Surging toward seven hundred thousand

Maybe seven-fifty:

The number of voters casting early ballots surged again on Wednesday, bringing the total to more than half a million votes with two days left of early voting.

In 12 hours of voting at 36 Harris County locations on Wednesday, more than 70,000 people cast ballots — the highest daily total since the polls opened Oct. 20.

County voters have already set a record by surpassing the total number of early votes cast in 2004: 411,830.

By the numbers:

• 513,888: the number of people to vote in person at early voting stations so far.
• 49,558: the number of people who have returned mail ballots so far.
• 70,621: the number of people who voted at the polls on Wednesday.
• 66,506: the number of people who voted at the polls on Tuesday.

EVPA (early voting in person), as you can see, has sailed past Clerk Kaufman's initial projection of half-a-mil, so it's easy to predict a final tally of between 700-750,000 votes. The EV boxes that are located in the far-flung suburbs showed the strongest increases in turnout yesterday, while the Inner Loop polls sagged a little. Kuffner has the link to the spreadsheet by polling location and his usual top-notch analysis.

Is this going well enough to satisfy Chairman Birnberg? I'm guessing he's still a little twitchy.

I think a projection without mailed ballots is insufficient, so my prediction is that the 750,000 number gets reached with those, and I also believe that 500K is the low-end of the number of Houstonians who will vote next Tuesday. One point two million total was earlier projected by Harris County election officials, but that was also when they guessed 500,000 would vote early. So if we still are capable of reaching 700,000 on Election Day, that would be a total of 1.45 million Harris County voters.

I'll go 1.5. And I'm hoping that's too big a number for anybody to successfully steal the result.

Republicans say the darndest things

“Redistricting in Texas and throughout the country ensures that Republicans will continue to control the House through 2012. Over time, the Senate -- thanks to those wonderful square states out west -- will trend toward 60 Republicans as the 30 red states elect Republicans and the 20 blue states elect Democrats. The anomaly of four Democratic senators hailing from Republican North and South Dakota will come to an end, as will the Republican-held Senate seat in Rhode Island ..."

"A Bush-Cheney win will lead to Republican governors from Colorado, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New York to compete to be the most Reaganite governor -- a positive result no matter who wins. And a Bush-Cheney win in 2004 will leave Terry McAuliffe and Bill and Hillary in complete and unchallenged control of the Democratic Party at least through 2008. This is good for the Republicans, if not the republic.”

-- Grover Norquist, in early 2005

(The Republican Party) "has become more narrow, more self-serving, more centered around 'I want, I want, I want.' ... (John McCain) "recites memorized pieces of information in a narrow way, whereas Barack Obama is constantly evaluating information, using his judgment. One guy just recites what's in front of him, and the other has initiative and reason and prudence and wisdom."

(I've) had it with colleagues who "don't understand the issues, who not only don't read the Financial Times, they have never heard of the Financial Times."

"We're in this bad place as a country because of the evangelicals, the neocons, the nasty, bitter and mean ... very clever ideological groups that use money, technology, fear and bigotry to lead people around. Voting according to your knowledge and experience -- that's out the window. Competence and prudence? Forget it."

"We've become a country that sits down in front of the boob tube and listens to people shouting about freedom, but now people equate freedom not with the acquisition of knowledge but with comfort." 'Give me my flat-screen TV, the gas-guzzling car, the goods made in China.' The whole concept of freedom has become the idea of comfort, with a complete lack of responsibility."

-- outgoing GOP Congressman Wayne Gilchrist, of Maryland

Isn't it amazing how some of them can be so stupid and some so smart at the same time?

Senate projection: 59-41

Let's show the map for US Senate races and the guess here for a filibuster-proof 60, which is coming up one vote short with a week to go.

Mark Begich over convicted Ted Stevens in AK, Mark Udall over Bob Schaffer in CO, Al Franken over Norm Coleman in MN, Kay Hagan over Liddy Dole in NC, Jeanne Shaheen over John Sununu in NH, Tom Udall over Steve Pearce in NM, Jeff Merkley over Gordon Smith in OR and Mark Warner over James Gilmore in VA are eight Democratic pickups, for the 59-41 spread I'm predicting.

That leaves one or two (so we can kick Joe Lieberman to the curb) to come from GA (Jim Martin v. Saxby Chambliss), KY (Bruce Lunsford v. Mitch McConnell), MS (Ronnie Musgrove v. Roger Wicker), and our very own Rick Noriega over John Cornyn.

I think you know which of those I'd wish for the most, but I won't be greedy; I'll take any one of them for the big-picture win.

Harris County GOP's "Love Boat"

Ew. These Republican sexcapades are just TMI:



Ed Emmett thinks that calling this a "culture of corruption" insults the county's low-level employees and workers. Ed, this is a reflection on you. You inherited this mess from Bob Eckels and then did nothing to clean it up. Let's review, courtesy Isiah Carey:

Since Emmett has been the head of Harris County government:

• District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal resigned in disgrace after his racist, sexist and political emails were released. Emmett spent $50,000 in taxpayers money to try to keep the emails secret;
• Sheriff Tommy Thomas has been the subject of media reports about the use of a county vendor to design one of his homes, and the sheriff’s department was accused of circulating racist emails;
• County Commissioner Jerry Eversole announced he expects to be indicted after an FBI investigation of his conduct in office;
• County Attorney Mike Stafford this week was accused of misusing campaign contributions, as well as giving his girlfriend a job in his office and six raises in two years, including a 65 percent raise five weeks after she was hired.
• And now Emmett’s own emails revealed he is using his county office and staff to help manage his campaign, including setting up fundraisers. Emmett is trying to keep an undetermined number of other emails secret, claiming they are “personal.” The Harris County District Attorney is reviewing the Emmett email scandal to determine if any laws were broken.

We have to throw these lecherous bums out, as well as everyone who enabled their continued unacceptable behavior.

Be sure and vote early, and be sure and vote for David Mincberg for County Judge, and C. O. Bradford for District Attorney, and then vote for Adrian Garcia for Sheriff, and Vince Ryan for County Attorney. And finally, vote for Diane Trautman for Tax Assessor/Collector and Loren Jackson for County Clerk.