"An old-fashioned Texas Democrat with the right voice for these new times"

Solid:

Come January, the halls of Congress will likely be populated by strengthened Democratic majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Texas will need able representation in all arenas in that shifting legislative environment.

It will be especially important for Texans to have a strong, respected voice inside the expected Democratic majority in the Senate. Rick Noriega offers such a voice, with a distinctive Lone Star tone and perspective. The Chronicle endorses Noriega for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Republican John Cornyn.

The contrast on the issues follows the logic ...

(The term "Texas Democrat"), once common currency in the state's political conversation, seems to have fallen out of favor over the past several Republican-dominated years. But it resonates once more in this season of voter discontent with partisanship uber alles. Some old-fashioned moderate bipartisanship, Texas style, should be much welcomed in the Washington debate, particularly on overheated topics such as energy and immigration. Rick Noriega can provide it.

Noriega well understands that there are subjects on which Texas Democrats must stand apart from the party's national leadership. Energy is one. He is committed to bringing the message that the nation will need new domestic oil and gas supplies as it builds a bridge to greater energy independence and increased reliance on alternative energy sources. He will be able to point out in a forceful and personal way the folly of relying almost exclusively on hurricane-prone areas of the Gulf for supplies when abundant reserves can be tapped on the East and West coasts with little risk to the environment.

On immigration, Noriega is in step with traditional Texas views of tolerance and a warm embrace of cultural differences, rooted in respect for the law. He will bring calm and reason to the national debate.

This rundown is devastating to the incumbent, and the Chron notes:

...John Cornyn also has been a too-loyal foot soldier for the Bush administration, willing to make a right turn off the cliff in support of fatally flawed policies on Iraq and torture, as well as casting improvident votes on a host of social issues. Unlike Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, he is not known for his attention to constituent services.

Over the years, Noriega has worked his way up through the ranks. He has distinguished himself as a soldier in Afghanistan and on the Texas-Mexico border, and as an elected official in Austin. During Hurricane Ike, he performed duty above and beyond the call helping those in need at the George R. Brown Convention Center. He richly deserves a promotion to Washington.

Noriega is showing himself to be the model of an effective Democrat — a centrist, moderate Texas Democrat — in a time when most voters are sick of political extremes. As such, he may one day set the standard for what a strong Texas senator can be.

The Senate seat contested by Cornyn and Noriega has an impressive pedigree. Prior to Cornyn it was held by Phil Gramm, John Tower and Lyndon Johnson. Noriega would make a worthy successor.

Rick Noriega reflects the new face of Texas while speaking in the welcome tones of moderation that are a tradition worth reviving. The Chronicle urges a vote for Noriega for U.S. Senate.

Freeper heads exploded on impact.

Double the early vote

A total of 39,201 votes were cast Monday in Harris County, a record turnout almost double that of 2004's first day and one that was mirrored across Texas. The precise total of ballots case in the state's 15 most populous counties will not be known until today, but the number certainly will eclipse the 145,000 from four years ago.

I lined up at my usual early voting location, the Fiesta supermarket on South Main -- nearly in the shadow of Reliant Stadium (and next to the old Astrodome) -- at 1:30 p.m yesterday. I guessed that there must have been at least two hundred people ahead of me.

That has never been the case before, not even during the primary in March . I have never waited more than about ten minutes to vote (though when my wife cast her primary ballot on the only Saturday of the early voting period, she had to wait about thirty minutes).

Across Harris County, the scene ranged from subdued to circuslike as thousands of citizens lined up to vote. Some arrived hours before the polls opened, drawn, they said, by national crisis and a sense of history.

"Our ancestors died for us to be in line this day," said Bernadette McWilliams, who joined about 100 others in a largely African-American group waiting for poll doors to open at Palm Center in the 5300 block of Griggs Road.

Read the full piece about the heavy turnout across Texas, as well as the problems reported with voting machines.

Early Voting Wrangle

It's the first day of the early voting period in Texas, and here's this week's edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance's weekly round-up, compiled for me by Vince from Capitol Annex.

The Texas Cloverleaf took part in Blog Action Day this past Wednesday. Find out how you can combat poverty in your neck of the woods.

Bay Area Houston listed the fines for state representatives and senators issued by the Texas Ethics Commission in 2007 and 2008. Enjoy!

jobsanger discusses voting and registration. He says the E-Voting Can't Be Trusted without a paper trail, and ACORN Is Not Committing Fraud in their effort to register over a million new voters.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that state rep. John Davis (R-Clear Lake) is misleading voters about his poor record on education in his newest mailer, and that the mainstream media is calling John Cornyn's performance in the final debate "less than senatorial."

In the first of a series of posts on past presidential elections, Neil at Texas Liberal offers up Who I Would Have Supported For President 1788-1820.

WhosPlayin goes off on a Republican county chair who thinks a candidate's sexual preference is more important than the substance of his ideas.

Off the Kuff takes a look at why some people won't be able to cast their ballot during the first few days of early voting.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants a fair election without Republican voter suppression and questionable electronic voting machines.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the fake controversy about voter "registration" fraud: Gone nuts about ACORN. And Diana Maldonado released her first TV ad this week: HD-52: Diana Maldonado is on TV in "Texas' Comeback".

Now that McBlogger has torn him a new cesspool, Joe The Plumber's fifteen minutes of fame are OVER.

North Texas Liberal dissects Obama's wide lead on McCain in the polls and the projected electoral map. Also, former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Obama for president. (Start following us on Twitter for mini-updates and breaking news!)

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News has put up his Early Voting Info post but also announced he is rapidly becoming a clueless Cassandra.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is sad to recognize that Sex Scandals, Scams, Phishing and Your Bank Accountare signs of deeper disorders. Power, Money and Sex are hopelessly intertwined with EGO.

Justin at AAA-Fund Blog laments the loss of Gordon Quan as a future candidate.

Burnt Orange Report takes a look into the numbers of the latest poll in the U.S. Senate race and tells why it might be even closer than it looks.

Over at TexasKaos, fake consultant discovers a Gaint Load of Hooey in one of THOSE emails. Just for fun, he investigates the "facts". The result is an education in how desperate the McCain-Palin crowd have become.

EV 10/19: Blue Mizzou

Missouri looks like it's going for Obama, noted in the recent polling as well as the 100,000 people who showed up for an Obama rally in St. Louis and 75,000 in Kansas City yesterday. As Greg notes, that last happened in 2004 in Madison, WI and The Boss was involved. There's also some evidence that North Dakota and West Virginia are very close, but I simply cannot believe that either state has a legitimate chance to go Democratic.

Two weeks to go and it appears this election is coming in for a landing.

<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>

Sunday Funnies

Texas SOS, Harris registrar fall behind in processing voter registrations

But I'm sure there will be plenty of provisional ballots available:

Thousands of Texans who registered to vote a few weeks ago likely will find their names missing from official voter lists when early voting starts Monday for the Nov. 4 election, officials said.

The voters will be allowed to cast ballots but may have to fill out special forms at polling stations or wait a few days before voting, according to state and Houston-area election administrators.

Officials blame a deadline-beating rush of registration applications before Oct. 6, and maintenance to a computer database of Social Security numbers, for the fact that many registrations won't be processed in time for the early voting kickoff.

But praise be, tax assessor-collector/voter registrar Paul Bettencourt indicates that only 7000 Houston-area voters may be affected:

In Houston, about 70 employees in the voter registrar's office will work through the weekend to clear most of a backlog of about 30,000 applications, Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt said Friday. Some will turn out to be valid, others duplicates or address changes for voters on the rolls.

But, he said, perhaps 7,000 applications from Harris County residents will require extra verification and probably won't be cleared before Monday, the first of 12 days of early voting at 36 county locations.

The Secretary of State's Office in Austin must also verify the applications, using driver's license and partial Social Security numbers, before voters are added to lists in each county of qualified voters. But as the state agency works through the weekend to handle applications submitted by counties, it will take about 24 hours to approve each new voter.

"We were keeping up very well with the increased load, but we started to run a little behind when the Social Security Administration closed their (computer program) down for maintenance last weekend," said Ashley Burton, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Hope Andrade. "Since the start of October there has been a huge increase in the number of new voter records that the counties have submitted for verification."

No information was available on the database outage, a Social Security spokeswoman in Dallas said Friday. Nor were statistics available from the state on what Burton called applications from "large amounts of new voters" outside Harris County.

So as the conservatives continue to drive themselves nuts over ACORN, the voter suppression efforts contine to be the real story locally. Bettencourt says that ten thousand people missed the deadline to vote in this election (note also the statistics I bolded below for future reference):

Many Harris County residents may not realize, until they try to vote, that their registrations were submitted or mailed too late for the Oct. 6 deadline.

About 10,000 such registrations will be added to the rolls for future elections, Bettencourt said, but those voters will be unqualified to vote in the Nov. 4 election for president, Congress, county officers and other government positions.

About 1.94 million voters will be eligible to cast ballots this year in Harris County, roughly the same number for the last presidential election. The statewide voter roll has edged up to 13.4 million, about 300,000 more than last time.

The Harris County election administrator, County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, said 300 or so staffers at early voting locations are prepared to assist residents who want to vote even though they may be missing from registration records.

For voters who present a voter registration card or other identification — no photo ID is needed — but whose name is absent from the voter rolls, election workers first will call Bettencourt's office to see if their registrations have been approved, Kaufman said. In many cases, voters will immediately be cleared to vote.

Voters whose names are not on the lists may also vote immediately after swearing, in a written provisional ballot form, that they registered. But their votes will be separated from the main ballot record, Kaufman said, and will be counted after Nov. 4, if their registration is verified.

Or perhaps they won't be counted at all. Seriously.

I'm going to do a little shouting now.

If your name does not appear on the voter roll when you go to vote, PLEASE DO NOT FILL OUT A PROVISIONAL BALLOT. Leave the polling place and call this number: 1-866-OUR VOTE (687-8683).

This is also why you should vote early; so that if there are "issues" with your registration, they can be cleared up -- hopefully -- in time for you to cast a ballot that counts (with at least as much faith as we are able to place in electronic voting systems, anyway). You don't want to be experiencing this circumstance at 6:45 p.m. on Election Day.

And remember when you do vote that Bettencourt's Democratic challenger is Dr. Diane Trautman.

Update: Charles Kuffner has more on why this is a problem in the very first place. Shorter version: it's all about the Bettencourt.

Michele Bachman contributes $100K to her Democratic challenger

A little over twelve hours ago, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Freakshit, Minn.) appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and declared that the media should investigate the anti-Americans in the US Congress, a delirium furthered as part of the delusion the McLame campaign has suffered from: the one that variously questions Barack Obama's patriotism.

As a result of Bachmann's grinning McCarthy-like hate-filled spew, we "goonbats in the liberal blogosphere" began publicizing her wingnut asshattery. Which resulted in online contributions to Bachmann's Democratic opponent, the one and only Elwyn Tinklenberg, of nearly $100,000 as of this posting. See update below.

What this says about the infrastructure of the modern progressive movement is nothing short of amazing to me.

A scant four years ago, John Kerry was paralyzed as this same line of Swift Boats attacked his honor. The media did not effectively push back against the lies, and there certainly was no coordinated response from Kerry's supporters, online or off.

To be certain, Kerry himself should have fought back harder. But Barack Obama and his campaign has had nothing to do with the Bachmann matter; this has been an instant reaction to the rantings of lunatic Republican in favor of her obscure Democratic challenger in the form of cold, hard cash from the netroots.

Matthews challenged Bachmann's ludicrous assertions straight away; Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow followed up on their subsequent MSNBC programs, and Daily Kos advanced the response by picking up the YouTubes of Bachmann's playing kissyface with Bush, then denouncing him more recently as his popularity withered. The left's leading blog also found and posted Tinklenberg's site and publicly called for donations. The rest of us spread the message on Democratic Underground and elsewhere around the blogosphere.

If you went out to dinner last night, you missed the whole thing. On Friday, October 17, the twenty-first century progressive movement hit fifth gear, and trust me, it is zooming like a Porsche.

Update (10/19): $488,000 in 24 hours, with almost 250K of that coming online.