanie Simmons came in third. Al Edwards was supporting her.

Get your self behind Bell NOW, Al. Enough of this faux-Republican BS from you.

-- Control of the Texas House may hinge on the provisional ballots cast in the HD-105 race between Linda Harper-Brown and Bob Romano. If Democrat Romano can pull it out, the House will be split 75-75. They are currently separated by 25 votes. There will likely be a recount as well.

-- Election Day GOTV sucked in Texas, and indeed all across the nation. Kuffner says it best (and always nicer than me):

Turnout fell short of all of the optimistic projections. In Harris County, the total number of voters is given as 1,184,820, out of an also-lower-than-expected 1,892,656 registrations, for a 62.6% turnout. That represents 450,000 ballots cast yesterday after the 730,000 of early voting, so a bit less than 62% of all votes were cast in Harris during early voting. Statewide, the tally with a handful of precincts still out was 8,042,270 in the Presidential race, which is given as 59.24% turnout. Again, I have to wonder what might have happened had there been a concerted effort by the Obama campaign to organize and turn people out in Texas, rather than use Texas to turn out voters in other states. I plan to be a little bitter about this, which takes a wee bit of the joy out of the Presidential result from last night, and I daresay I will not be the only person to do so.

Less than 500,000 here yesterday, and less than 1.2 mil across Texas. Hard to say how many races that may have cost us, but Stace is already apologizing for low Hispanic turnout in Harris County.

I'll bitch about that later. For the moment, go read the comments at the link for some thought provocation.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from yesterday: The Good

-- The best: President-elect Barack Hussein Obama, a Senate approaching filibuster-proof, and a strenghthened House majority. The best possible outcome for the United States and the world, as far as I am concerned. As for my electoral prediction, I missed Indiana going blue but it looks like I got all the rest right.

-- Harris County Sheriff-elect Adrian Garcia, County Attorney-elect Vince Ryan, and County Clerk-elect Loren Jackson. Harris County Democrats won 30 of 35 county-wide contests including most of the judicials. I am taking great pleasure in specifically congratulating Judges-elect Al Bennett, Dion Ramos (he's Cubano like Mrs. Diddie), Larry Weiman, blogger Mike Englehart, Shawna Reagin, Steven Kirkland, and Robert Hinojosa. All of these new Democratic judges I have somehow managed to establish personal associations with (however brief and limited that may be). I anticipate they will serve the citizens of Harris County fairly, impartially, and with distinction.

-- Appeals court judge-elect Jim Sharp is a particularly sweet victory. Sharp is one of the good guys, and a real progressive we have now on the bench. Maybe the Texas Supreme Court one day, Jim?

-- New Democrats in the Texas House: Kristi Thibaut (insert big fat yahoo here), Diana Maldonado, Robert Miklos, Carols Kent and Alvarado, Chris Turner and Joe Moody. Re-elected Texas House Democrats: my very own Ellen Cohen, my old friend Valinda Bolton, Joe Heflin from Plainview, Paula Pierson, Donna Howard, Kirk England, Allen Vaught, and Hubert Vo. The Dallas-area Democrats again led the way with state legislative gains, including state Sen.-elect Wendy Davis.

-- And Bill Dingus getting 35% against Speaker Tom Craddick gets marked down as a real good thing.

-- Harris County Department of Education trustees-elect Deb Kerner (an old Meyerland Dem pal) and Jim Henley (with whom we celebrated late returns last night) are also gratifying wins.

The Good, the Bad,and the Ugly from yesterday: The BAD

-- Ed Emmett and Pat Lykos.

-- Good people who should have won (it's bad that they lost): Rick Noriega. Diane Trautman. Judicials Leslie Taylor (an early and strong supporter of David Van Os for Texas Attorney General in 2006), Martin Siegel, Mary Markantonis, Bert Moser, Susan Strawn, and Goodwille Pierre.

Statehouse Democratic candidates Sherrie Matula, Joe Montemayor, Sandra VuLe, and John McClelland. All had campaigns run by blogging/online associates and dear friends of mine; McClelland indeed is a prominent TPA blogger in his own right. Joe Jaworski. Ginny McDavid. Joel Redmond (49-51, a particular heartbreaker). Incumbents Juan Garcia and Dan Barrett, who won hard-fought victories just two years ago. Larry Hunter's somewhat overwhelming loss to Tuffy Hamilton was another one that stung.

And Glenn Melancon, one of the best progressive candidates on the ballot yesterday, overrun by that fossil Ralph Hall for TX-04.

-- Michael Skelly, who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and lost convincingly. He ran as fast as he could away from the Democratic Party, airing a teevee ad in the closing days denouncing all things "liberal". Dude, if you can't be proud to be a Democrat, then maybe you're in the wrong political party.

Being ashamed of being a liberal is sooooo 2004.

We all thought this contest was going to be close because of Skelly's dough. Like John Kerry, Borris Miles, Tony Sanchez and a raft of wealthy yet unprincipled Democrats before him, if you're not the right kind of guy, then your money is only going to matter to the consultants sniffing around for a payday.

Well, they got paid, and you lost big. I'm tired of hearing the same shit excuses; "Texas is a red state", "we can't overcome redistricting", yadda yadda yadda. Stand up and fight for Democratic values or just keep your money invested elsewhere ( I understand there are lots of great bargains in the stock market these days).

If you need to see an example of someone who fought hard even when when the odds were impossibly long, who put his own considerable bankroll to work for all Democrats and not just his own selfish ego, see Fred Baron.

-- Oh, and then there was Nick Lampson, who did the same thing and got the same result.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from yesterday: The UGLY

These are all fugly, actually:

-- John Cornyn, John Culberson, Paul Bettencourt, and Ted Olson.

-- Still no statewide Democrat. Mark Thompson and the Supremes -- Jordan, Houston, Yanez -- all came up just short.

-- Ugliest of all: Dominionist David Bradley is re-elected to the Texas State Board of Education.

Today.

6 a.m. -12 p.m.: Opening and working my polling place
3 p.m.- God only knows how long: Observing the county's returns at the Harris County admin bldg. downtown

Light posting until Wednesday, some time, with some opinions then about the results. Enjoy this video, courtesy Vince at Capitol Annex, for a recap of our primary and general election season here in Texas ...

EV 11/3: 353

This is how the map will look tomorrow (I'm predicting):

<p><strong>><a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'>Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>

The race is close in traditionally red states like Montana, North Dakota, Georgia, and even McLame's Arizona, but it would be a rout if Obama captured any one of them. It could happen that way, I suppose; I just can't allow myself to dream that big.

Missouri and Indiana could still go Democratic, but I think it's incredible enough if North Carolina, pushed a little here at the end by the acrimoniousness of the Senate duel between Dole and Hagan, tips to azure (or Tar Heel powder blue, as the case may be). One out of those three certainly ain't bad.

But if you're still feeling a little nervous, click on Ohio and Florida above -- both still have numerous instances of voter suppression and machine irregularities being reported -- and then go on and click NC, too, to make all three of them red.

See? Obama still has 291. Turn out the lights; the party's just getting started.

Election Eve Wrangle

It is Monday, November 3, 2008. In less than 24 hours, the United States will have elected a new President and Texas will -- hopefully -- send Rick Noriega to the U.S. Senate as well as a host of new Texas legislators to Austin.

While we pause between the weekend's activities and tomorrow festivities, here is your Election Eve edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance's weekly roundup.

Bradley from North Texas Liberal lets us know that you should be careful not to lose your vote if you have to use an electronic voting machine, like TV personality Oprah Winfrey almost did.

jobsanger believes an avalanche of new voters could produce some surprises on Election Day, including the possibility that Georgia will turn blue, and even though an amazing 23% of Texans think Obama is muslim, a huge turnout in the urban areas and South Texas could produce some surprises in Texas. Early voting totals show this is happening.

Justin at AAA-Fund Blog is glad that 60% of Asian Americans polled in Harris County support the Democrats. He also is glad that voting this year was not a chore as it often feels. Justin urges everyone to support AAA-Fund's five Texas endorsees: Rick Noriega, Al Green, Nick Lampson, Hubert Vo, and Sandra VuLe.

It's been an exciting week for Democrats as chronicled by McBlogger; first up was Hank Gilbert asking a Cornyn staffer to take a walk from a Rick Noriega event. Then there was Texas Blogger (and current TPA Chair) Vince Leibowitz spanking the Mike McCaul campaign for their amateurish content theft. Finally, we at McBlogger received word that Dr. Dobson had traveled to the future and didn't like what he saw. Which is something you'll probably love.

Vince at Capitol Annex tells us how John Davis (R-Clear Lake) is sending out his wife to attack Netroots-backed candidate Sherrie Matula (D-Houston). In return, he opens Davis' own personal Pandora's Box and discloses Davis' shoddy record.

The Texas Cloverleaf notes that Barack Obama leads John McCain in fundraising in Denton County of all places! In nonpartisan news, while Obama is raising money, Ron Natinsky is spending it. The Dallas city councilman is spending your tax dollars on trinkets bearing his name. In shocking news, a 9 year old is electrocuted by a McCain-Palin yard sign. No, we couldn't make this stuff up if we wanted to.

After record breaking early voting in Williamson County, Eye On Williamson is ready for the general election. The HD-52 race has been the focus of attention this election cycle. The issues concerning the district's voters include the Trans-Texas Corridor, insurance reform, and the economy. No matter the issue, Diana Maldonado is the best choice in HD-52.

WhosPlayin looks at the early voting turnout in Texas' 26th congressional district, and thinks Ken Leach just might be able to upset incumbent Michael Burgess. And guess whether this incident of political suppression happened in Liberia or Texas. (Hint: it was Harris County, Texas.) Most of all, WhosPlayin wants Denton County residents to get to the polls and VOTE!

Off the Kuff takes his last looks at early voting, and makes fun of some whining by Republican enablers Texans for Lawsuit Reform.

El Paso is going Democratic in a big way. As El Paso goes so should South Texas. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is looking for a blue, blue Thanksgiving!

BossKitty at TruthHugger is laments pre-election jitters, Oh The Stress Of It All -- Op Ed, and how many years will it take to recover because, Divided We Fall.

Neil at Texas Liberal says to think about the future when you vote. Don't be like Galveston voters who in 1886, 14 years before the 1900 hurricane, voted no on building a seawall. Texas Liberal also offers up a post on how Texans have voted for President since 1948, and, finally, submits for your review some election predictions.

Over at TexasKaos, TxSharon tells us that somebody is finally looking at the Barnett Shale Gas Wells . It's called accountability and it's about time. And boadicea provides some excellent resources/talking points on the ACORN non-story. Give a look. Lastly, Txsharon kicks off a lively debate on the the training of 4000 troops in the use of non-lethal weapons for possible domestic use.

Texas politics is screwed up for at least two obvious reasons this week: because Tom Craddick has his debates sponsored by AT&T -- complete with a lobbyist on the panel, and because 23% of all Texans think Barack Obama is a Muslim. The sad details at Brains and Eggs.

Nat-Wu at Three Wise Men discusses the long tradition in the Republican of crying wolf about voter fraud in an effort to minorities from legitimately exercising their right to vote, and Xanthippas rips into anti-woman bloggers for brewing up a faux controversy over their DART bus ads.

Last-lap Funnies

733,771

That's how many votes are in the bank in Harris County. And while OpenSourceDem in the previous post is still a little "skeptimistic", I am enthused about the ultimate results we will see Tuesday night:

More than 730,000 people voted early in Harris County, officials said, in a gusher of participation that rewrote the book for Tuesday's election and Texas politics beyond.

After shutting the doors Friday night on 12 days of early voting, officials said 678,312 citizens had voted at the county's 36 sites, and an additional 55,459 had returned completed mail ballots before Tuesday's deadline.

The combined figure of 733,771 equals about 37 percent of the county's registered voters and for the first time may be higher than the number who vote on Election Day for the offices of president, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and several local positions.

A few more early votes may be added later to Friday's total; lines were so long at the Lone Star College site on Tomball Parkway in north Harris County and at other locations that voting was extended past 9 p.m. to accommodate voters who arrived by the 7 p.m. deadline, officials said.

No further in-person voting will take place before 7 a.m. Tuesday, when the doors open for 12 hours at the county's 728 polling places.

Predictions by County Clerk Beverly Kaufman and partisan strategists for Tuesday's turnout hover at or slightly below the amount of the early vote turnout.

A combined total of about 730,000 for early voting and 700,000 more on Tuesday would put total county turnout above 1.4 million, or 73 percent of all registered voters.

I just have to think that's too big for anybody to steal. Well, maybe they can steal it in West Virginia. Maybe in Ohio and/or Florida again. But even all that won't win it for them this time.

Vote Suppression -- The Next to Last Word from OpenSourceDem

Ed.note: OSD and I will be at the Harris County administration building Tuesday evening, observing Beverly Kaufman and staff count the vote, while you are out celebrating victory.

Harris County, Texas, leads the state and the nation in systematic, official vote suppression.

We are the benchmark: Hundreds of thousands of voters are impeded, tens of thousands ore obstructed, nearly a million are demoralized and self-excluded. Perpetual incumbents of both parties are indifferent to this. Elected Democratic public and party officials immediately responsible for and complicit in it are not held accountable for their ineffectuality.

Thus …

Exploiting the complexity of state and federal law, as well as poor design and unreliable operation of three (call them 'overlapping') voter registration database systems, tens of thousands of applicants routinely encounter rejections and data-entry errors that make it hard to get in the poll book on election day. Basically the burden of an unreliable “kludge” falls on the voter. Neither party -- deferential to incumbents with a vested interest in low-participation politics -- is much interested in these problems because they are “Too Technical!”

Further complicating matters, maintaining registration is very hard for those who move frequently; any combination of a young, poor, or non-white person most obviously. So, hundreds of thousands of registrants are in the book somewhere but chronically in a limbo status of “Suspense” or “ID” voter. Moreover, re-registering or completing a “Statement of Residence” form can actually make things worse by introducing more opportunity for data-entry error by the voter registrar or data retrieval error by the election clerks. This is especially acute for suburban voters who move between and among various counties in Texas. They can update their registration at the polls. Their update will go on the statewide voter roll. They will be dropped from the old county, but they will not be registered in the new county despite the new technology.

The only recourse running up to the election has been to “swamp and sweep”: Neither the Obama campaign nor the Harris County party has the right technical tools or enough legal recourse to do that well But, they have both used every resource they do have (a) to raise political participation and awareness generally, (b) to expose and discourage any clever, new or ad hoc vote suppression and (c) to expose and untangle whatever they can for motivated and patient voters. Hundreds of voters have gotten a full, limited, or provisional ballot that will count despite all the obstacles. Registration is up somewhat and turnout is way up.

That is as good as it is going to get in the absence of fundamental change to what is still, after 134 years, an effectively property-qualified franchise, now “credit-scored” but still administered pursuant to the Jim Crow Texas Election Code.

This sorry situation – crippling for the Democratic Party in any ordinary year -- has both a political and economic bias that hand-wringing over racism is now pretty much an excuse for ignoring. Yes, racial bias is almost as great a consequence as ever, but it is no longer a “root cause” of problems with voter registration in Texas. Our problem today goes way beyond race and threatens every citizen.

The root problem is economic discrimination. And that pervades, for instance, indirect and regressive taxation. So the serious problems are at the neglected core and not the controversial fringe of the legal, logistical, and technical foundations of voter registration, indeed of all Texas government.

The unifying and patriotic Obama campaign has a message of hope: “It is not about me, it is about you!” And it should translate into a message of change. The Texas Democratic Party in Austin ceded Texas to the GOP long ago, but not the Harris County courthouse, and not the Texas House. If and only if the built-in, refractory vote suppression here and there has been overcome temporarily in the course of this campaign, then something fundamental, something historic and irreversible can be done about it … starting next year.

And it starts with the election of Dr. Diane Trautman for Harris County tax assessor/collector.

Friday "Conservatives are scared" Funnies

Or maybe that's not fear but teeth-grinding rage. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference ...

Name Joe the Plumber's C&W band

I'll start ...

American Substandard
Sam the Scam and the A-Holes
Country Joe and the Flush
Plunging Political Tool
The Ball Cocks
The Flush Puppies
Cracked Pipes
Turdseeker
Fifteen Minutes
10,000 Flushes
Drunk on Drano
Portable John
The Hate Caulk Express
Sons of the Sewer
Country First After Me
Orville Wurzelbacher's GOPcorn

Inspired here.

I left you "crack", "leak", and any variety of other fecal and bathroom euphemisms. Have at it.

Why Texas politics is so screwed up

Not because Tom DeLay is still foaming at the mouth on your teevee. No, his rabies is in its terminal stages; he was once part of the problem, but no longer. Texas politics is a clusterf*ck because AT&T sponsors Tom Craddick's debates, and because nearly a fourth of all Texans in a recent survey think Obama is a Muslim.

First, Mistah Speakah and his lickspittle Leslie Ward, AT&T v-p/lobbyist:

Ward was one of three panelists moderating Sunday’s debate between Speaker Tom Craddick and Democratic challenger Bill Dingus. The other two were local radio hosts—you know, journalists. What was Ward doing there? The debate was hosted by TV station KMID, and “sponsored” by AT&T. While it’s not unusual for corporations to underwrite debates, that doesn’t normally buy their lobbyist a seat at the table.

But there was Ward, asking Craddick and Dingus questions such as: “In the Legislature a lot of emphasis is placed on seniority and rank. Does having the Speaker come from Midland make a difference?” Rough translation: Mr. Speaker, how did you become so awesome and why is your opponent beating his wife? Texas Monthly pundit Paul Burka called the seniority question “obviously a softball pitched so that Craddick can knock it out of the park.”

What a sick sad joke Tom Craddick is, not just on the people of his Midland district but on the entire state of Texas. Thankfully and once again, his Republican colleagues will try to dislodge him from the Texas House dais in January 2009:

Promising a three-term limit on House Speakers and a return to traditional rules on seniority in the House, Rep. Jim Keffer (R-Eastland) said this evening that he would work to consolidate support behind his efforts to become the next Speaker starting on Election Night.

In something of a shocker of a press statement, Keffer said that after touring the state over the past year, he’s now “100 percent sure a new Speaker for the Texas House of Representatives will be chosen for next session.”

I could go on and on about the offense to human decency that is AT&T. This blog post is going out on their tubes. I pay them a lot of money every month for a landline, DSL service, and my cellulalr lines. In return they spy on me, they give tote bags to Democratic national convention delegates, they purchase Congressional Democrats for the purpose of passing legislation granting them retroactive immunity for their wiretapping ... that's an abridged list of the corporation's atrocities. But I digress.

Regarding the state of Texas politics, you know what's even worse? This:

A University of Texas poll to be released today shows Republican presidential candidate John McCain and GOP Sen. John Cornyn leading by comfortable margins in Texas, as expected. But the statewide survey of 550 registered voters has one very surprising finding: 23 percent of Texans are convinced that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is a Muslim. ...

The Obama-is-a-Muslim confusion is caused by fallacious Internet rumors and radio talk-show gossip. McCain went so far at one of his town hall meetings to grab a microphone from a woman who claimed that Obama was an Arab.

The Texas numbers are unusual because most national polls show that just 5 to 10 percent of Americans still believe Obama is a Muslim — less than half the number of Texans who buy into the debunked theories.

And just read the comments of some of the believers at the link.

Sometimes you can't be anything but embarrassed for your neighbors. About one out of every four random Houstonians -- people in the restaurant where I'm dining, in the cars next to me at the stoplight, at the supermarket or drugstore where I shop -- believe Obama is a Muslim.

No wonder they're so terrified about next Tuesday.

I just don't feel sorry for this level of stupidity any more, though. Fuck 'em. They can spend the next eight years with a raging case of Obama Derangement Syndrome, and we can all call it even.

EV 10/30: Doesn't look all that close

More than ten Florida polls conducted since 10/26 show Obama with an aggregate lead of three points (48-45%), so we make it blue today. Similarly, five polls since 10/27 give McCain a three point advantage in Goergia, so it's red again. The ones that are still too close to call:

-- Missouri, where six polls since 10/26 have Obama leading by one (48-47), and North Carolina, where eight polls since 10/26 give Obama two-point lead (49-47). Indiana is also tight as a tick, where six polls since 10/28 have Obama one point ahead (47-46). Last-minute-deciding voters on Election Day will be the difference in each of these states.

--Montana and North Dakota are each in a dead heat on the basis of a single poll of each state that is aged a week or two. They're probably not that close, but stranger things have happened, so we'll leave them as is.

-- As for what you're hearing on your teevee about "swing states" and "battleground states" like Ohio and Pennsylvania ... forget them. Obama has them both locked down, with six- and twelve-point leads in multiple (as in more than 10) recent polls since 10/27. Arizona isn't all that close either despite what you may be hearing; McCain has an aggregate six-point lead, 50-44 in four recent polls.

<p><strong>><a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'>Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>

But hey, I'm just PDid the Blogger who wants a book deal. Don't pay attention to me; look at what Nate Silver says:

Number one, John McCain is NOT closing Obama's margin as quickly as he needs to (if indeed he is closing it at all). This appears to be a 6- or 7- point race right now ... that's where we have it, that's where RCP has it, that where Pollster.com has it. In order to beat Barack Obama, John McCain will need to gain at least one point per day between now and the election. Our model does think that McCain has pared about a point off Obama's margin -- but it has taken him a week to do so. Now, McCain needs to gain six more points in six more days. And he needs to do so with no real ground game, no real advertsing budget, and no one particularly strong message. Not easy.

Number two, John McCain is NOT gaining ground in the states that matter the most. The top tier of states in this election are Virginia, Colorado and Pennsylvania. There is lots of lots of polling in these states, particularly in Virgnia and Pennsylvania, and it's all coming up in roughly the same range, showing Obama leads in the high single digits (in VA and CO) or the low double digits (in PA). The second tier of states is probably Ohio, Florida and Nevada. McCain seems to be getting a bit stronger in Florida; Obama seems to be getting a bit stronger in Ohio and Nevada. McCain does seem to have halted Obama's progress in some of the third-tier states, particularly Missouri and North Carolina. On the other hand, some other third-tier states, like New Mexico and particularly New Hampshire (where Obama is getting some insane numbers lately), now appear to be off the table.

My feeling is that John McCain still needs some sort of external contingency to win the presidency. Even if some of the more conservative turnout models are correct AND even if he were to win large majorities of the undecided vote, he is probably a little bit too far behind to catch up. Rather, McCain will need to find some way to eat into some fraction of Obama's decided vote, and because most of Obama's support is quite hard (e.g. enthusiastic), that will not be easy to do."

Surging toward seven hundred thousand

Maybe seven-fifty:

The number of voters casting early ballots surged again on Wednesday, bringing the total to more than half a million votes with two days left of early voting.

In 12 hours of voting at 36 Harris County locations on Wednesday, more than 70,000 people cast ballots — the highest daily total since the polls opened Oct. 20.

County voters have already set a record by surpassing the total number of early votes cast in 2004: 411,830.

By the numbers:

• 513,888: the number of people to vote in person at early voting stations so far.
• 49,558: the number of people who have returned mail ballots so far.
• 70,621: the number of people who voted at the polls on Wednesday.
• 66,506: the number of people who voted at the polls on Tuesday.

EVPA (early voting in person), as you can see, has sailed past Clerk Kaufman's initial projection of half-a-mil, so it's easy to predict a final tally of between 700-750,000 votes. The EV boxes that are located in the far-flung suburbs showed the strongest increases in turnout yesterday, while the Inner Loop polls sagged a little. Kuffner has the link to the spreadsheet by polling location and his usual top-notch analysis.

Is this going well enough to satisfy Chairman Birnberg? I'm guessing he's still a little twitchy.

I think a projection without mailed ballots is insufficient, so my prediction is that the 750,000 number gets reached with those, and I also believe that 500K is the low-end of the number of Houstonians who will vote next Tuesday. One point two million total was earlier projected by Harris County election officials, but that was also when they guessed 500,000 would vote early. So if we still are capable of reaching 700,000 on Election Day, that would be a total of 1.45 million Harris County voters.

I'll go 1.5. And I'm hoping that's too big a number for anybody to successfully steal the result.

Republicans say the darndest things

“Redistricting in Texas and throughout the country ensures that Republicans will continue to control the House through 2012. Over time, the Senate -- thanks to those wonderful square states out west -- will trend toward 60 Republicans as the 30 red states elect Republicans and the 20 blue states elect Democrats. The anomaly of four Democratic senators hailing from Republican North and South Dakota will come to an end, as will the Republican-held Senate seat in Rhode Island ..."

"A Bush-Cheney win will lead to Republican governors from Colorado, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New York to compete to be the most Reaganite governor -- a positive result no matter who wins. And a Bush-Cheney win in 2004 will leave Terry McAuliffe and Bill and Hillary in complete and unchallenged control of the Democratic Party at least through 2008. This is good for the Republicans, if not the republic.”

-- Grover Norquist, in early 2005

(The Republican Party) "has become more narrow, more self-serving, more centered around 'I want, I want, I want.' ... (John McCain) "recites memorized pieces of information in a narrow way, whereas Barack Obama is constantly evaluating information, using his judgment. One guy just recites what's in front of him, and the other has initiative and reason and prudence and wisdom."

(I've) had it with colleagues who "don't understand the issues, who not only don't read the Financial Times, they have never heard of the Financial Times."

"We're in this bad place as a country because of the evangelicals, the neocons, the nasty, bitter and mean ... very clever ideological groups that use money, technology, fear and bigotry to lead people around. Voting according to your knowledge and experience -- that's out the window. Competence and prudence? Forget it."

"We've become a country that sits down in front of the boob tube and listens to people shouting about freedom, but now people equate freedom not with the acquisition of knowledge but with comfort." 'Give me my flat-screen TV, the gas-guzzling car, the goods made in China.' The whole concept of freedom has become the idea of comfort, with a complete lack of responsibility."

-- outgoing GOP Congressman Wayne Gilchrist, of Maryland

Isn't it amazing how some of them can be so stupid and some so smart at the same time?

Senate projection: 59-41

Let's show the map for US Senate races and the guess here for a filibuster-proof 60, which is coming up one vote short with a week to go.

Mark Begich over convicted Ted Stevens in AK, Mark Udall over Bob Schaffer in CO, Al Franken over Norm Coleman in MN, Kay Hagan over Liddy Dole in NC, Jeanne Shaheen over John Sununu in NH, Tom Udall over Steve Pearce in NM, Jeff Merkley over Gordon Smith in OR and Mark Warner over James Gilmore in VA are eight Democratic pickups, for the 59-41 spread I'm predicting.

That leaves one or two (so we can kick Joe Lieberman to the curb) to come from GA (Jim Martin v. Saxby Chambliss), KY (Bruce Lunsford v. Mitch McConnell), MS (Ronnie Musgrove v. Roger Wicker), and our very own Rick Noriega over John Cornyn.

I think you know which of those I'd wish for the most, but I won't be greedy; I'll take any one of them for the big-picture win.

Harris County GOP's "Love Boat"

Ew. These Republican sexcapades are just TMI:



Ed Emmett thinks that calling this a "culture of corruption" insults the county's low-level employees and workers. Ed, this is a reflection on you. You inherited this mess from Bob Eckels and then did nothing to clean it up. Let's review, courtesy Isiah Carey:

Since Emmett has been the head of Harris County government:

• District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal resigned in disgrace after his racist, sexist and political emails were released. Emmett spent $50,000 in taxpayers money to try to keep the emails secret;
• Sheriff Tommy Thomas has been the subject of media reports about the use of a county vendor to design one of his homes, and the sheriff’s department was accused of circulating racist emails;
• County Commissioner Jerry Eversole announced he expects to be indicted after an FBI investigation of his conduct in office;
• County Attorney Mike Stafford this week was accused of misusing campaign contributions, as well as giving his girlfriend a job in his office and six raises in two years, including a 65 percent raise five weeks after she was hired.
• And now Emmett’s own emails revealed he is using his county office and staff to help manage his campaign, including setting up fundraisers. Emmett is trying to keep an undetermined number of other emails secret, claiming they are “personal.” The Harris County District Attorney is reviewing the Emmett email scandal to determine if any laws were broken.

We have to throw these lecherous bums out, as well as everyone who enabled their continued unacceptable behavior.

Be sure and vote early, and be sure and vote for David Mincberg for County Judge, and C. O. Bradford for District Attorney, and then vote for Adrian Garcia for Sheriff, and Vince Ryan for County Attorney. And finally, vote for Diane Trautman for Tax Assessor/Collector and Loren Jackson for County Clerk.

A couple of downballot races worthy of extra attention

First an update from Alan Bernstein on a top of the ballot race, SD-17 and Chris Bell, the gaggle of squabbling Republicans trying to force him into a runoff, and the big-money player-haters behind them:

Last week, we told you that a single person, Austin-based poiltical consultant Anthony Holm, was on record as Texans for Honesty, a "group" sending voters mail attacking Democrat Chris Bell in his race for a Houston-area state Senate seat.

Now that political action committee has updated its records with the Texas Ethics Commission to show a neatly woven group of heavyweight contributors.

This month the committee got $60,000 from Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, $40,000 from politically connected beer distributor John Nau, $35,000 from Texans for Lawsuit Reform and $17,500 from the Patriot Group, the firm where Holm works and Perry and TLR are clients.

Nau supports one of Bell's Nov. 4 opponents, Republican Joan Huffman. Texans for Lawsuit Reform has given money to a Democrat in the race, Stephanie Simmons. Holm, Perry, Nau and TLR mostly back Republican candidates and causes and obviously are working hard to prevent Bell from getting 50-plus percent of the vote, which would dash the need for a runoff among the top two candidates in a six-candidate field.

"Desperate people do desparate (sic) things," Bell said. He asserted that negative political adveritising (sic) is more toothless than ever this year.

C'mon, Alan. You spelled it right the first time, and I'm sure Chris pronounced it the same way.

Now then, meet Dexter Handy, in an uphill challenge to replace Steve Radack:

In an election where Democrats have a chance to claim several of Harris County's top elected posts, at least one Republican incumbent still seems to enjoy quite a bit of job security: Commissioner Steve Radack.

Radack, who announced his retirement in 2005 only to decide two years later to seek a sixth and, he says, final term, faces retired Air Force Lt. Col. Dexter Handy for the right to represent west Harris County.

County commissioners serve without term limits and enjoy such a tremendous fundraising advantage that they almost never face serious opposition.

Handy, a 28-year military veteran, had just $1,200 in the bank as of early October, after taking in $5,400 in contributions and spending $6,100 between July and late September. Radack, by comparison, had $922,000 in the bank after accepting $39,000 in contributions and spending about the same amount in that time period.

University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray said it would be a "real shock" if an underfunded, relatively unknown Democrat knocked off an entrenched Republican commissioner in a traditionally conservative precinct. However, the results could be unusually close as a growing number of minority families, who often vote Democratic, settle in Houston's western suburbs, Murray said.

"The county is changing," Murray said. "Is there enough change to put a 20-year commissioner in some peril? Probably not, but that's why we have elections."

Most of the Houstonians who've lived in his precinct know what kind of man Radack is. Handy towers over him by comparison ...

Handy, 50, said he would use his expertise in logistics and crisis management to improve communication among law enforcement agencies, diversify transportation options and clean up perceptions that Harris County's contracting system is unfair.

A marathon runner and avid cyclist, Handy is the former commander of a squadron responsible for constructing and renovating buildings and installing telecommunications and computer systems at Air Force sites worldwide.

Handy promised not to accept campaign contributions from anyone doing business with the county, and pledged to push the Legislature to adopt tough new ethics laws. He also said he would thoroughly analyze all requests and proposals for new roads, parks, community centers and other services to ensure they are placed in the right areas, and promised to make those studies public.

He said he also would work to develop seamless communication among the Harris County Sheriff's Office, all eight constables' offices and the Houston Police Department. Houston is not connected to Harris County's large regional public safety radio system, although city leaders recently announced plans to get a new $107 million emergency radio system.

The choice is clear. Let's hope the voters in west Harris County are as well.

Sing the next link in your best imitation of that line from "Best Little Whorehouse": The Texas Board of Education has a right-wing freak upon it ...

Watch out, parents. Democratic State Board of Education candidate Laura Ewing wants to convert your children to Islam.

At least, that's the implication of a campaign ad from her opponent, Republican David Bradley of Beaumont.

"Do you know what the Democrat for State Board of Education supports?" reads the handout, which was disseminated at a recent gathering of the Golden Triangle Republican Women and trumpeted earlier this year at a Republican senatorial convention.

The handout features a 2004 newsletter article documenting the scandalous details: In 2003, Ewing was one of nearly 20 social studies educators who traveled to Africa and India to study (gasp!) Islamic history and culture, with plans to develop curriculum for Texas schoolchildren in sixth-grade world cultures classes and high school-level world geography and history.

Need more proof? Bradley's ad features a photo of Ewing, former teacher, social studies curriculum specialist and Friendswood city councilwoman, caught red-handed, posing in front of the Taj Mahal!

Ewing admits her guilt: Yes, the educator dared to educate herself about Islamic culture, including everything from architecture to poetry.

Why did she do it? She claims it has nothing to do with converting Texas students to Islam, and everything to do with another radical philosophy: "We've got to understand other people because we're a global economy," she says. "We've got to prepare our students for the 21st century."

Where does she get this stuff?

The richest irony has to be that an incumbent on the State Board of Education doesn't understand the difference between Islam and Hinduism, the religion practiced in India.

There is so much wrong with David Bradley -- and for that matter, the entire SBOE -- that there are barely enough pixels on the entire Internet to explain how.

Let's put David Bradley out to pasture in Jasper or Buna or wherever the hell it is he actually lives when he's not crawling out from under a rock.

Lampson, Skelly foundering

In a tidal-change election year, some things will sadly remain the same:

U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Stafford, trailed Republican challenger Pete Olson by 17 percentage points early last week, according to the survey by Zogby International. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, led Democratic challenger Michael Skelly more modestly, by 7 percentage points, with virtually the same margin of error.

In both Republican-friendly districts, a key factor appeared to be the Democratic candidates' inability to run strong among independent voters and cut deeply into the ranks of Republican voters.

Yeah, those would certainly be among the reasons. But another one also is that both men blew off the Democratic activist base in their districts by hewing hard to the right. Their attempts to lure Republican votes cost them both badly-needed blockwalkers and phone-bankers.

For his part Lampson has strongly supported the Iraq war, changed his mind to favor offshore drilling, and has touted his Blue Doggishness and desertion of the Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives as a "centrist" position, unbeholden to Speaker Pelosi.

The Republicans called bullshit anyway of course, and Nick hasn''t been able to make his (quite good) case of representing the 22nd District effectively.

Skelly meanwhile pissed all over MoveOn when they had a rally outside Culberson's office earlier this year. He has similarly proclaimed his enthusiastic support for "driling everywhere now". He calculated this was a necessity in a district that is home to Houston's energy corridor.

That was a miscalculation, in my opinion. Very comparable, I would say, to John McLame's picking Sarah Palin as V-P: a short-term gain which turned into a 4th-quarter drag.

Whatever votes Skelly and Lampson may have picked up by pandering to the Right with their conservative positions simply wasn't worth the grassroots support it cost them. No amount of millions in TV advertising affected this simple truth.

See, Republicans may cast a ballot but they aren't doing the blockwalks and phonebanks to help get the Democratic vote out for these guys. Even in a landmark election year -- when Democrats will likely retake several Harris County executive slots and judgeships, the rising blue tide won't be enough to lift Lampson and Skelly. They tied themselves to a red anchor.

Are there just too many damned Republicans in the 22nd and 7th Districts? Yes, there are. That's the way Tom DeLay and Tom Craddick drew them, after all. That will change in 2010 with a Democratic majority in the Texas House, though.

But the impact of Democratic activists -- yes, the liberals and progressives who put out the signs and electioneer the polls and attend the rallies and work our precincts -- who are lukewarm about a Democrat who tries too hard to look like a Republican, even in a Republican-leaning district, cannot be underestimated.

We know that when the voters have a choice between a real Republican and a pretend one, they'll vote for the real one every single time.

Truthfully -- and unfortunately for Lampson and Skelly -- there's too many Blue Dogs in the Congress as it is. The good news is that those conservative Democrats will likely be marginalized after November, but they are still rogues in the party. Nancy Pelosi is at fault here for not enforcing caucus discipline; she gives them carte blanche to run off the reservation if they feel they need to, so they do. It just looks a big bunch of pandering to Republicans.

You don't see any GOP Congresspersons acting too much like Democrats, do you? They get kicked out of the Republican party for that.

The reason Congress has approval ratings in the single digits is because many Democratic voters are highly displeased with the Democrats in Congress for refusing to stand up against the abuses of power of the Bush administration, among those issues torture and wiretapping. The reticence to end the war (Lampson) and the enthusiastic endorsement by a wind energy gazillionaire of "drill baby drill" (Skelly) show up as the straws that break the blue camel's back.

In the "More and Better Democrats" math, it looks like we'll have enough after next week. Now we need to make sure that the ones that get elected are the best Democrats they can be.