Taking "vote twice" too seriously

A sample of sources on the announcement that over 1100 Harris County residents voted twice. Literally:

Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman told reporters this morning that as many as 1,147 people voted twice in the primary earlier this month. Of course, if voters do that "knowingly," they can be prosecuted, and Kaufman is sending a list of names to the Harris County District Attorney's Office.

KHOU:

Some of them, she says, voted in both the Democratic and Republican primaries. Others, she says, voted twice in the same primary.

And more from the Chron:

The list included two groups: 759 voters like Duran who appear to have voted in both the Democratic and Republican primaries. An additional 389 people appear to have voted during the early voting period, and again on election day.

The intense campaigning in Texas, with slogans telling people to "vote twice" or do the "Texas two-step" may have confused people, Kaufman said.

Two interpretations of the facts. First, Mrs Kaufman: “I’m convinced that there are some instances where people had strong feeling on both sides of the aisle where they wanted to vote for a candidate on both ballots thinking they wouldn’t get caught.”

And Gerry Birnberg, the Harris County Democratic Party chair: “Those people who actually voted in the Republican primary and then tried to mess with Democratic primary committed crimes, and they should be prosecuted.”

Recall that I wrote earlier about speaking with someone who is probably on the list at the DA's office.

More to the point: which group of voters do you suspect would have been motivated to vote in both the Democratic and Republican primaries? Let's see, wasn't it Rush Limbloat who urged his sheep to cross over and vote for Hillary in the Democratic primary? Surely Rush's Houston following wouldn't be so eager to follow their leader as to break the law, would they?

Maybe they thought: since this is Texas, only the "Democrat party" would be investigated for "vote fraud."

The Clinton effect downballot

This has been my axe to grind for quite some time, as regular readers will attest. But there have been protests from some quarters that there is no empirical evidence (i.e., polling) to reflect the accuracy of the postulate that Clinton negatively impacts downballot races.

Let's overlook the assumption that polling is empirical for the moment -- it may be math but it's less science than people claim -- and just consider the history. Chuck Todd (bold emphasis mine):

Simply take a look at Bill Clinton's record from '92 to '00 and you’ll understand why they're having a harder time corralling party activists and elected officials to their side.

Remember, when his name was on the ballot ('92 and '96) the Democratic party lost Senate seats both times. Never mind the beating the party took in '94; a walloping often blamed on both Bill and Hillary.

Even in '98, which was, perhaps, the most successful Congressional election of the Clinton era, the party netted zero Senate seats and gained less than a handful of House seats.

It's not exactly something to brag about.

While there are plenty of unknowns about Obama’s ability to truly expand the base of the Democratic Party, there are plenty of superdelegates who think they know Clinton couldn't rise to that very same challenge.

Nineteen ninety-four was the year Newt Gingrich and hundreds of other Republicans swept into Congress on the wings of "The Contract With America". 1994 was the last year there was a Texas Democrat in a statewide executive office. More about the real differences between an Obama nomination and a Clinton one from my favorite frog:

Provided that Obama receives the nomination after winning the pledged delegate count, there is no reason for 'Latinos, perhaps part of the Jewish and Catholic vote, certain women and working-class Democrats' to lose confidence in the process. Their preferred candidate simply lost. It happens.

But if Obama wins the pledged delegate count and still does not gain the nomination, his supporters (most especially but certainly not limited to African-Americans) will be deeply, deeply disillusioned with the process. Even if Clinton were to catch up in the popular vote (a near pipe-dream, but nonetheless) it would offer some measure of mitigation, but not nearly enough to avoid a gross sense of injustice. ... African-American turnout in the general election will be severely depressed, and the damage will be lasting.

Black turnout is absolutely critical to any Democratic statewide run for office in states like Missouri, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Latino turnout can be critical in some states, too, but (there is) no argument for why Latino turnout would be severely depressed by a legitimate Obama nomination.

Obama may have a different base than Clinton, but if we are going to do an honest analysis, we have to ask which constituencies are going to stay-home or vote for McCain because Obama won the nomination (in their eyes) illegitimately. The answer is, of course, none. Obama has the conventional and legitimate claim to the nomination. Clinton's claim is based on non-traditional and non-conventional arguments. Her claim is an electability argument, which can wax and wane depending on the day.

Are there some Jewish, Catholic, white working class, and female voters that will vote for Clinton and not for Obama? Certainly. Of course, the opposite is also true. But the operative question is why will they or won't they vote for Obama? If it is not because of the perceived illegitimacy of his nomination then it isn't really relevant, is it?

So, why won't blacks vote for Clinton if she is the nominee? For starters, it is because she will have won unconventionally, and on the argument that Barack Obama is unelectable. Why is he unelectable? Well, currently the Clinton campaign is saying he is unelectable because he has connections to an urban black church and a controversial pastor. That is an argument that, whatever its objective merits, is a straight rebuke of the legitimacy of African-Americans as Americans. To win, Clinton will have had to convince the overwhelmingly white superdelegates that Obama's connections to the black community render him unacceptable to the broader general electorate. They cannot win any other way.

Is there any sense in which Obama's nomination is dependent on convincing the electorate that Clinton's gender renders her unelectable? No. First of all, Obama has already secured the nomination in the traditional sense, and he doesn't need to make extracurricular arguments about electability. But, secondly, his campaign has always (until recently) argued that Clinton is fully qualified to be president and has never to my knowledge raised her gender as a negative in this campaign (either overtly, or covertly).

There are going to be some women that think Clinton was treated unfairly in this process because of her gender, but very few of them will be able to harbor the kind of lingering resentment toward the Obama campaign that would preclude them from supporting him in the fall.

At this point in the process, the legitimacy of Obama's nomination is so established by The Math that the Democratic Party has almost no choice but to nominate him. To fail to do so would destroy the electoral viability of the party not only in the presidential race but in statewide downticket races all across the country.

The electoral disaster of a Clinton nomination -- from the White House to the statehouse to the courthouse -- would be monumental. Every day that she is allowed to continue to caustically divide the party (with her rhetoric, her actions, and especially with those of her surrogates such as Howard Wolfsen and James Carville) worsens the odds of capturing the White House in 2008. It threatens our legislative majoritiess in Congress -- well, perhaps even Hillary can't screw up the House -- and damages the state legislature and county courthouse chances of Democrats coast to coast. It bears repeating: someone must convince her to stand down, and the sooner the better.

There's still a month to go before Pennsylvania. How repulsive do you think it's going to get between now and then if this goes that long? Or longer?

The Audacity of Hopelessness

Don't blame me for that; it belongs to David Brooks (with whom I rarely agree). But there's still hope for Mrs. Clinton, because there remain at least these five ways she still leads Obama.

Then again, she's turning her Mitty Moment into a Macaca one.

But what really disappoints me is this kind of thing from my fellow blog hermanos y hermanas. Inflamed rhetoric from Clinton supporters in their last throes -- maybe Dick "So?" Cheney would call them bitter-enders -- is definitely going to have repercussions in the fall. What those are and how damaging they may be will be determined between now and then, of course.

So perhaps someone ought to offer Hill a Supreme Court slot or something.

You think that would work?

4,000

This morning.

A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Sunday, the military said, pushing the overall American death toll in the five-year war to at least 4,000.

Meanwhile John McBush, who can't tell Shi'ite from shinola, "burnishes his foreign policy credentials" -- i.e., polishes a turd -- by traveling overseas for his photo ops, Joe Lieberman (kept close by to help John with his "senior moments") and Lindsey Graham in tow.

Just think: if President Gore was finishing up his second term in office right now, Vice-President Lieberman would be preparing to accept the Democratic nomination for President.

On second thought, maybe that reality is worse than this one. Except for the past seven years.

In local news, Col. Ann Wright will be at Brazos Books this evening to sign hers -- Dissent: Voices of Conscience -- Government Insiders Speak Out Against the War in Iraq. I'm guessing our conversation will have a bit more focus even than anticipated. Some of us are invited to join her for a light supper afterwards, so I'll probably blog about that (if she lets me).

The Weekly Wrangle

Time once more for the Texas Progressive Alliance weekly blog round-up, compiled every week based upon voluntary submissions by TPA member blogs.

Off the Kuff takes a look at the primary vote for Democratic candidates in Harris County by statehouse district.

Dwayne Bohac: A Study in Rovian Politics from Texas Kaos takes a look at an incumbent Republican Rove clone and his basic hypocrisy. It uses his public utterances on "clean air" to hoist him on his own corporate petard.

The Texas Cloverleaf notes that TxDOT is handing out the awards, this time to Denton County Judge Mary Horn, for her "hard work" on building roads. But why do they note the projects that have never been completed?

CouldBeTrue notes that the Texas State Board of Education has 'better' things to do than represent Hispanic children.

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News tells people: Happy Easter! Now suck it up. If that rant about economics goes more into hedonics than you ever wanted to know he also offers a link to explaining the credit crisis for kindergarteners.

Over at Doing My Part For The Left Refinish69 takes a look at the bigotry of homophobe Rep. Sally Kern of Oklahoma and wipes tears from his eyes as he reads a letter to Kern from a young man who knows what it is to lose a loved one.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson after reading through the headlines asks: Should Texas Be Worried About The Economy?

Hal at Half Empty has a bone to pick with Bush's presidential library committee. As planned on the SMU campus, not only will it cause the destruction of student housing and a strip mall, but the obliteration of a La Madeleine cafe boutique. Hal has an alternative suggestion.

For the Democratic primary runoff election (scheduled for April 8, with early voting commencing March 31) PDiddie at Brains and Eggs reiterates his endorsement of Dale Henry for Texas Railroad Commission and Larry Weiman for 80th Ciivl District Court of Harris County.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that the federal government has asked the state to postpone the roll-out of the troubled food stamp eligibility screening computer program.

McBlogger at McBlogger take a look at the collapse of Bear Stearns and sees that JP Morgan Chase may have created the deal of the century.

BossKitty at BlueBloggin reminds us that our vice-president is on the war path again -- Cheney Stalks Middle East One More Time but the Saudi king is beating a different drum.

WhosPlayin talks about what it was like to work at the polls on primary election day.

More Funnies

Aggre-epitaphs

The Day She Knew She Had Lost (but characteristically still refused to admit it):

Earlier this week, Hillary Clinton was back in Michigan, a full two months after its "primary," pleading with the state legislature to allow a revote in the state. As she stood in downtown Detroit, it was becoming increasingly clear that there would be no do-over and she looked for the first time as if she realized she had lost, in that typically defiant "I'll-drag-you-all-down-with-me" Clinton way. After all, she had staked whatever little she had left on a revote in a state in which fully 40% of the Democratic voters showed up on a cold January day to vote Uncommitted (ie, anyone but Clinton, the only name on the ballot), in which the most recent public polling shows her in a dead heat with Barack Obama, and where she had firmly backed the "disenfranchisement" she was now decrying. And even this slender straw of a revote was denied her: the extent of the despair is plain ...

Not being a politician, let alone a Clinton, it's hard to see what makes her stay in the race at this point. She appears somewhat less willing than her husband to alienate entire segments of the party, including many of the Congressional colleagues whose collegiality and support she will need soon enough. Perhaps like Bill, though, she has something to prove to her spouse: he needs to show he cares, and she needs to show that she can win. But shouldn't that be something for them to work out alone, without the future of the Democratic Party, of the U.S. government, and of the country itself at stake?

Who will tell her it's over?

Hillary's Walter Mitty moment.

The delegate count slipping away, the popular vote gambit gasping its last, her finances souring, and the corporate media finally tiring of talking about a horse-race-that-never-really-was ...

The facts of delegate math are finally dawning on the traditional media. Donors aren't filling her coffers with money at a rate that she can be competitive with Obama. As the media narrative catches up with the delegate math, the donors will be even less likely to give to her, further exacerbating her financial problems. With the delegate numbers nearly insurmountable, with the media declaring her candidacy nearing its end, with money running tight, and with more and more prominent Democratic leaders likely to join Richardson in calling for Democrats to unify and turn attention to defeating John McCain, the question becomes more urgent: when will Hillary Clinton admit that Barack Obama will be our Presidential nominee?

Booman has a few samples:

My theory on the campaign is that the Clintons cannot limp all the way to April 22nd when the logic/narrative puts them strictly in the role of party wreckers. The poison that will eventually erode Clinton's poll advantage is the cold hard truth that she cannot win a brokered convention. But, before that poison can work its way through the body electorate, the media must begin reporting the truth. This started yesterday when Ben Smith of The Politico reported that members of Clinton's staff privately acknowledge that she has no more than a 10% chance of winning the nomination. Mark Halperin continued the trend today when he listed Fourteen Painful Things Hillary Clinton Knows — Or Should Know. (Today) is Maureen Dowd's turn to push the narrative.

No need to excerpt MoDo again here this week. It's noxious and dead-on as usual. Speaking of nasty, here's the esteemed James Carville-Matalin with the last word, about the Richardson endorsement:

“An act of betrayal,” said James Carville, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and a friend of Mr. Clinton.“Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic,” Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week.

Geez, and all this time I thought it was Obama who was the Messiah. OTOH if Carville thinks Richardson is Judas, then he must be the Snake in the Garden of Eden.

Easter Funnies

Outrage-o-meter redlining

Honestly, some of the things that have been happening this week -- from Dick Cheney's "So?" to Obama's passport breach to Mrs. Clinton's continued slow-motion self-destruction, and her attempts to take down the entire Democratic Party with her -- have just left me a little fatigued.

(Really: when John McCain and Mike Huckabee denounce the Rev. Wright smear in stronger terms than she, and Bill Richardson endorses him, there's just nearly no saving face. She's not only lost this contest but she's also made sure there's no chance of her ever winning one in the future. This scorched earth will remain fallow for the rest of her life.)

The weather's too nice, the basketball tournament is too exciting, and the anticipation of baseball too great for me to spend time indoors getting mad.

So fuck a bunch of that; I'll be back later. Have a relaxing Good Friday and a Happy Easter.

Happy 5th Birthday, One Hundred Year War

Today is March 19th. We celebrate five years of bloody war and torture based on lies. These lies came from Michael Ledeen and various neo-con insurgents like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Douglas Feith and Dick Cheney, operating in the United States government at various agencies. ...

As time passed it became clear, to anyone who was interested enough to inquire, that the 9/11 attack was engineered by the same neo-cons who blamed the attack on Bin Laden. They have since used this non-existent threat from a small group of rag tag, Stone-Age Arabs to justify plunging the United States into fear and fascism while looting the countries coffers. As brief as this may be, it is the truth, just as nearly everything reported by the government and collaborating media is a lie. ...

...(A)las we celebrate not just deception and depravity beyond definition. We celebrate not just bloody war and torture. We celebrate the unimaginable blindness and intransigence of a collective public that willfully disregards evidence so compelling that one is mystified beyond endurance by the sheer scope of the ignorance in play. ...

The fear of speaking the truth because of the potential for ignominy and slander; because of the possibility of ostracism and loss of income tell us that cowardice and indifference have never been more rampant.

Today is March 19th. Today some portion of the people who are not asleep -or cringing in their beds- will step back from the dream machine and refuse to cooperate or contribute. Today, some smaller portion of humanity will put on the mask of V and they will celebrate their singularity in having seen behind the curtain. It will be no great victory because the mass of us will march forward under whips and inducements toward an increasing density and darkness of confinement and want.

There are no accidents here. The economic devastation; the bloody wars and torture, the calculated indifference following Katrina, the poisoned trailers, the vanishing bees, the tazer-bot police, the strip searches and jailhouse beatings, the secret prisons, the thought crimes, the fear, the rising fuel prices, the scarcity of grains, the spying and the suspension of constitutional rights are all intentional. There are no accidents here.

Let every person who is present on the planet today… let them every one look into their hearts and see what they have allowed. Let them see their sneering denial as it rises into their thoughts. Let them observe their fear which compels them to kneel before their oppressors in hope that they might be allowed to wield a club upon their fellows in exchange for the right to survive.

Across the globe, the indifferent rich sit in self-satisfied insulation from the horrors of the day. They sun and sail. They wine and dine. They cannot hear the cries of the victims of genocide and want. Millions of little fingers tap out inane text messages. They shake their booties to violent rhymes and talk about how “so and so is my niggah.” The world contracts and presses down. Fortunes change. Fortunes disappear. Hundreds of millions pushed beyond endurance no longer fear to die. Life is a far greater punishment. But there are a number of those who are fat and sleek and well ensconced and they… they do fear to die.

Let us see if we can shift the tide. It matters not if we do but that we tried. If today brings no great result then let us plan again. Sooner or later the conditions will demand an increase in our ranks and perhaps critical mass will be achieved. Evil is a constant and it always destroys itself. You cannot eradicate it but you can contain it. Balance must be restored.

The only way to hurt a psychopathic materialist is to deny him profit in his game. Today on March 19th we have a chance to do that. When enough of us stand back, he will be unmanned and unmasked. Everybody knows what they are up to. Change direction and move forward to a better world, or ... continue on to perdition. It really is up to you.

Boyd: "Losing, Hill? Sue me."

(It's hard to be snarky on a day when such a historical speech was made by the next President of the United States, but I feel up to the challenge ...)


Careful, Big Boy. You don't want to rush into Barack Obama's arms at least until after the memorial service for Bob Slagle (of whom the rumors of imminent demise have been greatly exaggerated).

Larry Weiman for 80th Civil District Court, Harris County

Also back on December 18th I wrote this about one of our finest potential judges locally:

Larry Weiman, 80th civil district court. Weiman is another of our returning judicial candidates, having garnered 48% in his 2006 run (just so you're clear on the size of Harris County's electorate, that 48% was 263,507 votes). Weiman's reputation as a potential jurist is so solid that Republicans recruited him to run in past elections, but with a long family history as a Yellow Dog Democrat, he declined to do so.

Weiman ran first ahead of three, with the third-place finisher having the heaviest voting record in Republican primaries. Weiman's challenger in the runoff similarly cast a ballot in a GOP primary in the recent past, though has admitted the error of his ways. Still Weiman's long history of Democratic service, not to mention his extensive experience, makes him the best choice in the April 8 primary runoff election.