This week's epic fails from Texas Republicans

-- Texas comptroller Susan Combs, seeking any tactical advantage her overly-long arms can reach in her stealth bid for lieutenant governor in 2014, is going after Julian Castro and Annise Parker simultaneously via the bond issues on the respective local ballots.

"As taxpayers step into a voting booth to approve new debt, government should tell them how much debt they are already responsible for repaying and how much debt service is included," Combs said in a statement. "Elected officials are responsible for telling the taxpayers they serve about the price tag associated with new and existing debt."

Critics of Combs' report were quick to assert that local governments have been forced to take on essential projects the state has refused to fund.

Yes, it's those pesky unfunded mandates again, especially when it comes to the state constitutionally-mandated public education budgets. Muse did some of the best writing on this, but she has walled off her blog these days and I am not invited. (You, however, may be. Give this post by Big Jolly a click and try the links he has to see.) More from the TexTrib as to how the Lege tried to work around that in the last legislative session. Expect more James White-styled exemptions in the coming one.

The most laughable hypocrisy from "Stretch" was this:

Combs acknowledged that "there is plenty of good debt" that voters approve to help finance highway and water-related projects, for example. Still, she charged that too many governmental bodies are piling up debt without regard to its impact on future generations of Texans. "Have they done all their due diligence? Have they tried as hard as they know how to be strategic, to be careful?"

The first part defeats her purpose of dog-whistling to the Tea Party. The last part is just comical coming from the person who left your Social Security number posted online for a year. Like Mitt Romney, she just cannot pull off a freak-right pander.

-- Greg Abbott wheeled himself into the Kountze cheerleader/prayer banner fray this week.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has offered to help a Southeast Texas school district and its cheerleaders fight a challenge to putting Bible verses on high school football game banners.

Kountze Superintendent Kevin Weldon initially banned the signs after the Freedom From Religion Foundation complained. But a judge ordered that the banners continue to be allowed until a court hearing can be held next month.

In a letter to Weldon, Abbott said he was on solid legal ground by allowing the signs. He said his office was prepared to file a brief on the cheerleaders' behalf if the Freedom From Religion Foundation sued.

The conservative Liberty Institute already is defending the cheerleaders, arguing that banning religious speech on student-made signs is discriminatory. 

The Khronically Konservative Kommenters get it right on this one (see the bottom of the link). This is just one more legal case Abbott is bound to lose if the fight is joined.

Update: This is perfect.

-- Robert Miller, the GOP version of the Burnt Orange Report, suddenly noticed there were two other political parties on the ballot.

In Texas, the polling is beginning to show an uptick for Democratic legislative candidates.  We are also seeing the Libertarians poll strongly in Texas this cycle.  Normally, a Libertarian candidate will pull 2% to 3% of the vote in a competitive race between a Republican and a Democrat. 

 In 2012, we are seeing the Libertarians in the 3% to 5%+ range. Every cycle, there are a handful of races where the Libertarian candidate receives more votes than the margin of victory for the Democrat over the Republican.

He's got some fun spreadsheets, but can't come up with the names of the Libertarians and Greens running. Just 'yes' or 'no'.  He even got that wrong in HD-102; there is a Green, Michael Joseph Spanos, contending against Republican incumbent double-token Stefani Carter and Democrat Rich Hancock. She surfed into office on the 2010 Red Tea Tide, but may be more vulnerable in an Obama low-to-medium blue wave. Miller does has some good stuff, though...

Libertarians in the Austin area generally run stronger than any other area of the state, and this could be problematic for (Jason) Isaac and (Tony) Dale.  The Libertarian in HD 144 further strengthens Mary Ann Perez’ position.  However, the lack of Libertarians in the DFW house races and SD 10 is a significant benefit for the Republicans.  Finally, the Green candidate could provide the margin of victory for Harper-Brown in a close race, presuming all of the Green vote would otherwise be Democratic. A Green candidate can be expected to receive about 1% of the vote in a legislative race.

Although there are not that many competitive legislative races in Texas this year, the presence or absence of a Libertarian on the ballot is likely to have a major impact on the end result.

We're all hoping for a bit more influence than what Robert expects. Everybody except red and blue partisans, that is.

Stench-Gilligan 2012

Paul Ryan has gone rogue. He is unleashed, unchained, off the hook.

“I hate to say this, but if Ryan wants to run for national office again, he’ll probably have to wash the stench of Romney off of him,” Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa, told The New York Times on Sunday.

Note that is not an anonymous, unnamed source.

Though Ryan had already decided to distance himself from the floundering Romney campaign, he now feels totally uninhibited. Reportedly, he has been marching around his campaign bus, saying things like, “If Stench calls, take a message” and “Tell Stench I’m having finger sandwiches with Peggy Noonan and will text him later.”

I never thought the Republicans would run McCain-Palin 2.0. But then I was fairly worried they would nominate Rick Perry.

Dan Senor, one of Romney’s closest advisers, has kept a tight grip on Ryan, traveling with him everywhere and making sure he hews to the directions of the Romney “brain trust” in Boston. (A brain trust, rumor has it, that refers to Ryan as “Gilligan.”)

This is a locomotive pulling a coal feeder and five passenger cars going over a cliff. A slow motion train wreck. Watching Roger Goodell fumble the NFL's reputation by standing behind scab refs that were fired by the Lingerie Football League is pretty funny as far as clusterfucks go, but this nickname game is simply hilarious.

Roger Simon at Politico even took a shit on Microsoft, for Pete's sake.

(Ryan) did a PowerPoint presentation for the crowd.

According to the National Journal, be began thusly: “I’m kind of a PowerPoint guy, so I hope you’ll bear with me,’ Ryan told the audience as he began clicking through four slides, which showed graphs depicting U.S. debt held by the public from 1940 to present, debt per person in the United States, percentage of debt held by foreign countries and a breakdown of federal spending. He then launched into a 10-minute monologue on the federal debt.”

A word about PowerPoint. PowerPoint was released by Microsoft in 1990 as a way to euthanize cattle using a method less cruel than hitting them over the head with iron mallets. After PETA successfully argued in court that PowerPoint actually was more cruel than iron mallets, the program was adopted by corporations for slide show presentations.

Conducting a PowerPoint presentation is a lot like smoking a cigar. Only the person doing it likes it. The people around him want to hit him with a chair.

PowerPoint is usually restricted to conference rooms where the doors are locked from the outside. It is, therefore, considered unsuited for large rallies, where people have a means of escape and where the purpose is to energize rather than daze.

Ryan’s PowerPoint slides were officially labeled: “Our Unsustainable Debt (U.S. Debt Held by Public as a Share of Economy),” “Your Share of the Debt,” “Who Funds Our Reckless Spending?” and “How the Government Spends Your Money.”

The Romney campaign was furious. But Ryan reportedly said, “Let Ryan be Ryan and let the Stench be the Stench.” 

Don't get overconfident, Democrats. Romney will make a little comeback next week and throughout October as the debates give him some life. He's had a lot of practice over the past twelve months, and lots of rehearsal lately. But the only question in my mind is not whether the Democrats can hold the Senate; it's whether they can actually return the gavel to Speaker Pelosi.

That would certainly trigger the rumored Republican meltdown.

Stand far back, so that you don't get too much brain matter splashed on you.

Votes now being cast in almost half the states

Sick of the ads, the talking heads, the mailers stuffed in your box, the slimy disgusting attacks, and the whole thing generally? Too bad you live in Texas and aren't old or infirm; you could be getting it over with.

Before this month is over, residents in 30 states will be voting. And when Election Day dawns, more than 45 million Americans are expected to have already voted, a record number. At least a third of American voters probably will lock in their choices before Nov. 6.

Although the two candidates have yet to debate, voting by mail is under way in two dozen states, with more to follow.

In Washington state, where voting is entirely by mail, more than 57,000 ballots for military and overseas voters were mailed Friday; the rest of the ballots will be mailed Oct. 19. All ballots must be returned by Nov. 6.

In three states — Idaho, South Dakota and Vermont — voters already can show up in person.

In Harris County, Clerk Stanart expects to mail 100,000 ballots.

County Clerk Stan Stanart, dubbing this the “Super Bowl of elections,” said late last week that his office had received about 45,000 mail ballot requests. Stanart said he expects about 100,000 mail ballot requests; in 2008, the clerk’s office received 80,059. Voters eligible to vote by mail can request a ballot until Oct. 30.

We have to hope Stanart doesn't turn in another NFL-replacement-referee performance.

Early voting in-person begins October 22; here is where you can do that. Want to know who's on the ballot? Here you go.

All this early voting changes the dynamic of the presidential contest.

As reported today by MSNBC, early voting is now underway in twenty-five states and will increase to thirty states by the end of the month. It is expected that one-third of all ballots cast will be through early voting, either in-person or by absentee ballot, before the November 6 election. That is an increase from 30% in 2008 and 20% in 2004.

 [...]

This improvement in the franchise has reduced the impact of several factors that have marred turnout and/or swung previous elections — one way or the other — due to late-occurring events. With so many voters casting early ballots, the impact of late advertising blitzes is diminished, particularly in swing states where many votes are already cast before the final weeks when the air waves are awash with even more wall-to-wall, thirty second spots touting one candidate after another. Also, the three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate will have a lessened impact, as will the possible effect(s) of any last-minute ‘October Surprise.’

More on that.

Early voting can insulate a candidate against a damaging gaffe or negative news story in the closing weeks before Election Day. The disclosure of a decades-old drunken-driving charge against George W. Bush five days before the 2000 election may have cost him as many as five states, Rove, his chief strategist, later wrote. Late damage might be reduced this year, when more than 35 percent of the vote is expected to be cast early, compared with less than 15 percent in 2000.

So if Bush's DUI hadn't been revealed... Democrats would still be blaming Gore's loss on Ralph Nader.

(I have a long post undergoing final edits disproving this stubborn urban legend.)

Still undecided about who to vote for?



No, seriously.

A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll took a deeper look at the undecided voters in three battleground states, for instance, and concluded that “these are voters who simply aren’t paying attention.” One third did not feel they knew enough to give President Obama a job rating, for instance.

Sixty percent of self-described undecided voters could not identify Speaker John Boehner as a member of the House of Representatives, according to a YouGov poll done for the Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project.

 Undecided voters are less partisan, less engaged, and only now starting to make up their minds for the 2012 vote, GOP pollster Whit Ayers said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg told CNN’s Candy Crowley these voters may not even make it to the polls as they focus on other parts of their lives.

Yes... like working two and three jobs, taking care of their children, camping out for the new IPhone, or playing Angry Birds all day. Mitt Romney's moochers, in other words.

Nearly 50% of Americans don't bother voting at all, ever. That makes my vote -- and yours -- twice as valuable right off the bat. But more to the point: in a study of California non-/infrequent voters, two-thirds of these said that "special interests control elections".

In a hackable electronic-machine-counting, True the Vote-ing, photo ID-suppressing environment, that's still not enough to stop me.

On the 225th birthday of the United States Constitution, which simultaneously birthed our democratic republic, I share the opinion of former Supreme Court Justice David Souter that fewer and fewer Americans -- paraphrasing Benjamin Franklin -- are inclined to keep it.

There have been more than a few times in recent years when I would have gladly chosen anarchy or revolution ... if only someone else would take charge of the messy business of organizing it. I'm too busy, after all, and don't want any more aggravation in my life.

So instead I vote. I spend time researching the options. I carefully weigh pragmatism versus idealism. In the most difficult of dilemmas I simply eliminate the worst options until I can reach a consensus I can be comfortable with. I even go so far as to share much of what I learn and decide in this space.

Your agreement with my POV is not necessary, does not validate me. Your disagreement, likewise, is not taken as invalidation.

What is necessary -- even vital -- is that you not quit on our republic. That you do not fail to engage yourself in the important issues of the day. That you do not find something else to busy yourself with so as not to be troubled by the critical thinking required to perform your task of citizenship ably and responsibly.

Please forward this post to someone who does not agree with that.

Update: TPM has more data on the now-in-progress 2012 election.