Why early polls are even more like toilet paper than usual

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is outdistancing Vice President Joe Biden by almost 5 to 1 in a hypothetical matchup for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, a new McClatchy-Marist Poll released Wednesday found.

The poll found Clinton leading Biden by a ratio of 63-13 percent among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. Govs. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Martin O'Malley of Maryland trail in single digits, while 18 percent of respondents said they were undecided.

The same poll shows Clinton leading the current Republican front-runner, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, 46-41 percent among registered voters. Twelve percent of respondents were undecided.

“Get ready for round two of Hillary Clinton as the inevitable,” said Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, in a statement from the polling organization. “The big question is whether she runs.”

Uh huh. More spin from the Chronic.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry fares worse against Hillary Clinton than any other potential Republican presidential candidate, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.

Perry, who says he is thinking and praying about a possible 2016 presidential candidacy, trails the former Secretary of State by 16 percentage points — 52 percent to 36 percent — in a hypothetical general election match-up. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan also trails Clinton by 16 points, 53 percent to 37 percent.

[...]

In a GOP primary contest, Perry places a poor seventh at 4 percent. Freshman Texas Sen. Ted Cruz finished sixth with 7 percent.

B-B-But the Texas Tribune told us just last month to tell us that Ted Cruz is vastly more popular among Texans in the 2016 Republican presidential primary than Governor Suckseed. That's not translating nationally?!

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz starts as the Texas favorite in a fantasy 2016 Republican primary for president, swamping Gov. Rick Perry and a number of other big-name candidates in the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

I'm sure that once those Yankee TeaBags get to know Poop Cruz, they'll like him just as much as the rest of us do.

I'm previously on record that if Clinton runs she wins, and further that if she would select a Texas Latino as running mate, that the state turns blue. Further, said Latino would himself be elected and re-elected president, preventing the Republicans from having a decent shot at the White House before 2032.  There weren't any polls that helped me come to that conclusion. Just common sense (even considering, as Master Yoda said, "always in motion the future is").

Polls this far out are used to gin up supporters of the emotional and financial persuasion as well as to cast, as Miringoff notes in the first excerpt, an aura of inexorable destiny.

The difference between fresh TP and used TP -- besides the obvious -- is the immediate evidence of diminishing marginal returns, in economic parlance. Now that you have wiped yourself with these polls, flush them.

And catch yourself before you post it to Facebook or Tweet it, or any of those other things that some political consultant is hoping you will do. That's the kind of person who looks at their Klout score every morning.

Don't be that person.

A terrific idea: close Main Street to cars

Hair Balls:

Local blogger Kyle Nielsen put together an essay for the folks at Houston Tomorrow, partly to discuss the tragic death of a young cyclist who was run over by a Metro train this week, but also to cover the issues with general mobility of vehicles and pedestrians in downtown. ...

The general thesis of the story was that Main Street -- at least the part in downtown that has rail running smack dab down the center of it -- should be closed to vehicle traffic much the way it is for a block near what used to be the downtown Macy's. The theory is that it would give more room to pedestrians and cyclists as well as preventing issues for motorists.

This is an idea whose time we all wish had come before the death of Vivian Guan. From Nielsen's post:

It seems to me that it would enhance cyclist and pedestrian safety, encourage the type of walkable retail and bars/restaurants that Downtown needs, decrease motorist frustration at being stuck behind a bicycle, and enhance motorist and transit safety by eliminating the motorist [illegal] left turns that still hit the Metro rail cars sporadically.

It would also have the effect of slowing down the cars on the cross streets, making those potential T-bone car/train collisions less likely. It goes hand-in-glove with the city's bikeshare program. It's win-win-win and about five more wins.

Like the suggestion for re-purposing the Astrodome -- which, as coincidence would have it, came from a Rice University architecture student --  good ideas don't spring exclusively from the minds of seasoned city planners.

I'd like to see Houston City Council members make this happen yesterday.

People who aren't running for office (and those who shouldn't)

There are already some good news/bad news posts about who definitely might be/probably is running for office in 2014, so I thought I'd veer off into some of the developments regarding who isn't running...and perhaps should not be.

-- Like Anthony Weiner. I thought I had already said everything that needed saying on this topic, but "Carlos Danger" had to make an appearance. If you need to generate your very own semi-anonymous Twitter sexting handle, here that is. Just call me Pablo Hazard from now on.

What a disaster this guy is. What shame his poor wife lives under. Go away, buddy. Far, far away. Update: Already there's a slew of rancid comments that won't ever get approved. If it was wrong when Mark Sanford did it and wrong when David Vitter did it, it's wrong when a Democrat does it. This is real simple shit, people. This country only needs one political party completely immune to hypocrisy.

-- Not running for anything in 2014 is Annise Parker, as Noah helpfully points out.

Parker is very obviously running for re-election, a race that will last until the middle of December if there is a runoff. If she were to run statewide, it would require filing the signatures for the primary ballot about the same day as her third inauguration. There are some pretty outlandish politicians in Houston who would have the unmitigated temerity to do something like that, but Parker is not one of them.

Parker doesn't lack brass, but she is certainly smart enough to see that 2014 isn't going to be the year that Democrats break through. She can term out of the mayor's office and spend a year raising money for a bid in 2016 for whatever she wants, though I question Noah's premise that Congress is in her sights. She's an executive office-styled politico, and I would expect her to run for whatever statewide position might be available in a presidential election year. That's the path to her successful political future. Though I am still convinced that her best fit is state comptroller, that would have to come in 2018 against an incumbent Republican. Magic 8 Ball say "ask again later".

-- Kinky Friedman is also in the news again for the wrong reasons. Since he can't deny himself the media attention, let's join Kuffner and hope he bids for something downballot like Land or Ag Commish, as he did in 2010. He might actually make some noise next year if he did. For example, a Pee Bush/Kinky tilt for GLO commissioner in the fall of '14 has the potential to generate a lot of free media.

-- And it is still too early to be concerned with who is slinging mud in Houston city council races. You'll always have Campos for that. Or even Big Jolly for that matter (don't miss the thrust-and-parry in the comments). As I perused the archives here I found this old post from September of 2009 that suggests that things don't really heat up in this cycle until after the kids go back to school.

I cringe just thinking about having to blog about local politics during the worst of hurricane season.

Aaron Pena's latest tale of woe

If you're Latino in South Texas and driving without current registration and insurance, wearing a Greg Abbott T-shirt still isn't going to help.

Even a Democrat who switched to the GOP should have been smart enough to see this coming.

Aaron Peña was pulled over in Robstown, outside of Corpus Christi, for expired license plates. After being questioned by local police officers as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Robstown police impounded his vehicle and wrote him a ticket for lacking proof of automobile insurance, a charge Mr. Peña disputes.

“I don’t mind that they pulled me over,” said Peña, a Republican from Edinburg. “I don’t mind that they gave me a ticket. I do mind with great personal offense that they treated me like a drug dealer and accused me of lying.”

Peña was driving a 2001 Dodge pickup he said he had purchased within the previous two weeks. He had planned to drive it home to Edinburg so his son could take it with him when he starts college. Peña had expected to address the vehicle’s expired license plate once he got to South Texas. He had considered the possibility that the plates might get him pulled over but figured he would, if needed, explain to a police officer the situation and risk getting a ticket.

While driving down U.S. Highway 77, Peña was pulled over in Robstown. A Robstown police officer directed him to get out of his pickup. Peña complied. He was wearing dress pants and dress shoes and a campaign T-shirt for Attorney General Greg Abbott, who just kicked off his gubernatorial campaign. Peña had introduced Abbott at a campaign event earlier in the week.

Just had to emphasize that.

Within minutes of Peña getting out of his vehicle, he noticed that the two Robstown officers had been joined by at least two other officers. They were not in uniform, but Peña said he could tell they were with the Department of Homeland Security by the badges they wore on chains around their necks. A police spokesman confirmed that the men were with ICE.

“There was a point where I sensed that I was surrounded,” Peña said. “I asked if this was bigger than a traffic stop. One of them says ‘You tell me.’”

"Ha Ha Ha! Look, it's a Mexican Republican!"

We've talked much about Pena here over the years -- his sneaking down the alley to a strategy meeting with Tom Craddick (wearing a jogging suit, baseball cap pulled low) in 2007, his shenanigans during the 2008 campaign where he showed up at events as a supporter of both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, his flip-flop from D to R in 2010, the eventual demise of his political career. It hasn't all been harsh; I wrote something nice in 2009, when he was still a Dem and introduced some legislation protecting bloggers.

But it strains credibility -- as if Aaron Pena still has any left among people who process thought -- that these words would exit his piehole.

“They assumed I was guilty, and they expected me to prove that I was innocent,” Peña said.

Welcome to South Texas, Rep. Pena. Now you can go home. Hope you learned something from this experience about how your former constituents live their lives every day.

Perhaps you'll be better known among LEOs by posting more Twitpics like this.

http://t.co/JDZZ9krTwM @GeorgePBush and Lionel Aaron Peña. (I added my first name to clear off suspicions.)
— Aaron Peña (@AaronPena) July 19, 2013

No, I think that likely heightens suspicions.

Update: Another Two Cents.