Sunday Funnies

Three to challenge Culberson in Democratic primary

With her filing today at HCDP headquarters, 2010 write-in Congressional District 7 candidate Lissa Squiers joins Phillip Andrews and James Cargas in a May 29th showdown for the right to face incumbent John Culberson in November (there will also be a Libertarian and a Green on the ballot in this contest).

Squiers is the progressive in this primary battle. She's an officer in TDW and has performed a litany of volunteer activities, including the start-up All Kids Alliance (see more here), and as mentioned before was so irritated that no challenger stepped forward in the last cycle to challenge Culberson that she ultimately did so herself as a write-in. (The Texas Political Almanac on CD-7 has maps and is up to date through 2010). Here's her campaign video from that match:



Andrews had "Blue Dog" in bold at the top of his website until recently and is president and CEO of a company that, to my examination, does the same thing as Blackwater. Cargas (that's Greek, not Latino) is a well-connected -- very well-connected -- oil and gas attorney. Additionally, two of my bloghermanos have declared support in the race: lightseeker at Texas Kaos for Squiers, Stace at Dos Centavos for Cargas. Both Cargas and Squiers have earned the AFL-CIO endorsement for the primary.

Having been drawn -- through the festering Republican redistricting morass -- first into Sheila Jackson Lee's 18th and then Al Green's 9th before being returned to the 7th, this race is, as it has been in the past, of personal interest.

Primaries are for picking your favorite among the challengers in a single party, and if you read here to any degree you know I usually support either the most progressive candidate or the underdog. In Squiers' case that's likely both, especially where campaign funds are concerned. I burned out long ago on evaluating the strength of Democratic candidates based on their fundraising prowess. That only serves to feed a broken model of paid consultants telling Democrats how to win and continually losing, and it's a particularly bad idea if you believe money is corrupting our democracy (see: Citizens United).

So attend her signing this evening at HCDP HQ at 5 p.m and then join her at Tecate on Ella from 5:30 to 7 and see if she fits your profile as grassroots progressive. She certainly fits mine.

Still no Mittmentum

Romney increasingly is nothing more than an indifferent default option for Republicans.

As ABC News' Gary Langer has noted: "In all seven states holding primaries Tuesday night combined, 61 percent of voters picked either electability or experience as the top attribute they were looking for in a candidate - and 51 percent of them supported Romney. His challenge is that a sizable remaining chunk of the GOP electorate, 36 percent across these seven states, picked a different attribute as more important - either the candidate with 'strong moral character' or the 'true conservative.' And among these true believers, Romney's support plummeted to just 17 percent. Forty-six percent instead voted for Santorum, 20 percent Paul, 16 percent Gingrich."

Texas might have gone a long way toward settling this thing -- or not -- had our elections taken place with the others yesterday. Food for thought.

But while Romney desperately wants to close the book on the 2012 GOP primary, his opponents are ready to simply start another chapter.

Santorum may have come up short in Ohio, but he's likely to rack up wins next week in Kansas, Alabama, and Mississippi.

All three states have an electoral make-up that looks much more like Tennessee and Oklahoma - two states Santorum easily carried Tuesday night - than they do Ohio or Massachusetts.

For example, in 2008, evangelical voters made up 77 percent of the vote in Alabama and 69 percent of the vote in Mississippi.

R-money cannot get credit for anything; he spends $8 million in Ohio versus Frothy's $1.8, ekes out a win, and still loses the media spin game. He has a huge delegate lead -- Santorum in fact did not complete the necessary paperwork to be awarded the GOP electors from Ohio at the national convention that he earned -- so the popular vote "win" serves only as narrative that Mitt is weak. That's a lose-lose for Republicans.

The real news came out of northern Ohio: Dennis Kucinich was defeated in the Democratic primary.

Veteran Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur defeated longtime Washington colleague Dennis Kucinich Tuesday in a bruising Ohio showdown made necessary by a newly drawn congressional map.

She will face the winner of the Republican primary -- Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher, who became known as "Joe the Plumber" during the 2008 presidential campaign -- in November.

I'll miss Dennis: maybe he'll run again for president on an independent or third-party ticket. What if he went Green, or Justice Party, or even spotted up for the Americans Elect ticket?

Oh what fun it is to ride. jobsanger has more.

GOP opens new front in culture wars in Houston

After Mayor Parker announced her support last week of a resolution (signed by more than 70 other mayors across the USA) supporting same-sex marriage, the pastor of a Houston megachurch was quick to condemn.

Pastor Steve Riggle of Grace Community Church, site of next month's county Republican Party convention, sent a letter to Parker late last month calling for her to resign if she will not stand down on gay marriage. He spent nearly an hour Sunday expounding on his feelings during his 10 a.m. sermon to roughly 3,000 congregants.

"Respectfully, if you cannot uphold the Texas Constitution, then you should do the honorable thing and step down," Riggle told his congregation, who responded with the first of numerous ovations.

"When you speak for us as the mayor of Houston, when the people of Houston have overwhelmingly expressed their will and you speak about this issue without their expressed will, I do have a problem with that," he continued.

Pastor Riggle, with
minority representatives
all behind him in the shot

Let's get caught up here if you're unfamiliar.

Mayor Annise Parker's determination to be known as a competent leader who happens to be lesbian is being challenged by political opponents promulgating the idea that she's becoming a gay activist to the detriment of the city.

In the first two months of her second term, Parker helped deliver a call by mayors nationwide for the legalization of same-sex marriage, proclaimed Valentine's Day as Freedom to Marry Day in Houston and said on cable radio that President Barack Obama needs to "evolve" toward support of marriage equality.

Emboldened by Parker's poor showing in November in which she barely avoided a runoff and by the victories by two opponents of gay marriage who became the first challengers to unseat City Council incumbents in 12 years, social conservatives have gone on the attack. They accuse Parker of reneging on a campaign promise to put the city first and social issues advocacy second, and they charge her with violating the Texas Constitution by advocating for a change to it.

"What they're saying is, 'We smell blood,'" said Rice University political science professor Bob Stein, whose wife previously served as Parker's agenda director.

Let's also refresh our memory about Pastor Riggle's complaint: in 2005 Texas codified wedding discrimination into the state Constitution.

Even the Houston Chronicle's cadre of mostly conservative commenters has gone on the offensive, demanding that Graceless Community Church give up its tax-exempt status. All of them, I presume, from the local drainage assessment to federal taxes on their income. For most of those folks it seems to be less about the US Constitution's First Amendment or DOMA and more about separation of church and state... which, some are quick to point out, isn't actually in the Constitution. I wonder if they will feel more strongly, or less, when they learn that the church is hosting the 2012 Harris County Republican Party convention. (Even though that information is in the lead graf, the CCC* -- or KKK, as I have commonly referred to them -- typically don't read the articles in the paper, they just knee-jerk a reaction to the headline in the comment box.)

Pastor Riggle wants Mayor Parker to either shut up about gay marriage or resign her office. That's an unreasonable demand. As Charles has noted, everybody has the right to voice their opinion, especially when it is both a legal minority and a moral imperative.

Pastor Riggle is just ginning up extra outrage among the TaliBaptists -- as if any more were possible or even needed -- to turn out the vote for Republicans in '12. Like the rest of the ultra-conservative flock, he misses the fact that these Christian jihads against gay marriage, abortion, and more recently contraception have the same mobilizing effect on his opposition.

I have evolved to be no great fan of Mayor Parker's for a variety of reasons, but this sort of thing will always bring me to her defense. Parker's style and policies associated with governing are separate from her support of any cause she chooses; as separate as the one between church and state ought to be. For his part, Riggle is just following the lead of Rick Warren and James Dobson and Richard Land and Tony Perkins, who followed Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell before them, in a long-con game. Keep the sheep nervous, before and after the shearing.

Remarkably, many non-social conservatives are jumping that fence now.

*Chronically Conservative Commenters.