More Sunday Funnies

Obama and the Mil-Gen vote

Noted but worth emphasizing:

Not only did Clinton lose to Barack Obama by an almost six to one margin among Millennial Generation (those under 25) caucus attendees, but also her weakness in this age group was the key to her overall loss among women. While Hillary carried the over 45 female vote 36%-24%, Obama won women under 45 by a 50%-21% margin and the surprisingly strong turnout among young caucus goers turned that margin into an overall defeat among the female constituency Hillary was counting on the most. Had she and her team only read their history, they wouldn't have been surprised by this outcome.

Plenty more in a variety of tangents at the link, but the youth vote phenomenon belonging to Barack is what I'll pause on with some anecdotal evidence.

I have a nephew who is a freshman at Texas A&M. (I probably don't need to mention that A&M is the most politically conservative public university in the state, if not the nation, do I?) He comes from an Aggie legacy on his mother's side; his father, my younger brother, is a staunch Republican who works for a defense contractor and lives in a suburb of Fort Worth. My nephew spent the past summer interning with my older brother the lawyer (and Republican) here in Houston. When I asked him over the holidays who he planned to cast his first presidential vote for, he said "Obama". The only 'why' we got into was that he had attended an Obama function while he was here and was impressed. Suffice it to say I was surprised (not as much as the rest of the people at the table, though).

And I spent some time over lunch this past week with a prominent Af-Am Democratic activist, also an attorney with a long history of civil rights advocacy. In short he doesn't think the country is ready for a black president, and doesn't think Obama is the right man for the job in any event (not progressive enough -- he, like me, supports Edwards).

Maybe we just both discount Obama's obvious personal appeal; the feature that also obviously resonates with younger voters. The US electorate tends to favor charismatic presidential candidates over those with experience -- exhibits A, B, and C: JFK over Nixon, Reagan over GHW Bush, and even Huckabee over the rest of the GOP field.

But the real open question is: will this youth surge sustain itself, carrying Obama to the nomination and the White House? History is strongly against it, but perhaps a variance to the historical trend is happening even as we blog.

Sunday Funnies

Post-Iowa postpourri

--Lots of commentary to be found, but I'll just link two of my local peers Greg and Gary. Gary's is best for both accuracy and agreeableness; Greg is as usual barely comprehensible through his ponderous writing and conservative -- and Hillary -- bias. He keeps up a theme of antagonistically denigrating Edwards and progressives with excessive harshness, which compels me to dismiss most of his take (most of the time), but at least we all agree that Edwards must find a win somewhere to remain viable after February 5. I don't think it will be in South Carolina, and thus I don't see where it will be.

The agent of change (make that progress) this go-round is Barack Obama. And about progress, I'll quote some of an e-mail Open Source Dem, the irregular poster here, sent me late last night:

Please note that in Iowa the people sent out an overwhelmingly insurgent and populist message.

Please also notice that the people running the GOP have wrecked it. They are more interested in maintaining control of their party than actually winning. Does that sound familiar?

Here is Andrew Sullivan, an actual Tory:

Tonight was in many ways devastating news for the GOP. Twice as many people turned out for the Democrats than the Republicans. Clearly independents prefer the Dems.

Now look at how the caucus-goers defined themselves in the entrance polls. Among the Dems: Very Liberal: 18 percent; Somewhat Liberal: 36 percent; Moderate: 40 percent; Conservative: 6 percent. Now check out the Republicans: Very Conservative: 45 percent; Somewhat Conservative: 43 percent; Moderate: 11 percent; Liberal: 1 percent.

One is a national party; the other is on its way to being an ideological church. The damage Bush and Rove have done - revealed in 2006 - is now inescapable.

Let me say the damage our state and local party establishment have done by pandering to non-existent “moderate” Republicans is also very bad. The competition today is between progressive and reactionary populists. The only in-between strategy is exit strategy.

Does that sound familiar?

The young voters Howard Dean needed four years ago finally showed up last night -- tripling their numbers and making the difference for Obama. The overall turnout Democrats to Republicans was 238,000 to 118, 000, or the two-to-one margin Sullivan refers to. (That compares to 122,000 Democrats caucusing in Iowa in 2004.) In an open primary the percentages would look like this:

Percentage of total vote
24.5% Obama
20.5% Edwards
19.8% Clinton
11.4% Huckabee (R)

That's all the omen you need.

-- Christ, Chuck Rosenthal is both drama queen and publicity whore. Just go TF away already, you jerk.

-- New Hampshire votes this Saturday Tuesday. On Saturday the 5th there will be back-to-back GOP and Democratic debates moderated by Charlie Gibson of ABC. And Facebook users can participate in debate groups, discussing the candidates and commenting on the play-by-play. But we'll be down in Galveston meeting the Texas 2008 Democratic slate with Jim Hightower.

Watching the caucuses live

on C-Span. I first caught this four years ago and was fascinated.

FWIW, I'm hoping it's Edwards, Obama, Clinton and then Dodd, but I'm thinking it will be Obama, Edwards, Clinton and then Richardson.

Will update here later with results and some post mortem.

7:45 p.m. A good site for the latest:

www.iowacaucusresults.com

And it currently shows:

Senator John Edwards : 33.18%
Senator Hillary Clinton : 32.47%
Senator Barack Obama : 31.52%
Governor Bill Richardson : 1.90%
Senator Joe Biden : 0.81%
Senator Chris Dodd : 0.07%
Uncommitted : 0.05%
Precincts Reporting: 346 of 1781

8:05 p.m.:

Senator Barack Obama : 33.48%
Senator John Edwards : 31.97%
Senator Hillary Clinton : 31.76%
Governor Bill Richardson : 1.73%
Senator Joe Biden : 0.96%
Senator Chris Dodd : 0.06%
Uncommitted : 0.04%
Precincts Reporting: 750 of 1781

8:30 p.m.:

Senator Barack Obama : 35.78%
Senator John Edwards : 30.69%
Senator Hillary Clinton : 30.52%
Governor Bill Richardson : 1.89%
Senator Joe Biden : 0.98%
Uncommitted : 0.10%
Senator Chris Dodd : 0.03%
Precincts Reporting: 1347 of 1781

9:00 p.m.:

Senator Barack Obama : 37.14%
Senator John Edwards : 30.00%
Senator Hillary Clinton : 29.60%
Governor Bill Richardson : 2.16%
Senator Joe Biden : 0.95%
Uncommitted : 0.13%
Senator Chris Dodd : 0.03%
Precincts Reporting: 1642 of 1781
(Percentages are State Delegate Equivalents.)

Sometimes I hate being right.

A seven-point win is pretty significant. Don't tell Greg, though; he thinks Hillary has already won.

Rosenthal bails

This 180 makes even Jim Rockford jealous:

Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal has withdrawn his name from the Republican ballot for re-election today amid pressure from his own party following last week's release of intimate emails he wrote to his personal assistant.

Rosenthal publicly had rejected the local GOP's call for him to drop his re-election plans or face the prospect of the party endorsing another Republican for the March primary.

His decision to drop out of the election was confirmed about 5:35 p.m. by Michael Wolse, the Harris County Republican Party's primary director.

The story goes on to identify Jim Leitner as filing to run as a Republican. He was mentioned in the story filed this morning:

Two of the potential candidates, according to sources, are defense lawyer and former prosecutor Jim Leitner and former felony court judge Patricia Lykos, who now works for Harris County Judge Ed Emmett. They both ran against Rosenthal in the 2000 Republican primary.

Let's skip to the part that concerns him:

Leitner, who placed third in the 2000 primary, said his experience on both sides of the courtroom would help the perspective of the district attorney's office.

In 2001, Leitner said he thought Harris County prosecutors were overzealous in their pursuit of death sentences against capital murder defendants.

"As long as that is the prevailing view, there are going to be a lot of capital murder prosecutions. People in other counties don't see it that way."

He added, "I think we kill a lot of people who don't fit the statute."

A Republican arguing against the death penalty. No wonder he came in third. Perhaps the climate has softened a little for his candidacy in the GOP this go-round.

That alone would qualify as progress.

Update (1/3, 5:30 a.m.): This morning's story quotes Leitner as saying he'll stand down for a more qualified challenger and names some assistant DAs as potentials ...

Top Rosenthal assistants Marc Brown, Stephen St. Martin and Denise Bradley, formerly Denise Nassar, also went through the interview process with party leaders, along with former state District Judge Patricia Lykos. Brown and Bradley said they will talk with their colleagues about becoming candidates, perhaps with only one emerging from Rosenthal's staff as a consensus choice.

2008 starts badly (IYAR)

*If You're A Republican.

-- Former state representative Nancy Moffat, a three-term incumbent Republican in Tarrant County who was defeated in a primary by the odious Vicki Truitt, will run again for HD-98 ... as a Democrat:

"It wasn't so much that I left the Republican Party as much as it was that the party left me," Moffat said. "They're all about the wealthy, and I want to be for the little guy and the middle guy."

Recall that Dan Barrett in neighboring HD-97 was just elected in a similarly believed-to-be-red district. Recall also why Vicki Truitt is odious:

Truitt is, of course, no favorite of any bloggers thanks to her sad attempts to pass a blogger libel bill last session.

Hat tip to jobsanger here also.

-- It takes a woman's POV to remind us men that Chuck Rosenthal was either stalking his secretary/former girlfriend, or graciously offering her pity sex. He is one hell of a cocksman, if nothing else. Don't miss the takes from the starboard tack.

-- The Chron plays catchup; Democrats are poised to retake Harris County -- particularly the bench -- back...

With contests for president, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and district attorney attracting most of the voters' attention to the top of the 2008 ballot, the races for 25 or more criminal and civil court judgeships likely will be decided based on the candidates' party label rather than public awareness of their performance or qualifications, experts said.

Republicans essentially have reached their voter turnout zenith in Harris County in recent years, University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray said, thanks partly to the drawing power of the Texan president and the party's mobilization of Christian conservatives. Now some Anglo voters, the core of GOP strength, are trickling away to neighboring counties, he added.

Meanwhile, the number of Spanish-surname participating voters, as calculated by the Harris County clerk's office, is booming — on pace to approach 150,000 in 2008. Hispanics already favored the Democratic Party and surveys show that Republican inroads have been blocked by the GOP's image on the immigration issue as punitive.

In the overall Republican vista, "there are no more Anglos to work with," said Murray, who has been informally advising candidates from both parties as they seek data on the 2008 election. "In some ways you run out of bodies. There's no one else out there."

The trends may explain a narrowing of the gap by which Republican judicial candidates won their races in Harris County. On average, these GOP winners hit a high of 56.47 percent in 2002, with the top of the ballot featuring Republican Rick Perry's gubernatorial election stomping of Democratic challenger Tony Sanchez. In 2006, as Perry won with about 38 percent of the statewide vote against three other major candidates, the average posting for local judges seeking re-election in two-way races was 52.17 percent, a 14-year low.

Similar population shifts helped Dallas County Democrats sweep judgeships and other countywide offices in 2006 after the county had been in Republican hands for many years. That surprise reversal serves as an inspiration for Democrats here, and as a warning for Republicans.

-- Mike Huckabee is still having difficulty not stepping in his own shit in Iowa. Yet it appears from the polling this morning that he and Barack Obama may emerge victorious from the cornfields tomorrow evening. Kooch told his caucus-goers to report to Obama, an interesting development in light of a similar move by him four years ago to send them to John Edwards. Whether that is bad news or not for John remains to develop, but it's all bad for Hillary no matter what.

On shortly to New Hampshire for everyone, where John McCain has risen from the dead and Ron Paul has been excluded from a GOP debate there. The cacophony from the Paulistas is of similar pitch to this incessant whine.