Skelly v. Culberson

A good update on the race for CD-7 from Miya Shay:



Update (3/30): Miya's follow-up blog entry:

"I believe that if we don't get my re-election numbers into the 60s percentage, then every Republican in Harris County could lose." Culberson says that's why the Democratic party is running such a rich guy, basically to beat him down ... and bring the Repub party along. In essence, he says he can still win his seat, while Harris County repubs lose all of theirs. He also says that if his winning percentage isn't high enough, John Cornyn could lose his Senate seat. So basically, in his view, the survival of the Republican ticket depends on re-electing him ... and thus, donating money to make him competitive against Skelly.

Ah Hahahahaha

Update II: Charles piles on.

Dave McNeely on Bob Bullock

Bob Bullock, the legendary late Texas lieutenant
governor for whom the Texas State History Museum is
named, was a legend in his own time. He still is,
almost nine years after his death.

He died June 18, 1999, less than five months after his
final term ended as the Senate's powerful presiding
officer. But Bullock stories are still told by the
thousands of people who worked for and around him as
state comptroller and lieutenant governor.

Bullock legacies – besides the museum in Austin,
dedicated in 2001 -- include the refurbished Texas
State Cemetery on East 7th Street, and the Bullock
Collection at Baylor University in Waco.

What many consider one of his biggest legacies is
President George W. Bush, the Republican who Democrat
Bullock endorsed not just for re-election as governor
in 1998, but also for president.

Bullock didn't make Bush president. But he could have
made Bush's gubernatorial record, which was a
cornerstone of Bush's initial run for the presidency,
a shambles had he chosen.

Instead, Bullock became Bush's bipartisan talisman,
which Bush used to show he had reached across party
lines in Austin, and would in Washington.

After Bullock's widow Jan introduced Bush at the
Republican National Convention in 2000, and praised
Bush's bipartisanship, Jim Henderson and I decided to
write a book about Bullock. "Bob Bullock: God Bless
Texas" was published by the University of Texas Press
in February.

It's the unlikely tale of the once hide-bound partisan
Democrat becoming one of the biggest advocates of a
Republican for president.

It's also about how he got in a position to be a Bush
enabler: making it to the state's second-highest
office, after 16 years as Texas tax collector and
overseer of whether the Legislature' s budget could be
met, despite a reputation for boozing, womanizing,
being investigated by state and federal officials, and
delivering to just about anybody tongue-lashings so
blunt, blistering and raw that he could make grown men
cry. Literally.

There are also many stories of Bullock's incredible
generosity, helping people who had no way to ever
repay him.

He and the late former Gov. Ann Richards were
political allies and drinking buddies. Her drinking
stopped in 1980, after she went to what Bullock called
"drunk school." He followed suit a year later.

Bullock was elected lieutenant governor in 1990. In
the same election, Richards won the governorship – a a
job he'd said several times he wanted, to the point of
announcing for it in the early 1980s. Inside a year,
he was treating her with disdain.

The late liberal columnist Molly Ivins, close friends
with both, said Richards had gotten the job he always
wanted.

"Bullock was never fair to Ann, and treated her very
badly, mostly out of intense envy," Ivins said in a
2005 interview. "She could get elected governor and he
couldn't."

In fact, his treatment of her was often so brutal that
she refused to be interviewed for our book -- probably
because it was a no-win situation, even after his
death.

If she told the truth, it would look like sour
grapes. If she gilded things, few who knew them both
would believe the sanitized version.

Bullock demanded information from Richards and her
staff as though they worked for him, not her. His
harsh demands were nasty enough that they refused to
honor them.

By contrast, Bush fed Bullock's hunger for
information, including gossip. The two quickly became
friends, which met a mutual need.

Texas is one of the few states that do not organize
along party lines like Congress. Bush knew that with
Bullock and Democratic House Speaker Pete Laney
overseeing Democratic majorities in the House and
Senate, to get any of his modest programs passed would
require their help.

At the same time, with the Senate steadily trending
Republican, Bullock knew it didn't hurt to have the
arm of the state's number one Republican around his
shoulder.

Yet It was a genuine friendship, and Bullock made no
secret of his belief that Bush could do as much for
Texas as Lyndon Johnson had.

Instead, the Bush presidency quickly evolved into one
of the most divisive, secretive and partisan in
history.

Bush obviously found Washington a rougher, meaner
place, with ingrained partisanship and a Congress with
many members who thought they could do a better job,
and some actively seeking it.

What Bullock might have thought of Bush's tenure as
president – the war in Iraq, tax cuts in the face of
huge budget deficits, the heavy-handed redistricting
in Texas – will have to be argued by Bullock loyalists
and historians.

We've tried to do justice to the biography of the most
controversial and earthy Texas politician since
Bullock's role model LBJ. We hope you like it.

Books are available at bookstores, by calling UT Press
at (800) 252-3206, or online at
http://www.utexas. edu/utpress/ books/mcnbob. html.

Update: Peggy Fikac has more.

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