Cut-and-run Janek

He pulled the chain because he knew he couldn't win re-election in a new, Democratic Texas in 2010:

Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Houston, announced today that he was resigning his Senate seat, effective June 2, to spend more time with his family.

The resignation date, he acknowledged, is different from the March 10 timetable he gave Senate colleagues in a conference phone call on Monday. He said he prolonged his departure to give more potential candidates time to consider a race to succeed him and to give voters in District 17 more time to consider their options.

A March 10 resignation would have allowed Gov. Rick Perry to schedule a special election on May 10 to fill out the remainder of Janek's term, which expires in January 2011. A June 2 resignation means the governor could either set the special election on the same day as the November general election, which is the next uniform election date, or declare an emergency and set a special election sometime after June 2.

There's plenty of time for aspiring politicos to line up their ducks. Such as ...

Former Harris County Republican Chairman Gary Polland, state Rep. Charlie Howard, R-Sugar Land, and state Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston, have said they will consider a Senate race.

Polland and Howard -- along with extremist Dennis Bonnen of Angleton -- would be steps backward for the residents of SD-17. Hochberg would be a tremendous addition to the Texas Senate.

Kuffner has the numbers that show another seat (two actually; Janek's and Hochberg's House one) ripe to flip, particularly if it makes it onto the ballot in a presidential election year.

Ten reasons to vote for John Edwards

By voting for Edwards, you...

1. Reward and advance progressivism.
We can argue about candidates' voting records and try to gauge their instincts, but there's no question that Edwards has run the most progressive campaign. The proof is plentiful. He's embraced unions, the blogosphere, and the progressive movement as a whole. The stated and demonstrated rationale is to fight economic injustice; rhetorically and substantively, he's run the most populist presidential campaign in years. On every major issue--taxes, climate change, health care, foreign policy, trade, you name it--he's embraced policies more progressive than his rivals. He alone rejects nuclear power and the Global War on Terror frame. He alone opposes expanding the NAFTA model to South America. He alone has called on the Democratic Party to do what he's done his entire career: say no to K-Street cash. The better a progressive campaign does, the stronger progressivism becomes. To vote for Edwards is to increase the chance that progressivism becomes dominant in the party and the country.

2. Pull the race to the left.
There may not be a blogger, pundit, or publication that hasn't recognized the influence of Edwards. Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein, Dean Baker, Robert Bosorage, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Jonathan Tasini, Jonathan Singer, Matt Ygelsias, The Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Rolling Stone (among many others: they all point out the obvious: that Edwards has tugged the race to the left. And should he remain a factor in the race he'll continue to do so. To cite just on concrete example, the McCain-Lieberman global warming bill (better known as the great corporate giveaway of 2008) may come to the Senate floor during the race. With Edwards having announced his early opposition to it, Obama (who originally sponsored the bill) and Clinton will have little choice but to vote against it. Recently Edwards used his platform to make the homelessness of vets a topic of national discussion and this week he'll travel to New Orleans to give a speech about poverty. Remember New Orleans? Neither Obama nor Clinton have been talking about it much. I have a feeling they will be soon, though.

3. Preserve the possibility of (an unlikely) victory.
There are several elaborate scenarios by which Edwards could capture the nomination. Some involve the implosion of one or both of the other candidates. Others involve buyers' remorse combined with JRE's resiliency and the respect it engenders. Others involve a surprise victory in Oklahoma next week. Others involve potential Edwards strength in the March 4th states of Texas and Ohio. Others involve the prospect of a McCain nomination and a renewed focus on electability. Others involve a deadlocked convention at which Clinton or Obama agrees to back Edwards in return for the VP slot. Make no mistake, an Edwards victory is highly unlikely, but if you don't believe in long shots, why bother being a progressive?

4. Make Edwards kingmaker (or platform editor).
The more delegates he wins, the more power Edwards will have to shape the race and the party's identity. He could perhaps swing his support to the candidate more willing to embrace progressive policies or rewrite the party's platform to include stronger anti-poverty and pro-labor measures. Who knows? Maybe he'd even force the party to commit to refusing K-Street cash. One can dream.

5. Reject the self-fulfilling nominating system driven by polls, pundits, and money.
There's something disturbing, Orwellian and tautological, about the notion that Edwards can't win because pundits say he can't win. A relative few have voted. Until someone wins anyone can win. Do you want to uphold such an regressive system that effectively lets the media and the establishment choose our choices? Do you want to be another brick in the wall or part of the bulldozer the knocks the wall down? Over at Daily Kos, Bruce McF has been doing a great job making the philosophical and political case for supporting Edwards. Our current system of picking out leaders is self-fulfilling, but so is populism. Listen to Bruce:

Populist movements don't build themselves, they grow from a process of people learning how to support a series of populist campaigns in a populist way, rather than as passive consumers of candidates produced and marketed to win the greatest market share in the electoral marketplace.

It doesn't matter what the "horse race" outcome of the campaign is, if we fight the campaign. Fighting it, we learn how to fight. Learning how to fight political battles, we become citizens again. Becoming citizens again, we reclaim the Republic that lies dormant beneath the bread and circuses of modern American society.

6. Sign on to a movement.
His message isn't going away, nor is his core of support. His support may evolve into an organization -- a more powerful version of PDA, which grew out of the Kucinich campaign. In any case, his online and real world supporters will continue to organize and agitate, to fight both corporate Republican and Democrats.

7. Increase the likelihood of a brokered convention, which would be good for Democrats.
Don't believe the lie that it's essential for the party to settle on a nominee early. Drama creates interest creates viewers created voters. If the convention were an actual event rather than a choreographed variety show, ratings would go through the roof. That can only be good for the party.

8. Piss off the establishment.
Pundits and the party power structure want Edwards to go away, not least because he's John Edwards. You have a great chance to piss them off; what else really do you need to know?

9. Do something good for your soul.
If you take to his message of economic justice and enlightened populism, maybe you should say so with a vote. Maybe if you're inclined to support him you should vote for him precisely because you're inclined to do so. Maybe there's something healthy and soul-enriching about voting for the candidate you like the most. Maybe it's better -- cleaner -- to vote affirmatively rather than strategically.

10. Come Up with Your Own Reason (I ran out of time but didn't want to change the title)

Disrespectful non-handshakes aside ...

... the best line of the SOTU (I nearly type STFU every single time) goes to my man John:

"Even he and his people admit it's gonna take months for this stimulus to actually kick in," said Edwards before a buoyant crowd of over 400 people (in Nashville, TN). "The truth of the matter is, it is so important that between now and January of 2009 that we stand up to this president, that we stand up for what's right, that we don't let him continue to make it so hard for the middle class."

Earlier in Chattanooga, Edwards said, "I think a lot of us know what the state of the union is."

"And the president will walk into the Congress, to the United States House of Representatives, and he'll give a speech about his stimulus plan to try to stimulate the economy.

"And you know what'll happen is he'll go in there and the Congress - who kinda quit listening to him a while back - but they'll all stand up, cheer, clap. You know, the truth is that Washington is out of touch with what's happening here in the real world."

Let's help him reach this modest goal today.

A victory today on FISA

Great work by everyone today ... with the possible exception of the waffling, prevaricating Louisiana Democrat, Mary Landrieu. smintheus has the synopsis:

Well this afternoon we won a second improbable victory against the FISA bill that rewards telecoms for joining George Bush in breaking the law. The Republicans didn't come close to invoking cloture against Sen. Chris Dodd's filibuster. In fact, they couldn't muster even 50 votes. Cloture attracted only 48 votes (to 45 against).

Republicans then blocked a Democratic attempt to move ahead to a vote to add another thirty days to the temporary FISA extension, which is set to expire next week. Democrats wanted to allow the Senate some time to debate the complicated issues surrounding FISA legislation. Republicans, by contrast, did not think it right that a deliberative body should devote any more time to actual deliberation. Instead, they said, they feared that Bush would veto any such extension. It's is as good an excuse as they've ever come up with for doing nothing.

So tomorrow at 2:00 PM EST the Senate will resume debate on the Intelligence Committee's version of the FISA bill -- the one that provides for retroactive immunity for telecoms. And presumably Dodd's filibuster will resume as well.

Tomorrow Democrats in the House may attempt to pass their own version of a thirty-day extension and then pass it on to the Senate. If so, McConnell may be forced to permit a vote on a similar bill.

There are plenty of plaudits to go around today: To Chris Dodd for organizing an effective and critical push back against the Bush administration's further aggrandizement of its nearly monarchical powers; to nearly all Democrats in the Senate for standing foursquare with Dodd (apart from three four who voted with Republicans: Senators Pryor, Ben Nelson (NE), and Landrieu, and Lincoln); to Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama for returning to Washington for the vote; to Sen. Lieberman for staying out of DC while he campaigns for a Republican presidential candidate.

And to voters who made their voices heard in the Capitol. A lot of people were skeptical in December, when activists began organizing this effort to support the Dodd filibuster, that it was possible to budge a cynical Senate back in the direction of upholding the rule of law. Two victories later, those doubts should be at an end.

How many will wear them?

For seven long years, Preztledent Bush's lickspittles in Congress helped push forward his failed conservative agenda. This week Americans United for Change began delivering "I’m a Bush Republican" buttons to all of the Republicans in the House and Senate, in advance of Bush’s final State of the Union Address today, with this message: "Your votes helped build his legacy; you should show your support for him by proudly declaring that you’re a Bush Republican."



Tonight, as cameras scan the House Chamber during the State of the Union Address, we’ll see how many Republicans -- those who have voted for Bush’s policies on Iraq, the economy, energy and health care -- are willing to put their lapels where there votes have been and wear a button with this simple message: "I’m a Bush Republican."

Will Senator $7.5 Million Corndogs wear it? How about Kay Bailey? Will John Cumbersome? What about Goofy Louie Gohmert or Kevin "DWI/flak jacket in church" Brady?

Taking a drink for each button you spot in the crowd is not the official SOTU drinking game. THIS is.

FISA. Today.

Jane Hamsher at firedoglake breaks the good news that both Senators Clinton and Obama will be on the floor this afternoon to vote against McConnell's cloture vote on the Intelligence Committee's pro-telco amnesty FISA bill.

This is good news for keeping the fight going, and good news for us. Citizen action, our pressure, is making a difference. The massive push back from the left has actually succeeded in throwing a monkey wrench into the works. That's not yet an out and out win, but it's movement in the right direction. Defeating this cloture vote is more movement. Forcing either a short-term extension of the PAA or letting the bill lapse altogether buys more time, and more opportunity, as Glenn Greenwald explains.

Even just a two-week or one-month extension will allow more time to marshall the opposition to telecom immunity and a new FISA bill and to do what's possible to encourage the House to stand firm behind their bill -- in exactly the way that the Dodd delay in December prevented quick and easy resolution. The longer this drags on without resolution, the more possible it is to push the opposition to a tipping point, and sometimes unexpected developments or even some luck (such as McConnell's overplaying his hand on Thursday) can prevent it all from happening.

As the events of the last two months demonstrate, if citizen opposition is channeled the right way, it can make a genuine difference in affecting the course of events in Washington. Defeating telecom immunity will keep alive the lawsuits that will almost certainly reveal to some extent what the Government did in illegally spying on Americans over the last six years or, at the very least, produce a judicial adjudication as to its illegality. And, in turn, the effects from that could be extremely significant. Because victories are so rare, it's easy to get lulled into believing that none of these campaigns are ever effective and that citizens can never affect any of it, which is precisely why it's so important to remind ourselves periodically of how untrue that proposition is.

So keep pushing, all the way to until 3:30 this afternoon (CST).

The Senators we need to convince are those who voted with the Republicans to table the Leahy substitute amendment, the version of the bill that contained all of those protections and did NOT allow telco amnesty. One of them, Rockefeller, has already said he'll vote no on cloture. Call the rest of the Senators and tell them to stand with their majority on today's cloture vote and vote no.

• Bayh (202) 224-5623
• Carper (202) 224-2441
• Inouye (202) 224-3934
• Johnson (202) 224-5842
• Landrieu (202)224-5824
• McCaskill (202) 224-6154
• Mikulski (202) 224-4654
• Nelson (FL) (202) 224-5274
• Nelson (NE) (202) 224-6551
• Pryor (202) 224-2353
• Salazar (202) 224-5852

In addition, call or e-mail your own Senators. Both CREDO and EFF have great tools to make it easy.

The Weekly Wrangle

Time for another edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance's weekly blog round-up, compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex, with thanks to Charles from Off The Kuff for assistance.

Off the Kuff looks at the woes of the Harris County GOP and what it may mean in November.

North Texas will have one less class II commercial injection well pumping toxic soup underground, reported by TXsharon on Bluedaze.

TXDOT has dug itself into quite a hole by using your money to lobby for the Trans-Texas Corridor, and to pay for an advertising campaign to sell the wildly unpopular toll road to the citizens of Texas. McBlogger has the details and a great video.

Hal at Half Empty got his TI-83 out and ran the numbers on the presidential primaries. Conclusion? Texas has a chance to crown a king (or queen).

WhosPlayin? looks at the case of a teen brought up on charges for "huffing" hand sanitizer and is frustrated at the lack of discretion caused by "zero-tolerance" policies.

The action plan for Monday's FISA-with-telecom-immunity legislation is contained in PDid's post at Brains and Eggs. Don't strain your dialing finger, and don't forget to call Senators Corndog and Hutch. It's a waste of time, yes, but they still need to hear from us.

NYTexan at BlueBloggin explains who Voters, Pledged Delegates and Super Delegates are and how they influence the Democratic party nomination at the convention.

Are you a MOTO? If not, you will be after reading State Sen. Kirk Watson's guest blog this week at Capitol Annex.

North Texas Liberal reveals which celebrity is destroying the planet... and no, it's not Britney Spears.

Could we be looking at the first upward trend in labor membership since 1983? The Texas Blue thinks we just might be.

Sunday Funnies (nap time edition)

GOP begins to coalesce around ... Romney?!

Donklephant:

Looks like they’re incredibly scared of what a McCain nomination would look like, so they’re rallying around Mitt. It’s puzzling to me, especially when they railed Kerry for being such a flip flopper in 2004, but these are the times we live in and what was wrong then is now, ahem, right.

Personally, I think it’s an incredibly bad move because McCain is really the only Republican who can pull the swing voter into the Republican tent this year, but hey ... they’ve gotta do what they’ve gotta do.

A remarkable and completely unforeseen development by me. More proof that I can no longer even remotely think like a Republican (thank Jeebus).

It's turning on a matter of who-knows-best on the economy versus the Iraq war:

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist, casts himself as a business-savvy economic turnaround artist amid recession anxiety, while McCain, the Arizona senator and former Vietnam veteran, portrays himself as a courageous wartime commander in chief in a dangerous world.

"He has an enormous disadvantage when it comes to the topics of changing Washington or fixing our economy," Romney said Sunday, arguing that he is far stronger than McCain on both issues.

Countered McCain: "Even if the economy is the, quote, No. 1 issue, the real issue will remain America's security" — and, unlike him, Romney is deficient in that area.

Florida will be the end of the line for 9iu11ani and Huckababee. But Mittens and Maverick may battle it out all the way to the convention, like their Democratic counterparts.

Sunday Funnies (brunch edition)

Click for bigger and read all the panels, because they're even better than usual this week.

Outta Carolina

Let's go to Jerome for some what-SC-means-going-forward insight (recall as you read the following that Florida, by virtue of having moved up its primary in defiance of the DNC, has lost its certification of delegates):

The Clintons seem to have seen this blowout coming, they yesterday released PR's announcing Bill Clinton would be Kansas City, and Hillary Clinton in Nashville (last night).

This now sets up a PR/expectations battle over Florida on Tuesday. After Obama went up on the air in a national buy in Florida, the Clintons seemed to have said off-the-record that the agreement (not to campaign there) was off, but on the record they remained committed to it. On Friday, they released this PR about Florida, saying a few things in it:

1. Clinton will ask that the FL & MI delegates be seated (though not exactly clarifying as to when/if their delegates are to be counted toward the nomination).

2. That Clinton will continue abiding to the pledge to not campaign in Florida.

3. That Clinton expects others will as well.

Obama got the huge victory and momentum that he wanted out of South Carolina. With a double-digit lead in the polls heading in, it was expected, but still -- it comes with momentum. What does he do with it, especially in regards to Florida?

He could either continue to ignore Florida, ask the press too as well, and hope that it doesn't matter. Or Obama could go long and head into Florida, breaking the pledge that it doesn't matter any longer (which #3 above is trying to head off).

Neither is that great of a choice for Obama. Ignoring it sets up a process story over the next three days that ends in Clinton's favor; and his campaigning in Florida the next three days is risky because he's been behind in the polls and it would up the stakes.

Everyone would bet that the Obama campaign has already made up its mind and will ignore Florida, like he did Michigan. I don't really see how that's a winning strategy for Obama. Florida is different, first because Obama is on the ballot in Florida, and second, because it's Florida. Obama has won SC by a 20-percent plus blowout, but Clinton will be able to reverse that claim in FL. And what matters more, FL or SC? In the first big state to have a primary, a week ahead of Feb 5th, Clinton will be seen as victor over Obama.

Update: Clinton reneges on her agreement to stay out of Florida. It's only a victory speech after polls are closed, but belies the sore loser/ ungracious winner behavior Mrs. Clinton is making a habit of. This is more of the Atwater/Rove style of politics we're accustomed to now. Look for more sliming of Obama next week.

Super Duper Tuesday is where Mrs. Clinton regains the upper hand. Unless the Obama tsunami has greater extension than I think. And it could, if Frank Rich is right:

(Now that Obama has won South Carolina) -- the party needs him to stop whining about the Clintons’ attacks, regain his wit and return to playing offense. Unlike Mrs. Clinton, he would unambiguously represent change in a race with any Republican. If he vanquishes Billary, he’ll have an even stronger argument to take into battle against a warrior like McCain.

And John Edwards salvaged a bit of good news out of his home state (which he won four years ago) with his 18% showing and a handful of delegates. This benchmark, repeated in every state from here on, solidifies the kingmaker strategy that is left to him.

Sunday Funnies (breakfast edition)