Mid-Early Voting, 8-Days-from-Election-Day Wrangle

Harris County blasted past 300,000 early voters yesterday, and the entire Lone Star is fast on its way to a voter turnout record despite the best efforts of partisans like Paul Bettencourt to suppress it. Lots of good final-week election postings in this edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Roundp-Up, compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex.

Vote this week, wherever you live. Don't wait until the last day.

The Texas Cloverleaf helps spread the truth about ACORN.

McBlogger takes a look at our own Congressman from Clear Channel, Mike McCaul, and discovers that he is indeed different.

jobsanger points out the dysfunctional aspect of this year's Republican campaign, first in Palin Disagrees With McCain, and then in Repubs Can't See The Reality.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is sad to recognize that while America's Foreign Policy Suffers - Unemployment Soars - Religion Goes Toxic, the USA's short attention span has been grabbed by personal survival and courted by political and religious philosophies.

As early voting begins, Eye On Williamson charts the early voting numbers in Williamson County. HD-52 Democratic candidate Diana Maldonado continues to rack up the endorsements and launches her latest ad, taking on the insurance companies and high homeowners insurance.

Neil at Texas Liberal posted the second part of his "Who I Would Have Supported For President" series. The latest entry covered the years 1824-1852.

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News is keeping the early voting info up for the voters who need it but did notice that all the PUMAs have come home to Obama.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that the Texas Association of Business has finally pleaded guilty in connection with its 2002 violations of Texas' campaign financing laws and that state rep. John Davis (R-Clear Lake) and state Sen. Kim Brimer (R-Fort Worth) have taken big bucks from a company the TCEQ fined more than a quarter-million dollars for polluting.

CouldBeTrue from South Texas Chisme has some hints about how to get your specific sample ballot. Be prepared!

Off the Kuff analyzes the high level of early voting in Harris County so far.

XicanoPwr analyzes the GOP attack on ACORN and the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters carried out by Paul Bettencourt in Harris County.

John McCain describes the economy as a drive by shooting. The Texas Cloverleaf calls it a whack job.

North Texas Liberal reports on Sarah Palin's $150,000 shopping spree at Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, and discusses why it could signal the end for her and John McCain's faltering campaign.

As Democrats in Harris County appear on the verge of something historic, the trends in the extraordinary early voting turnout portend the same blue surge that the rest of the country
is about to experience. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has the deets.

refinish69 at Doing My Part For The Left wants everyone to say thanks to Barbara at Avenue Gallery- NOT!!!

nytexan at Bluebloggin points out just how much McCain and Palin are alike with their FEC violations. We've gone from 8 years of the "emperor has no clothes" to "the empress has new clothes." The GOP is priceless. Palin is following in McCain's footsteps -- what a pair of mavericks: CREW Files FEC Complaint Against Palin. And McCain and Palin apparently have an affection for Russia: McCain's New FEC Violation: Asks Russia For Campaign Money.

More Funnies (Damned Socialism edition)

EV 10/26: Red state erosion

Yes, Ohio has slipped back to blue again, but the real story is all the red states that are suddenly tossups now: Montana, Indiana, and *gasp* Georgia. IN, in fact, is lately polling pretty blue, but I just can't put it in Obama's column yet.

Democrats across the country appear poised for a landslide of historic proportions, even here in Deep-In-The-Hearta. Is it for real? We'll know in nine days.

<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

Democrats poised to sweep Harris

Except for county judge Ed Emmett, who appears to have redeemed himself in the eyes of Houston voters as a result of his actions during Ike, not to mention benefiting from a glowing endorsement from Bill White. But the rest of the county's Republicans are an endangered species:

Democrats have reclaimed the voting advantage they lost 14 years ago in elections for Harris County offices, according to a poll conducted for the Houston Chronicle. But Republican County Judge Ed Emmett appears to be swimming strongly against the tide.

Voters favored Democratic candidates over Republican candidates by 7 percentage points in elections for county leadership jobs, except in the county judge's race, where Emmett has a 13-point lead over Democrat David Mincberg, according to the survey. Sixteen percent of the respondents were undecided or said they lean toward neither party's entry.

The number 7 also popped up specifically in the race for district attorney; Democrat C.O. Bradford ran 7 percentage points ahead of Republican Pat Lykos in the poll, conducted Monday through Wednesday as early voting began for the Nov. 4 election.

Now the caveat is that the polling outfit is Zogby, which has a poor track record of prognostication. Unless their methodology has improved I simply place only a small bit of enthusiasm in these numbers. Still ...

The pattern suggests that the Democratic identity has become more popular here in the last two years and/or that Barack Obama's lead in the national presidential race is filtering down to local elections, pollster John Zogby said.

"It's about the party, and it's about the (presidential nominee) characters," he said.

The results point to Nov. 4 becoming the first transitional election in Harris County since 1994, when Republican challengers swept Democratic administrators and judges from their jobs as the "Republican revolution" led by then-U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich captured the majority in Congress.

County leadership races on the ballot are for county judge, DA, sheriff, tax assessor-collector, county attorney and district clerk.

There were two exceptions to the local trend.

In the 40 judicial races on the ballot, voters favored Democratic challengers over Republican incumbents by 3.7 percentage points. The finding puts the party's judgeship slates in a statistical tie, because the gap is within the poll's margin of error of 4.1 percentage points.

Now that's significant, because as the story notes ...

Most Republican judges seeking re-election have campaigned as a group, saying they protect people and property through their work in the criminal and civil courts. Democratic candidates for court benches mainly have campaigned individually or as part of the overall Democratic ticket.

That's what we're seeing in the political advertising here. Only the Texas Supreme Court Republicans are running individual ads -- as the Democrats do so collectively -- while the Democratic county judicials have ads for themselves all over cable TV. The Texas Democratic Party is spending $800,000 in the television ad campaign to capture a seat or three on the TSC.

In county leadership races and specifically in the race for district attorney, the Democratic contenders had robust leads over their Republican opponents among moderate voters and even got 20 percent or more from conservatives, according to the survey.

This year has been troubling for Republicans on the local scene. The campaign season has included the resignation of Republican District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal and controversies about the actions of Sheriff Tommy Thomas and Commissioner Jerry Eversole.

The poll assumes the black and Hispanic populations each will contribute 20 percent of the countywide vote.

Some local experts predict a higher turnout by blacks, citing excitement about Obama's candidacy. They also say Hispanic turnout could be lower than 20 percent, because while the number of Hispanic registered voters keeps climbing, they probably have never voted at that level countywide.

A combined minority turnout above 40 percent could add to the advantage for local Democratic contenders. Eight-five percent of blacks, 60 percent of Asian-Americans, 54 percent of Hispanics and 28 percent of non-Hispanic whites in the survey said they favor Democrats in county leadership elections.

Turnout in Harris, as many have noted, is through the roof. Just south of 300,000 people have cast a ballot so far, and there's still a final week of early voting to go.

Things are looking awfully good, but there's still more work to be done if you're a grassroots activist. Keep making those phone calls and walking those blocks, and let's see if we can't make anothe hurricane in Houston land hard.

Palin "going rogue", a "diva" -- according to McCain campaign

Rogue elephants I've heard of; rogue divas sounds like hyperbole. Too bad it's a description coming from some of her own people:

Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."...

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls -- recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

Whoa.

No "relationships of trust with any of her family"? That's a pretty cold shot. And do divas actually only "trust only unto themselves"? Is that the same thing as trusting only themselves? I don't read the Bible so I don't really dig the emphasis that the word 'unto' is intended to convey.

These people are so over...

A furious, old, self-important reformist poseur stuck in the previous century versus a young, ambitious, fundamentalist airhead "rogue" "diva" ... who would have guessed a year-and-a-half ago that the wrestling match for the soul of a dying and discredited political party would come down to this?

And can you believe people are stupid enough to stand in line for hours just to vote for these assholes? That the numbers indicate that a majority of those of us in Harris County now know better only makes us "out of step with the rest of Texas".

Thank God at last for that.

The McCain Mutiny

If Colin Powell, Christopher Buckley, and Kenneth Adelman weren't enough, now there's Scotty McClellan.

Somebody call Rush Blimpbaugh today and ask him if it's because they're all African-Americans.

There's many more, of course. William Weld and Susan Eisenhower and C. C. Goldwater and Jim Leach and Lincoln Chafee and on and on like that.

And this week's headlines are all pretty miserable, too -- just as they have been for weeks now. If it's not Sarah Palin's wardrobe or her falsified expense accounts, it's McLame's monotonous bleating about taxes and Joe the Plumber. The malaise settling onto the Republican party like a Boston fog has as much to do with their failed ideology as it does their impending electoral wipeout.

So what's left to bitch about, then? Socialists and terrorists? ACORN and Ayers, but no "middle class". How's that working out?

Nemmind. I can see the success in that strategery.

Update: Ouch, that stings ...

Conservative legal scholar and Reagan Solicitor General Charles Fried, who just endorsed Obama, isn't just a Republican. He's actually one of McCain's campaign advisors.

Before they cycle down the memory hole, here's Fried on McCain's Honest and Open Election Committee and Justice Advisory Committee.

Key to his decision was McCain's "choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis."

EV 10/23 (12 days away): The race tightens a little

Historically this is nearly always the case in the final days of the campaign. And recent polling reflects a closer race in the swingers, including Missouri, Florida, Ohio, and happily enough, North Dakota. So let's slide them back over into the grey"tossup" column. McCain needs them all and still can't get there, but the trends are interesting enough to watch closely.

<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>

Early voting trends reveal a "liberal bias"

Just like the facts, as Steven Colbert might observe:

The names of the people who vote early in Texas are public record. Each day the Harris County clerk's office provides the list of voters to at least 15 people who have requested them. Each person must pay $60 total to get the list from the 12 days of early voting.

Here's what they do with the lists: If you voted, they cross your name off the roster of voters they want to contact before Election Day, Nov. 4. Doing so saves the campaigns precious resources.

They also use other databases to see you if you have a history of voting in the primaries. This way they can take an educated guess about how the voting is going so far.

Here's what they know: About two-thirds of the record-smashing, high-volume early vote in Harris County supposedly has been cast by people with a Democratic voting history.

Want to know who's looking at the data? Alan B listed their names. There's also this:

According to the County Clerk, for the first time in recent memory, it appears the number of people voting inside the Loop is on par with the number of people voting outside of it.

Anyone in the county can vote at any one of the 36 early voting locations. But analysts said that because more people are voting near the core of the city, it suggests a shift -- not just in voting patterns, but potentially on which candidates and which party will come out on top.

"The polling I've seen, both in terms of exit and Election Day, would suggest that the turnout within the city will be historically high. The Democrats will probably be favored in terms of straight-ticket voting. It's difficult to make much of three days, but the trends would suggest that this favors the Democrats," said Bob Stein, 11 News Political Analyst.

But hey, there's only been three days of early voting. Too early to suggest anything like a blowout or a landslide.

*snicker*

Seriously though, I used to work with the son of Texas racing legend AJ Foyt, and I took note of one of the interesting things he said as we watched that race in 2001 where Dale Earnhardt was killed by a p.i.t. maneuver:

"It's the Daytona 500. You don't take your foot off the gas."

Yeah. Let's don't.

Update: From Harvey Kronberg ...

A reliable Republican source tells QR that a computer analysis of early voting in Harris County indicates that Democrats have had a very good first two days of early voting.

By matching up early voters with their primary histories, our source tells us that Democrats outvoted Republicans 2.6 to 1 on the first day of early voting and 2.4 to 1 on day 2.

"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.