"Squiers endorsed by none of the three Democrats who lost already to Culberson"

Thank goodness for small favors. From the Cargas campaign e-mail earlier today:

In the upcoming May 29 Democratic primary all three prior Democratic candidates for Congressional District 7 have endorsed James Cargas, a Houston public servant, as the person who can defeat the incumbent congressman and serve in Congress with honor and distinction.  John Martinez, who ran in 2004, Jim Henley, who ran in 2006, and Michael Skelly, who ran in 2008, have all thrown their support behind James Cargas. 

I feel certain that the Cargas campaign simply forgot to note that Lissa Squiers ran as a write-in candidate for Congressional District 7 in 2010, because no Democrat dared to relive the woes of Martinez, Henley, and Skelly. Thus no one filed.

As the demographics and views of Harris County change, each democratic (sic) candidate earned more than the person before.  Martinez received 33.3%, Henley received 38.5%, Skelly received 42.3%, and, if a Democrat had run in 2010, that person would likely have received 46.8%.

Uh, no. No, that mythical Democrat wouldn't have come close to 46.8%. Because 2010 was a wipeout for Democrats, and most of those who ran in Harris County and across the state of Texas got well under 40%. But let's not spoil the fantasy.

If the same trend continues, Cargas will cross the winning threshold and earn 51.3% of the vote. It’s time for Congressional District 7 to turn blue, and James Cargas is the person who will make it happen. 

You can wake up now.

James Cargas isn't likely to pour millions of his own money into a Congressional race like Skelly did, nor does he have the warmth and personal appeal of Jim Henley -- a man whom I respect a great deal, but is simply mistaken this time around. Mr. Martinez is provided here as the third of the three-for because he has a Latino surname. Thus the continuation of the Cargas campaign as a 'stealth Latino' goes on, despite the campaign e-mail's disclosure in the very last line...

Cargas and his wife, Dr. Dorina Papageorgiou, are members of Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral.

To be fair, James Cargas is probably a very fine gentleman. I don't know him, haven't met him. I've heard far more about him from others than I ever wanted to know from people who do, and most of it is as far from the definition of 'public servant' as it can be. Recall this data from one of my very first posts on the topic:

In January of 2007, Illumina Energy (the new name of PowerSol) un-registered James Cargas as a power marketer and replaced him with Hector Carreno. The contact addresses and phone numbers remained the same, although the email address changed. Why swap out Cargas? Because it was time for him to go to work for the city, advising them on who to buy power from. Let’s see, a power broker hires you for awhile, then sends you off to advise city hall on buying what he sells. How convenient!

[...]

How did Cargas get linked to Carreno this way? We have to roll back the calendar to introduce a pivotal player to the story; Emil Pena. Pena is a lifelong lobbyist; he’s good at it and has an impressive list of clients. He has lobbied for beer, cigarette, oil, and gas companies. But he made his name in the energy arena. He participated in the energy regulator/lobbyist revolving door, while also funneling money from energy companies to candidates they’d like to buy. This was noted by Texans for Public Justice in their report on PACs active in the 2000 election cycle, in a sidebar titled Stealth PAC.

James Cargas, Hector Carreno, Emile Pena. Google them for yourself if you think I'm being biased.

Since 2008, James Cargas has worked for the City of Houston as their energy advisor. However, he continues to use advocacy groups and local clubs to push his insider agenda.

Cargas is a past Deputy Director of the North American Energy Standards Board, and is still a member. At a recent meeting, Emil Pena presented the idea that “system safety” might apply to shale gas, and explained how it could be implemented quickly. Now, as a lobbyist for oil companies, this advice probably seems quite reasonable to Pena: profits first, safety later … as PR damage control, maybe? For his part, Cargas proudly claims his involvement in NAESB, and seems perfectly content with their worldview. This is far from the “public service” attitude I expect in a city employee!

Cargas is also on the Board of the Energy Bar Association, where he basically says “alternative energy will not happen in Texas, due to existing regulations”. (.pdf, page 3) One might interpret this as “don’t bother trying to compete with my partners; we’ve got the market sewed up.” Again, not the attitude I would hope for from someone advising the city on energy purchases, but all I could expect from an energy trading insider.

===

James Cargas deserves to lumped with his partners, Carreno and Pena: fossil fuel fans, shills for Big Oil & Gas, profiting off pushing their poisonous products, pinching OUR pennies for their pockets. No law against any of that … this is America, after all. But is this who we want making the law of the land, our land, our water, our air? No! Cargas is undeserving of our respect, much less a Democrat’s endorsement or vote.

If you think we need another energy lobbyist and attorney representing us in Washington, then you've got your man. If you would rather support a conservative Democrat than an actual one, you've a better choice: Phillip Andrews. I've met Phillip twice, both times at Sean Hubbard events, and dined with him at one of those. From what I can tell he represents an improvement over Cargas (albeit barely).

But if you want to vote for a Democrat who represents the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, who will represent the people and not the powerful, who owes nothing to any special interests, AND who can defeat John Culberson without pie-in-the-sky projections, then your choice is Lissa Squiers.

That's as plain and simple as I can make it.

Update: In another indication that the Cargas campaign either doesn't understand much about percentages, or is engaging in a fudge-up with the numbers that would make the people who valued Facebook at 38 envious, yet another e-mail is circulating which purports to divine the results of a straw poll -- taken over the weekend among 78 people who attended the HCDP Club Carnival -- as indicating Cargas has "overwhelming" support.

I'm starting to be embarrassed for them.

Texas judge brags in campaign mailers about stopping EPA

Bloomberg:

With aspects of the case still pending in his courtroom, Judge Trey Loftin sent fliers to voters saying he forced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to back down.

Loftin, who is campaigning to keep his state judgeship in a county west of Dallas, also sent out materials with the image of talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who credited the judge’s ruling in favor of driller Range Resources Corp., based in Fort Worth, Texas, for getting the EPA to reverse course.

(Image from Parker County Blog, an avid supporter of the judge)

What Loftin might be suggesting here -- besides a separate case that EPA settled with Range in March -- is the resignation of Dr. Al Armendariz from his post as director of EPA's South Central region just last month. While the mail piece doesn't quite go that far, reported eyewitness accounts have the judge commenting in campaign appearances that his court decisions resulted in Armendariz's firing.

Except of course that Armendariz wasn't fired. Continuing from the Bloomberg article, which quotes the following text right off the back of Loftin's mailer:

“The EPA, using falsified evidence provided by a liberal activist environmental consultant, accused and fined a local gas driller of contaminating wells,” according to a campaign flier for Loftin’s campaign. President Barack “Obama’s EPA backed down only after Judge Trey Loftin ruled that the evidence was ‘deceptive.’”

At least the law is fairly clear.

The Texas code of judicial conduct prohibits judges from commenting on pending or impending cases "in a manner which suggests to a reasonable person the judge’s probable decision."

That would be Canon 3 B .10 of the Code.

"A judge shall abstain from public comment about a pending or impending proceeding which may come before the judge's court in a manner which suggests to a reasonable person the judge's probable decision on any particular case."

Let's read more reactions to this (apparent) ethical breach.

“The problem of having judges run for office is that sometimes they cross a line in trying to get elected,” James Alfini, a professor of law at South Texas College of Law in Houston and co-author of a book on judicial ethics, said in an interview. “In this case, I think he crossed a line.”

[...]

Even without specific references, the mailer may cause a reasonable person to think Loftin was biased in the case, said Keith Swisher, a professor of law at the Phoenix School of Law and expert on judicial ethics. “The fact that a specific name wasn’t used doesn’t provide” an out, Swisher said in an interview. ...

Judge Loftin's primary challenger delicately weighed in as well.

“I don’t think a judge should ever comment about a case pending in his court,” Craig Towson, Loftin’s opponent in the Republican primary on May 29, said in an interview. “One could feel slighted if you have a judge commenting on the case.”

A complaint will have to be filed with the state commission on judicial conduct for any action to proceed further. So we'll wait and see what happens.

Update: WFAA in the Metroplex reports that Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler, who was quoted in a separate mailing as endorsing Loftin, called the county's residents with a recording that stated he in fact did not endorse the judge, and furthermore did not authorize the use of his name or photo in the mistaken mailout.

(Whatever one may think of Judge Loftin's actions in this regard, it appears that Sheriff Fowler is pretty mad about the endorsement that wasn't. Robo-calling all the landlines in the county -- even an exurban one like Parker -- isn't cheap.)

No chance Ron Paul endorses Gary Johnson

The Independent Political Report, via Reason:

Ron Paul campaign manager/spokesman/family member Jesse Benton told reporters during a phone conference May 15 that there would be no chance of any endorsement of Libertarian Presidential candidate Gary Johnson by Ron Paul. Benton said that Ron Paul endorsing Republican presumptive nominee Mitt Romney was not out of the question. 

Here's the rationale.

Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian for President in 1988, but has served separate stints as a Republican in Congress before and since, and has run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and 2012. His son Rand Paul is a freshman US Senator from Kentucky and is considered by many to be a future presidential aspirant as early as 2016; other Paul family members are also rumored to have a possible future in politics. 

And here's some of the recent history. I'm emphasizing the names of the players in bold.

Subsequent to his return to Congress as a Republican, Ron Paul has continued his involvement with alternative political parties to some extent, speaking at a number of their events and endorsing a number of their candidates. [...]

In 2008, former Republican Congressman Bob Barr, a Libertarian National Committeeman in 2006-8 who had also supported (2004 Libertarian presidential nominee Michael) Badnarik, ran as the Libertarian presidential candidate and famously earned the Paul campaign’s ire by first agreeing to, then at the last minute refusing to participate in a joint press conference with Dr. Paul, Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, Ralph Nader (who was running as an independent, as he had in 2004, and ran as a Green in 2000 and 1996), and Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney. The press conference was planned as a way to announce agreement between these candidates and Dr. Paul on several key issues, and in turn Paul was to suggest that voters consider these four candidates as better alternatives than Obama and McCain without making a specific endorsement. After Barr, who was on the premises, refused to appear with the group on stage and instead offered Ron Paul to become a substitute VP candidate for the Libertarians, Paul responded by endorsing Baldwin. 

Barr backed Gingrich earlier this year but has recently endorsed Romney.

This gives every indication that the Kook Caucus is slowly coming together behind Mitt -- though I believe Tom Tancredo is still a holdout --  even as the relatively sane conservatives offer a legitimate third option in Gary Johnson and Jim Gray, whose nominations as Libertarian Party standard-bearers for 2012 were chronicled here.

Charles Kuffner doesn't agree -- and maybe it's just me who is more aware of third-party efforts while most everybody else remains not -- but I believe the minor parties in Texas are collectively going to exceed much more than their traditional 1-2% of the statewide vote. I think it could be as much as 5% for all of them combined, perhaps a bit more. We'll see.

The traditional media discovers Sean Hubbard

This is a good thing.

The young Democrat likes to remind audiences that Joe Biden was 29 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Delaware, and like the current vice president, Hubbard is articulate, engaging and well-versed on the issues. During a Houston debate a couple of weeks ago, he did not hesitate to engage the presumptive GOP front-runner, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who is more than three decades older and who has nearly 15 years more experience in office. Hubbard won the KUHF News live blog poll immediately following the debate.

In a state where a Democrat has not won statewide office since 1994, Hubbard's chance of taking the oath of office in Washington next January is even less likely than the Astos sweeping this fall's World Series. And, yet, his quixotic candidacy may offer a boost to his beleaguered party. Along with Julian Castro, the vastly more experienced mayor of San Antonio, Hubbard could be the party's face of the future.

Influential Democratic consultant Harold Cook surprised - and irritated - some of the party faithful recently by making just that point. On his "Letters from Texas" blog, Cook noted that Hubbard "would be the kind of Democratic nominee more capable of attracting new folks to the Democratic column."

Here is about ten minutes' worth of Hubbard doing some Q&A in Sherman recently.



This is it, Texas Democrats. A moment of truth, clarity, peace love and understanding.

Sean Hubbard is your man. THE man. If you fall back on a tired old Blue Dog to run against whatever POS the Republicans nominate, you won't crack 40%.

The party has fallen and it can't get up... for nearly twenty years now. And Paul Sadler can't lift a thing, bless his heart. Good man, poor timing.

Get Hubbard on the ballot and you will begin to see the peeping dawn of a renaissance, or keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting better results.

Your choice.

Update: As usual, Neil and I agree right across the board.