Bounce back or fall further?

The race for the White House has tightened significantly, even in states like Pennsylvania. Republicans are trying to discern feces from shoe polish about the Libyan embassy attack, and who is responsible for it. Obama's missteps in retrospect are under the magnifying glass.

So tonight -- similar to one about 32 years ago, where the questions surrounding the incumbent president were similar and yet different -- is another inflection point in this election season.

The past two weeks seem to have borne that out. The slide in support for Obama appears to have leveled off in most of the polls (see here, here, here) right around their June low points. On Wall Street, this floor is called a support level — the point at which demand will prevent further price declines. If one looks at the long-term polling trend in the presidential race, there are two clear stories: Romney has been making gradual gains, and Obama has yet to fall behind enough to clearly prevent him from winning re-election.

Yes, that's where it stands this morning. Where it stands this evening is any partisan spinner's guess.

-- Michael Tomasky has some good advice for the president. Here's some of that.

Be a fighter for beliefs. I wrote this already, but it needs to be on this list. Obama must communicate that he wants to spend four more years fighting for the things he believes in and the people he represents.

Link Romney to Bush on policy. Absolutely crucial. This would sound something like: “Friends, let’s look over a little recent history. In 2001 President Bush came into office saying he was going to cut taxes and decrease regulations on Wall Street and the banks, and the economy would go gangbusters. Well, he did that, and we saw what happened—record deficits and the biggest economic crisis in 80 years.

“I’ve spent the last four years digging us out of this ditch. No help from the other side, mind you. But I have, and now we’re finally getting somewhere positive—the lowest unemployment rate in four years, the highest consumer confidence in five.

“And along comes my opponent here, and what’s he say? He wants to cut taxes and repeal regulations on Wall Street and the banks. Exactly the policies that created the crisis in the first place. Friends, I know your memories aren’t that short. They’re gonna take us right back to where we were.”

-- More Tomasky from this piece.

Obama needs to make Mitt unacceptable again. On his tax plan. On loopholes. On his vagueness. On the promise that a huge tax cut will spur the economy and generate more revenue, which we heard before (and please, dude, mention the name Bush). On Medicare. Why is that so damn hard? Everybody keeps saying that’s hard. It is not hard. Bill Clinton did it. Then everyone keeps saying that only Clinton has the chops to do things like that. Nonsense. Here: “Governor, as you well know, that $716 billion is savings, not a cut. If you spend it as you propose, you’re just spending the Medicare trust fund down faster. You’re making Medicare go broke faster. It’s like taking money out of your child’s college fund before he gets to college. That’s maybe why your running mate agrees with me on this one. And you must know this. So either you don’t get how it works or you’re intentionally misleading people.”

The thing about this language is that it's Obama-styled, forceful and direct without being loopy and confrontational. Except that loopy and confrontational worked pretty well for Mitt in the first debate, and really well for Joe Biden last week.

I just don't think Obama can or will go there. But he does have to punch, and he must counterpunch.

I remember attending a gathering of Democrats four years ago and being angered by the president's lack of a boxing strategy against the furious, blustering, fairly unhinged John McCain. (In a subsequent post about 2008's vice-presidential debate I explained this better -- scroll to the last). McCain lived up to his reputation in Debate II; we will have to see what Romney pulls out.

My guess is that Romney can't count on a cowed Obama again, distracted by his anniversary or whatever else. He's got to knock Obama off stride rather than hope for another stumble. The Republican is certainly capable of saying anything at all to reach that goal. Some points are likely to be scored on the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens. That will be crass but predictable, so the president better have a good comeback.

But there is always something unexpected. A Sistah Souljah moment perhaps, from Mitt. Tomasky again, if that happens...

Obama has to be ready for that or another surprise. If it’s that one, I think Obama’s best response is probably not even to engage on the level of policy, but just to level him with something like, “Boy, you’ll just say anything now, won’t you? For a year and half, as long as he was seeking Republican votes, this guy went around and bragged out how much he was cutting taxes. And now that he wants everybody’s vote, suddenly he’s a tax raiser!” Et cetera.

In other words, I am conceding that that would be a smart thing for Romney to do, and that Obama’s policy answers to it are limited. As long as the people who despise tax increases would let him get away with this—and they would, for now—Obama would be a little boxed in. That’s where the mot juste comes in handy. Ding him for saying anything. Make the subject not what taxes the rich pay, but that Romney has no core.

So if Romney pulls a rabbit out of hat, Obama has to blast it with a shotgun.

But can he do that?

Whatever happens tonight, the "right-wing-leaners" will either fall more right or fall back toward undecided. And the stage will be set for the third and final debate, on October 22nd. Whatever happens tonight, that last debate will be even more interesting. The debate the following evening should be good, too.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance and this week's roundup are both certified 100% malarkey-free.

Off the Kuff takes a look at how many seats the Democrats are likely to pick up in the Legislature this November.  

BossKitty at TruthHugger sees the meningitis outbreak as another nail in the coffin, driven home by the right-wing corporate oligarchy's war on regulations and existing laws. Voters who don't put 2 and 2 together about the consequences of deregulation are allowing manufacturing shortcuts to hurt all of us. Deregulation mantras are bought and paid for by corporate greed: My Profit Is Worth More Than Your Safety. Yes, the government can help people, and until Democrats in Texas remind people of that, they'll keep losing.

And from WCNews at Eye on Williamson on that topic: Democratic success in Texas is tied to voters seeing government as on their side.

Mitt Romney's slight increase in polling popularity in the wake of the first debate is most attributable to single women, who apparently allowed his economic appeals to overcome their concerns about that whole War on Women thing. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs thinks that if President Obama doesn't make his case for a better economy, he's stupid.  

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders why so much of the drill baby drill energy is going out of our ports. Who's getting that energy?

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos explains the Romney plan in terms even a child can understand, in Starving Big Bird, Children and the Poor. Check it out.

Sunday Funnies

Pictures worth a thousand

There were plenty of zingers, but the photos tell the story.

Your reaction is dependent upon your partisan bias.

My favorite:

Here are ten more captioned with actual quotes from the evening, and a hilarious (and bipartisan) set of 31 are here. One of those...

Of almost as much enjoyment was TIME's set, out earlier in the day, of Paul Ryan exercising...

...and the fun had by all with that.

No additional snark necessary.

Your debate prep for this evening

As with last week's fight between the Kenyan (sic) Assassin and the Stormin' Mormon, tonight's Biden-Ryan tilt -- one is the Boomer washing his Pontiac in the driveway, the other is Atlas shrugging and shredding a P90X workout -- you need to be prepared for all the wonky goodness that will flow forth across the Kentucky landscape... and out of your preferred broadcast source. That is, if you prefer your style as a sauce for the substance, and not as the main course.

-- Five things to watch for, from CNN, the WaPo, Politico, and the Blaze. Think Progress has twelve.

-- As with last week's debate, the major/minor parties are disinvited, so the Greens' vice-presidential nominee, Cheri Honkala, is hosting a street party down a few blocks from the small liberal arts college where Biden-Ryan is being waged, about two hours south of Cincinnatti, OH.

What: "Paul Ryan" Austerity Wagon protest with Cheri Honkala
Where: 317 W. Main Street, Danville, KY (6 blocks from Centre campus)
When: Thursday Oct. 11, 7 PM (action starts at 8 PM sharp)

 Join Green Party VP candidate Cheri Honkala to Occupy the Vice Presidential Debate at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky on Thursday, October 11!

Occupy activists around Kentucky and Southern Ohio are organizing some really fun street theatre highlighting Paul Ryan's devastating budget plan that would redistribute wealth upward from the poor and middle class to the wealthy. We aren't counting on Joe Biden or the debate's pre-approved moderator and format, tightly regulated by both campaigns, to bring up that issue -- or any of the other issues we really want to hear more about.

-- Judge Jim Gray, the Libertarian vice-presidential candidate, is just going to Hang Out on Google.

-- Finally... the fact-checking is already under way. It will probably still be going on by the time of the second Romney-Obama debate next Tuesday.

A Republican Unicorn in Fort Bend County

Running for commissioner, and voting in two states.

A Republican precinct chairman running for a seat on the Fort Bend County Commissioner's Court has cast ballots in both Texas and Pennsylvania in the last three federal elections, official records in both states show.

Bruce J. Fleming, a Sugar Land resident running for Precinct 1 commissioner, voted in person in Sugar Land in 2006, 2008 and 2010 and by mail in each of those years in Yardley, Pa., according to election records in both states.

Fleming, who owns a home in Yardley, voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2008 presidential primary in Texas. His wife, Nancy Fleming, who is listed as a resident of Yardley, voted by mail in both places in the 2010 general election, records show.

"The less said is better," Bruce Fleming said when contacted by phone late Tuesday afternoon. "Until we can determine the situation, I can't really comment."

Like the Chupacabra, it turns out that voter fraud does exist (at the discovered rate of less than once per year since 2000, nationwide) and it's being committed by the people doing the most complaining about it.

Doesn't that True the Vote queen Catherine Englebrecht live in Fort Bend County? Why yes she does, and in this very precinct. From the source that first broke this story -- and got the Traditional Media right on it -- here's Juanita Jean from the WMDBS (I am sure she picked those words on purpose like that).

Cathy Engelbretch did not sniff out voter fraud when it was right under her nose smelling like a goat with a three day old catfish on its back.  And here’s how I know that.

You have to read it all. KPRC even managed coverage.

"To be honest with you, the tip was Mr. Fleming had bragged to Rick Miller that he had voted twice against Barack Obama," said Don Bankston of the Texas State Democratic Party.

(It should be noted here that Bankston is Juanita Jean's husband. And I love 'em both for the work they do down there in the belly of the GOP beast.)

Voter ID legislation doesn't prevent this kind of voter fraud, you see. Forget that requiring photo IDs at the polling place is even meant to prevent voter fraud anyway.

What this exposes, again, is the entire fraud of Republicans generally. They cannot govern seriously, but only by an ideology so warped that they themselves are twisted up by it. They think by committing this second-degree felony that they're simply evening things out for their team.

That is literally what they think.

If you vote for any Republican over the next few weeks, then you get what you deserve.

Those swinging single women

Wading into an explosive social issue, Republican Mitt Romney on Tuesday said he would not pursue any abortion-related legislation if elected president.

"There's no legislation with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda," he told the Des Moines Register in an interview posted on the newspaper's website.

That sounds a little slippery on the face of it; "that I'm familiar with".

Romney's statement to the newspaper represents an apparent shift on a topic Obama's campaign has tried to use against him, particularly with female voters. Soon after the comments were posted on the Register's website, the president's campaign pounced.

"We know the truth about where he stands on a woman's right to choose: He's said he'd be delighted to sign a bill banning all abortions, and called Roe v. Wade 'one of the darkest moments in Supreme Court history,' while pledging to appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn it. Women simply can't trust him," Obama spokeswoman Lis Smith said.

As recently as a presidential debate in January, Romney said the Supreme Court should overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that legalized abortion across the nation.

My feeling here is that Romney has slid too much to the left -- aka closer to the center -- for this to be of help to his cause. Update: It only took the campaign a couple of hours to walk that back.

Then again, he may just be divining the polling.

(Democratic pollster Stan) Greenberg told (the Washington Post's Greg Sargent) in an interview that his new research persuaded him that Mitt Romney beat Obama in the debate for a simple reason. Unmarried women — a critical piece of Obama’s coalition — did not hear Obama telling him how they would make their lives better. By contrast, they did hear Romney telling them he’d improve their lives. 

Recall that in yesterday's post, this erosion of support from women was mentioned.

Romney, however, succeeded in communicating with unmarried women, Greenberg says, by prefacing talk of his five point plan with an extended discussion of the economic strain of middle-income Americans — which Greenberg calls an effective “set up that gave his details meaning.”

“When Romney talked about what he is going to do for the middle class, his five point plan, they were very responsive,” Greenberg says. “The president had a lot of detail but didn’t have the set up in values.”

Unmarried women are a key piece of the “rising American electorate,” which includes young voters and minorities and propelled Obama's 2008 victory. “The key issues for them are the suite of economic issues around rebuilding the middle class,” Page Gardner, the president of Women’s Voices Women Vote, who commissioned Greenberg’s research, says. “They are the most stressed and stretched.”

Greenberg’s research also included a national survey, and focus groups in Ohio and Virginia, that suggest a course correction for Obama. The national survey found that before the debate, Obama was doing extremely well among unmarried women, beating Romney among them by 63-24. He held a 19 point edge among them on who would do better on “issues important to you.” 

So Mitt's reaching out with another line to the constituency that will apparently decide 2012: unmarried females in a handful of swing states.

I'd like to say here that I weep for the future for a segment of the electorate that appears to have overlooked the whole War on Women thing, but it just doesn't come as a big enough surprise.

Women -- single women, with children or without, irrespective of nationality -- have had it worse in this economy than anybody. I can't blame them one little bit for reaching for any lifeline thrown near them.

It's a shame they aren't aware of the two female candidates running on a New Deal platform, isn't it?

If Obama -- or more immediately, Joe Biden -- doesn't mention 47% in the next debate, the Democrats could succeed in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

I think they can hold on, but they need to do more than just try to run out the clock. As they say in auto racing: it's the last lap of the Daytona 500; you don't take your foot off the gas.

(Maybe I should look for less sports-related macho analogies.)

OK Obama supporters, you can panic now.

The Great and Powerful Kos has spoken.

Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos & SEIU. 10/4-7. Likely voters. MoE ±2.72% (9/27-30 results)

The candidates for President are Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney. If the election was today, who would you vote for?

  Obama 47 (49)
Romney 49 (45)

That's a pretty disastrous six-point net swing in just a week, and the first time we've ever had Romney in the lead. It is inline with all other national polling showing Romney making gains in the wake of his debate performance last week.

Both the Gallup and Rasmussen trackers saw their Romney bounce evaporate on Sunday. In this poll, 75 percent of the sample was gathered on Thursday and Friday, at the height of Romney's bounce. This is because PPP does call-backs: It identifies a random range of numbers and begins calling them on Thursday. If they get no answer, they keep trying the same numbers on subsequent days until they get the required number of responses (we ask for at least 1,000). This avoids the old tropes about young liberals being out partying on Friday nights, while conservatives are at church on Sunday mornings, etc.

[...]

So where did Romney gain? Among women, Obama went from a 15-point lead to a slimmer 51-45 edge. Meanwhile, Romney went from winning independents 44-41 to winning them 48-42. And just like the Ipsos poll showed last week, Romney further consolidated his base. They went from supporting him 85-13 last week, to 87-11 this week while Obama lost some Democrats, going from 88-9 last week, to 87-11 this week.

Several other polls, Pew chief among them, saw a big increase in the number of respondents self-identifying as Republicans—a sign of increased intensity on that side of the aisle. Our poll confirms that intensity boost. Last week, 65 percent of conservatives were "very excited" about voting this year. This week, it's 74 percent. That's a significant shift. Liberals also gained, but only marginally so, from 68 to 70 percent.

Clearly, none of this is irreversible, and it'll bear watching the daily trackers to see if Romney continues to fade or not. And obviously, next week's numbers will further clarify the shape of the race.

Regardless, it shows that Obama's debate performance was an epic blunder (my emphasis). Romney gave his partisans a reason to get excited about him and they've responded. It should come as no surprise that people like to fight for people who are fighting for them.

Obama's also been looking at the polls, and underscores the fear factor to his partisans.

President Barack Obama is telling supporters that with one month to go, it is time for them to get "almost obsessive."

Speaking to donors at a $20,000-per-ticket dinner in San Francisco, Obama said, quote, "I very much intend to win this election."

But he says it will require supporters to mobilize every resource they can think of to help him. He encourages those who given him cash to do more by sending emails, making phone calls, and reaching out to cousins or uncles or friends in the battleground states that will decide the election.

Says Obama, quote: "You've got to make sure that we bring this home." 

The two excerpts above encapsulate so much of what has gone wrong with our political process that it's difficult for me to find a place to start to break it down. No joke; it's an Aegean stables-like task. (I'm not even going to mention Mitt Romney, either.)

Indeed Obama had a shitty debate, but to consider that his performance actually changed so many peoples' minds is a rather pathetic take on the electorate. A week ago -- yes, just a week ago -- the race was virtually concluded. The momentum was solidly blue, and was spreading downballot rapidly. I haven't looked to see what the polls reveal about Senate or Congressional races yet, but suffice it to say that something similar is probably occurring.

You may recall that I have a low opinion of opinion polling. That is still the case. Beating my ownself out of the Crips gang also helps in processing the wilting of Team Bleu fortunes with the first frost.

Democratic White House prospects now rest in the capable hands of Joe Biden in his debate with Paul Ryan Thursday night. That should still be fun.

But partisan Dems, and particularly those in Texas, suddenly have a lot to be worried about.

The focus will crystallize after today; it's the last day to register to vote in this election in Texas, so the conversation and the efforts will turn to GOTV. And to enlisting Texans to call swing state voters, as if so much of that volunteer effort hasn't already been siphoned off. With fully 50% of the potential American electorate officially uncoupled from having a say -- as much by their own choice as the deadline -- the audience for the message just divided in half.

Texans are both ATM and ground infantry recruitment headquarters again for Obama, and for close Senate contests in places like Massachusetts and Wisconsin... but not here. With tight and winnable races in the Texas House and state Senate, resources must be expended to save ground, not expand it any longer. Another strategy shift in the midst of happening, as the state poll numbers continue to be gathered.

Unless the momentum can be regained by the Democrats, the tides appear to have reversed themselves, with the Red coming in and the Blue going out.

This would have bothered me a lot more in years past.

We can hope that fear is a good motivator for Democratic voters, at least. It seems to work better on the Republican lizard brain, but so does rabid enthusiasm on their hive mind. And now they have it. They probably won't let go of it again over the course of the next month.

It's a cryin' ass shame either way for Texas Dems, though. They will have to pour themselves out block-walking, phone-calling, lit-dropping and push-carding just to preserve some gains that were in the bank last week.

All because Obama mailed it in on his anniversary.

My own enthusiasm for Obama -- and it never was a lot -- began to deflate early on when he refused to fight for his own healthcare program, and then more so as he declined to fight back against the worst of the Republican attacks on him. Here I might pile on with Guantanamo, NDAA, drone assassinations of Afghani and Pakistani civilians as well as American citizens, the mishandling of both the economic crisis as well as the subsequent stimulus, and most recently our environment locally and our climate globally.

But I will save elaborating on these reasons for not backing the president in 2012 for later.

Even some of the Kossacks commenting on that thread get it, though, this one in particular (poor syntax notwithstanding).

When you embrace proto Republican ideas do not be surprised when voters look favorably on Republican ideas that are so close to your own. If Republicans are good enough for Obama to want to make nice with then why should undecideds not take them seriously too. We may lose this election because of the President's insistence on bipartisanship and the failure to treat the base well.

The Greens are not going to get anywhere near what Nader got in 2000. The Greens will not be to blame here. Rather the administration's failure along with the media's to properly label the Tea Party and its billionaire benefactors as the danger to the country that they represent. And the lack of support for the labor movement and the embrace of neoliberal economic policy.

The administration's handling of the banking crisis was a political disaster. It alienated voted (sic) while only benefiting the wealthy. What should have been an era of aggressive banking reform was instead an era of bankers getting wealthier.

There's a Houston-area meetup of Daily Kosians this weekend. Some I already know offline; some are activists, some are clicktivists, all are dyed-in-the-wool Democrats. It's an opportunity to see how well-received a person like me is in that company.

There are a lot of votes in the can already, however, and none of what's happening right now has changed my ballot at all. I will still vote for several Democrats, all the Greens I can, and a few Libertarians where they are the only one running against a Republican. But then again, I'm not a low-information voter, either.

And I doubt that you are as well. But the election doesn't turn on people like us... except for down the ballot. That's especially the case here in the Great State.

Update: Nate Silver, as good at the game as any, says "don't worry". Plenty of historical precedent for one good debate being fairly meaningless in the overall scheme. And the Irish betting service I follow -- always hilarious -- declares in this morning's e-mail...

With less than a month to go before America goes to the polls Paddy Power, Europe’s largest betting company, can report that close to 3 times more money has been staked on President Barack Obama than his election rival Mitt Romney.

The Irish betting house has seen only 25.5% of money staked on their next President betting line placed on Romney since he was formally named as the Republican candidate on August 30th while 74.5% of the dough has been placed on Obama in the same period.

Meanwhile, the former Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, has seen his odds of winning the presidential race improve significantly from 9/2 to 9/4 since his powerful display in the first debate but still trails Barack Obama who remains the favourite to win the election at 1/3.

 A spokesperson for Paddy Power said “Obama looked to be home and dry in our customers’ eyes about two weeks ago, however there’s been a recent surge in support for Romney which would suggest that Obama might be in a Mitt of trouble.”

Update II: Nobody does 'stop freaking out' better than Wonkette (NSFW due to language).

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance has Big Bird's back as it brings you this week's roundup.
  
BossKitty at TruthHugger was in a hurry and only posted one article. Thanks to underfunded oversight and a broken Congress, the state of the Veterans Administration is disgusting: VA System Failure, Blame Robot Congress.

Off the Kuff deconstructed a truly crappy poll that was nonetheless accepted uncritically by the media.  

WCNews at Eye on Williamson shows us that one of the problems with our elections is who doesn't show up to vote: Getting non-voters to the polls.

Green presidential candidate Jill Stein's Texas swing wrapped up last Sunday in Houston with a visit to the Emile Street Community Farm, a fundraiser at a Montrose-area environmental showcase home, and another appearance on KPFT Pacifica radio. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has pictures.

Neil at Texas Liberal also went to a campaign appearance of Stein's.

Jill Stein wraps up Texas swing today

This afternoon, back in Houston, at the Emile Street Farm, and then the environmental showcase home of Lee and Hardy Loe. And tonight on KPFT again.

Your last chance in Houston to see and speak with a presidential candidate who is actually for the 99%... without having to pay thousands of dollars to do so. And several of the Greens on the Harris County ballot also.

Here's more photos from the past few days.

Sunday No Big Bird Funnies

Brainy Endorsements: Vince Ryan

Vince Ryan is running for re-election to Harris County attorney. He was elected in 2008's Obama wave and faces Republican Bob Talton to return to office. If you don't count Wayne Dolcefino as political opposition, that is.

The Chron beat me to this endorsement (as slow as they are, I am disappointed I let that happen) and while gathering plaudits for Ryan's work and experience, drops in this intriguing paragraph.

We have noted, however, that partisanship has on occasion been taken to unhelpful lengths in blogs written by high-profile members of Ryan's team. These reflect on the county attorney himself and do not always promote civil and respectful relations with the many elected Republican officials at the county.

I can't find what they refer to here. Anyone?

GOP Godfather Gary Polland, something weird calling itself Texas Patriot Statesman, and Big Jolly have made the usual partisan appeals, but anything critical of Talton and supportive of the Ryan campaign "from high-profile members" of his team eludes my searches.

And Charles Kuffner -- from his continuing series of paeans on the inexorable power of money to get elected -- queried his readers in the spring about the rift among Republicans in the primary. No one appears to have answered his question.

I'll give that a whirl, without being able to confirm some of my supposition.

Talton earned the nickname "Crazy Bob" when he was in the state legislature. Talton, in fact, was so crazy that he bucked Tom Craddick -- hard and often -- when he was in the statehouse, which at the time was virtually a suicidal act. Jolly alludes to this in the link above (at the end).

Talton kamikaze style was so feared, in fact, that no less than Representatives Garnet Coleman and Jessica Farrar, state Senators Mario Gallegos and Rodney Ellis, former Harris County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia, former state representatives Scott Hochberg and Rick Noriega, all refused to support the Democrat that ran against Talton in 2006, Janette Sexton. It's worth excerpting a small bit...

(S)everal Houston-area Democratic legislators made promises of help of all kinds, but when she called to take up those offers, her calls went unanswered and unreturned. There were some people who leveled with Padilla-Sexton: state representative Garnet Coleman told her that he and his colleagues had discussed her race and come to the conclusion that they could not assist her because “they had to work with Bob Talton on regional issues”. (I contacted Phillip Martin, Coleman’s chief of staff, for a response but my queries went unanswered.) Mostly she got the cold shoulder: Rep. Jessica Farrar was effusive in her initial offers of assistance, but declined to return phone messages when the time came to help. Padilla-Sexton also reached out to Harris County commissioner Sylvia Garcia (mentoring), Sen. Rodney Ellis (about an air quality question), Rep. Scott Hochberg (regarding state education funding), Sen. Mario Gallegos (for adding credibility to her campaign) and Rep. Rick Noriega (for general help and direction), but none of those people returned her calls, either.

There were obviously conversations between Craddick's many enemies, Republicans among them, in 2006 about how to take him down. This may have earned Talton the respect so many Democrats showed him, as well as some enmity from conservatives of a Craddick-loving stripe. After all, there were over a dozen Texas House Democrats lining up behind the former Speaker in January 2007. Given that, how could any conservative fall out of formation and not be accused of heresy?

What this tells me -- and what it should tell you -- is that Democrats are such a beaten-down minority that they don't hesitate to throw one of their own under the bus if they can find a Republican to make a deal with. That's classic battered-spouse syndrome, folks. But the more important question is: what's the difference between the two parties, again?

I have a post prepared that is going to talk more about these local concession-tenderers, as John Behrman has referred to them. I may run it before Election Day... if I want to burn the last bridge between me and the Harris County Democratic Party. Suffice it for now to say that this is precisely where the roots of the problem for Democrats are dug in: with the oligarchs who are collecting markers, waiting for their next electoral opportunity.

But all of that is a digression from the low-quality opponent Vince Ryan has, as well as from the fine work he has done. Let's get Ryan back downtown to keep working as a check and balance against the worst of the Republicans on Harris County's Commissioners Court.

Brainy Endorsements so far include the following...

Nile Copeland for the First Court of Appeals
Alfred and GC Molison for HD 131 and SBOE, respectively
Henry Cooper for HD 148
Keith Hampton for Presiding Judge, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Barbara Gardner for the Fourteenth Court of Appeals
Don Cook for Congress, 22nd District
Max Martin for Congress, 36th District
Remington Alessi for Harris County Sheriff
David Courtney for Texas Senate, District 17
Ann Harris Bennett for Harris County Tax Assessor/Collector
Ann Johnson for HD-134
Mike Engelhart, Larry Weiman, and Al Bennett for the Harris County bench
Mark Roberts for Congress, 2nd District
David Collins for United States Senate