I generally don't watch the national news on TV if I can avoid it; since Tiffany does like to watch, I often can't. The other night during one of the broadcasts, there was a bit on how Republicans in North Carolina were attacking Obama, and it predictably included a clip with some guy saying "Barack HUSSEIN Obama!" And my first reaction to that was, don't these people know that the only reason your parents give you a middle name is so you can tell when they're really mad at you? I mean hell, Olivia isn't even four yet, and you'd better believe she can distinguish between "Olivia!", "Olivia Rose!", and "OLIVIA ROSE KUFFNER!", the latter of course being the nuclear option. So when I hear some angry white guy on the teevee saying "Barack HUSSEIN Obama!", I say to myself "What, did he not clean up his room?" Oh, and that you need to put the emphasis on the surname to get the full effect. You'd think they'd know this, but I guess not.
The Associated Press says Sen. Barack Obama won 38 of the 67 available delegates at Saturday's Senate conventions. Phillip Martin says it's a 37-30 split, though some outstanding challenges and still-uncertified results may make the final result 38-29. We won't have a completely finalized total until the state convention in June, but this is the range of possibility. And either way, it means Obama comes away from Texas with the majority of the delegates, either 99-94 or 98-95, not counting superdelegates. Now let the discussion about how we should be doing this begin!
I note this news item about John McCain with some interest.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has promised a serious bid to win California in the fall presidential election, bulked up his dream team of Silicon Valley managers and advisers on Friday by naming California billionaire and outgoing eBay chief executive Meg Whitman co-chair of his national campaign.[...]
[Former California GOP Chairman Duf] Sundheim said California's independent and swing voters -- who make up 1 out of 5 voters in the state -- might consider McCain if they became disenchanted by the fighting between Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama in their battle for the party nomination.
OK, McCain thinks he has a shot in California. Dream big, I say. Let's see what the current polls say:
- Mar 14 Rasmussen Obama (D) 53%, McCain (R) 38%
- Mar 14 Rasmussen Clinton (D) 46%, McCain (R) 39%
- Mar 6 SurveyUSA Obama (D) 51%, McCain (R) 40%
- Mar 6 SurveyUSA Clinton (D) 50%, McCain 40%
One not-too-bad result, three double-digits deficits. Now let's check out the Texas matchups:
- Mar 6 SurveyUSA McCain (R) 47%, Obama (D) 46%
- Mar 6 SurveyUSA McCain (R) 49%, Clinton (D) 42%
- Mar 3 Public Strategies McCain (R) 51%, Obama (D) 42%
- Mar 3 Public Strategies< McCain (R) 50%, Clinton (D) 46%
- Mar 3 Pub. Strategies McCain (R) 49%, Obama (D) 42%
- Mar 3 Pub. Strategies< McCain (R) 50%, Clinton (D) 46%
With one exception, every single result is at least as favorable to the Dems than the California results were to McCain. And yet I've seen people suggest that the Dems shouldn't bother to contest Texas, because it's just not within reach for them. Go figure.
Spotted in my neighborhood the other day, on White Oak at Harvard:
I dropped in for a short chat after I took the picture. They're in donated space and will be out shortly after Tuesday, but everyone inside was confident there would be stuff like this again in the fall. I hope they're right.
The Chron says Barack Obama is leading in Texas.
Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama appears to be consolidating a lead over Hillary Rodham Clinton among most constituent groups in Texas except Hispanics, according to a new tracking poll.The survey found Obama leading 48.2 percent to 41.7 percent over Clinton statewide. The poll, conducted Tuesday through Thursday for the Houston Chronicle, Reuters and C-SPAN by Zogby International, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
[...]
The tracking poll, which will be conducted daily until next Tuesday's election, found Obama leading with both men and women. He and Clinton were essentially tied among Anglos, but he held 84.9 percent support among blacks and she had the support of 54.9 percent of the Hispanics surveyed.
That Hispanic backing helped give Clinton a lead in South Texas of 66.7 percent. She also led in West Texas, which would include heavily Hispanic El Paso.
Obama led in every other region and was supported by about 60 percent of those surveyed in Houston and Dallas -- which have more nominating delegates at stake than all of the region from San Antonio to Brownsville to El Paso.
[...]
Momentum is clearly on Obama's side, though. A Texas Democratic superdelegate -- state Rep. Senfronia Thompson of Houston -- Thursday switched her support from Clinton to Obama.
Pollster John Zogby said the statistics that really show the momentum for Obama is the timing of when people made up their mind on how to vote. He said Clinton leads "substantially" among those who made up their minds more than a month ago, but Obama leads almost "two-to-one" among those who made up their minds recently.
That last bit jibes with a People Calling People poll (PDF) that Perry highlights, which shows Sen. Clinton holding a small lead among those who have already voted. Really, the question any poll has to answer at this point is how they determined their sample. With so many new voters in this primary, you simply cannot rely on past voting history. It seems likely to me that any miscalculations here are going to undercount Obama's support, but that could be wrong as well. We just don't know. My gut says Obama's got a decent lead, but we won't know till Tuesday.
Well, assuming there isn't a lawsuit, anyway.
Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign has raised the possibility of a challenge to Texas' primary and caucus rules just days before the contest, drawing a warning against legal action from the state's Democratic Party.Top strategists for Democratic rival Barack Obama said today they supported the party's action, suggesting the Clinton campaign was trying to block the reporting of caucus results.
Aides to Clinton said earlier this week they were alarmed at the lack of clarity about many of the caucus rules and expressed their concerns on a conference call with Obama's staff and state party officials. Texas has a two-step voting process, with a primary and then caucuses shortly after the polls close.
Specifically, Clinton aides questioned a provision allowing caucus attendees to vote to move the location if they choose to do so, and whether people who had cast so-called "provisional ballots" in the primary would have their votes counted in the caucus.
They also expressed concern about the automated phone system precinct chairs would use to call in the results of each caucus, saying the party hadn't yet trained anyone to use the system properly.
Clinton political director Guy Cecil said he asked party officials to spell out the rules in memo form and to send them to both campaigns.
"We want to see the results in writing, and we reserve the right to challenge something if we don't believe it reflects something that was discussed on the call," he said, insisting that if there were clear problems with how the caucuses were being run, "you are allowed to say something about it."
Cecil today denied that the campaign planned to sue the party, which will manage roughly 8,700 caucuses Tuesday evening.
"There were no veiled threats of lawsuits of any kind," Cecil said of the conference call.
Glenn Smith suggests a reason for this:
They want to delay and disrupt the reporting of the delegate count. They hope that if they win the popular vote, they can avoid, at least for one news cycle, news reports that even if they do so they will very likely lose the delegate fight in Texas and fall further behind Obama in the national delegate contest.This is not speculation. This has been the subject under discussion. While I have not been part of that discussion, plenty of sources last night and this morning confirmed this as the core of the dispute.
It is widely assumed that Obama's organizational advantage will achieve in the caucus portion of the Texas election just what it has achieved in earlier caucuses: a significant victory in delegates. There are 67 delegates at stake in those caucuses. The Clinton campaign would like to delay the reporting of the caucus results, and that is why they have continually "reserved the right to challenge" Texas law and Democratic party procedures.
Throw the Texas delegate results in dispute, and win or lose the popular vote, they will have advanced their case that the contest remains close and should go all the way to the convention if necessary.
Well, good luck with that. Both the Pollster average and the Belo tracking poll are also showing movement to Obama. I can understand this strategy if she wins the popular vote, but not if she loses it, as it'll sound a lot like sour grapes. But hey, you never know. Thanks to KT for the latter links.
This may be my favorite Presidential campaign-related blog post of all time; certainly, it's my favorite of this cycle. It's the fangirl-crushiness of it that takes it to the next level for me. I mean, hey, geeks vote, too. And who needs superdelegates when you have Samwise? Check it out.
On the whole, I thought the Bill Clinton rally last night was pretty uninspiring. Not just because he started speaking almost two hours late or because Hofheinz was barely half-full (I think the capacity is 8,500). I haven't been excited about either candidate yet, but the difference I see right now is that going to an Obama rally would probably swing an undecided voter in his direction, but tonight didn't do much to pull me toward Hillary.
Sheila Jackson Lee and Chris Bell did a little bit of introducing and endorsing before President Clinton spoke. Chris Bell still gives a nice little speech, and he's a pretty funny guy. He said that the Bush administration's message has been to "be afraid, stay afraid, and don't forget to go shopping." I wasn't so excited to see him endorse Hillary because I've been leaning toward Obama since Edwards dropped out, but I respect Chris Bell a lot.
Bill Clinton didn't make it to the stage until 10:30, two and a half hours after the doors opened. He made an all right speech that highlighted Hillary's accomplishments and her plans if she's elected. He talked about improving people's lives and futures and helping America and the world come together. Everyone that spoke really emphasized vision and Hillary's experience as a changemaker. President Clinton also talked about the difference between embodying change and empowering people to create change for themselves. I'm pretty sick of both campaigns' change vs. experience messages by now, but I didn't think the anti-Obama case was made very well. Bill did a good job of highlighting the high points of Hillary's policy accomplishments and her agenda, but all of the attacks on Obama were vague and easy to turn the other way.
All of the Clinton campaign paraphernalia looks really 1980s too. Obama and other candidates that have since dropped out have much more contemporary, attractive logos that are still completely classy. Clinton's stuff looks like it was lifted out of a campaign from 15 or 20 years ago, and that doesn't do much in her favor at all.
Even if it wasn't the most exciting night of my life. it was fun to see the former president and I'm so glad that Texas is getting all this attention from the candidates. I don't think I'll be voting for Hillary anytime soon though.
I'll be posting later or early tomorrow about the Bill Clinton rally at Hofheinz Pavilion at UH tonight. I think it's completely OK to call it a Bill Clinton rally because none of the fliers or anything I've seen about the event even have Hillary's name on them. I thought that was weird, but it may have been a smart move. Most of the people I've heard talk about going tonight are a lot more excited about seeing Bill than voting for Hillary (I'm one of them). She's been a little bit ahead in the polls in Texas, but it really just feels like Obama's taking over. Anyways, stay tuned for a post-mortem and hopefully pictures too.
Via Juanita, I see that John McCain is using John Mellencamp songs in his campaign. And Mellencamp isn't happy about that.
Uplifting heartland rock must have seemed like a smart pick, but there's just one problem: Mellencamp is an ardent Democrat. And, until recently, he supported John Edwards - who had been playing "Our Country" and "Small Town" at his rallies. Mellencamp hasn't yet made a public response, but his reps are quietly reaching out to McCain and asking him to stop playing his tunes. (McCain's press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Who remembers when Ronald Reagan used Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA", until The Boss told him to knock it off? I can't decide which was funnier, when Springsteen suggested that "Johnny 99" would be more a more appropriate song for Reagan to use, or the fact that no one in Reagan's team understood the lyrics to "Born in the USA" enough to realize how ill-fitting that song was for their purposes. Take a lesson from this, Republican Presidential candidates, especially those of you over 65: Leave the rock music to the kids. The songs are about you, just not in the way you want them to be.
Barack Obama pledged Thursday to meet Hillary Rodham Clinton in Democratic presidential debates in Texas and Ohio before the March 4 primaries.But the Illinois senator stopped short of committing to attend an event planned for Feb. 28 in Houston at the George R. Brown Convention Center.
"We're committing to the concept of doing a debate in Texas before the primary," said Josh Earnest, a spokesman for the Obama campaign.
Obama also announced he had accepted an invitation to participate in a debate at Cleveland State University on Feb. 26. That debate, the campaign said, will be hosted by NBC News and WKYC, NBC's Cleveland affiliate.
Clinton, a senator from New York, quickly accepted that offer as well.
[...]
Whether NBC's landing the Ohio debate might scuttle plans for a Houston forum two days later remained unclear Thursday.
"We hope that both candidates will agree to participate in both debates," MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines said.
Thursday's announcement caught the Partnership off guard: "The Greater Houston Partnership has not independently confirmed any of this and is not in a position to comment," it said in a prepared statement.
[...]
Earlier Thursday, Obama took fire in Texas for not committing to the Houston debate. Former Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, a Clinton supporter, called Obama's position "disappointing and possibly even disrespectful.
"It looks like he's trying to dodge the debates," Mauro said in a conference call with reporters.
The Partnership has been trying for months to lure the presidential hopefuls to Houston.
"This is not new," said Clinton supporter Carol Alvarado, a former Houston City Council member who also spoke on the conference call.
She noted that Houston is home to a large Hispanic community, whose members are "very anxious to see this take place."
It doesn't make sense to have debates elsewhere but not in the largest city in a state with over 120 delegates at stake. I'm hopeful this will happen. Stay tuned.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday challenged Sen. Barack Obama to meet in four separate Democratic debates before the March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio -- including an event scheduled for Feb. 28 in Houston.But Obama, of Illinois, did not immediately commit to travel to Houston to take on Clinton just five days before what could be a crucial Texas primary.
As voters in 22 states went to polls in the primary avalanche known as Super Tuesday, Clinton, of New York, called on her Democratic rival to agree to several debates.
"Senator Clinton has enjoyed the opportunities to debate and the chance to get her message out," said Mark Penn, Clinton's chief strategist, in a conference call with reporters. "Voters ought to have the opportunity to see these two candidates compete against each other in a one-on-one setting."
Clinton has accepted invitations to appear on ABC's This Week on Sunday; Fox News in Washington on Monday; CNN from Ohio on Feb. 27; and MSNBC from the George R. Brown Convention Center on Feb. 28, her campaign said.
The Greater Houston Partnership, the sponsor of the Houston debate, has been trying for months to lure the candidates to the Bayou City.
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams and the network's Washington bureau chief, Tim Russert, have agreed to moderate the Houston event.
Debate organizers have not said how tickets for the event would be distributed.
As long as it's not via Ticketmaster, I'm okay with whatever they decide. I forget now where I saw this, but apparently some people paid upwards of a thousand dollars to attend the California debate. I'd bet that this will be a very hot ticket. I wonder if they'll accredit me as a journalist if I ask.
Side note #1: Please, Hillary, reconsider the Fox News debate decision. There's no need to enable that propaganda outlet. I hope Obama's response to all this is "I'll debate you any time, any place, except on Fox News".
Side note #2: Boy, was I wrong to root for Texas to move the primary up to February. Our votes sure do matter now, and we'll get even more attention than we would have had we been involved in Super Duper Tuesday. I'm happy to have been mistaken about this.
Side note #3: Glenn Smith and the Observer blog look at the Texas primary process. Vince has an exhaustive list of who has endorsed whom - for all the talk about how Hillary is supposed to be downballot death to Democrats here, a heck of a lot of Dem officeholders and candidates have endorsed her - and who is still up for grabs.
On to March! And as the last word on this, get ready to start zapping a bunch of campaign commercials. That's an aspect of this that we won't miss when it's all over.
It's easy to try to make the jump from guest blogger to at least semi-regular blogger when a candidate I feel so strongly about makes a big move. I'm a little bit heartbroken, and I can't help but wonder what happened to all the "in it through the convention and into the White House" talk. One thing's for sure though, Edwards is playing this classy.
Last year, the President didn't mention Katrina or rebuilding the Gulf Coast in the SOTU, and a lot of news outlets made a big deal out of it. This year, the same thing happened and no one said a word. The most important thing John Edwards has done is (at least try) to keep disenfranchised people on the political radar, and it's infinitely appropriate that his campaign began and is now ending in New Orleans (AP):
Edwards planned to announce his campaign was ending with his wife and three children at his side. Then he planned to work with Habitat for Humanity at the volunteer-fueled rebuilding project Musicians' Village, the adviser said.With that, Edwards' campaign will end the way it began 13 months ago -- with the candidate pitching in to rebuild lives in a city still ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Edwards embraced New Orleans as a glaring symbol of what he described as a Washington that didn't hear the cries of the downtrodden.
I respect Edwards to the nth degree, and really, I'm glad that he's going to spend his time walking the walk again after talking the talk for so long. He was good for progressive Democrats because he shifted the dialogue in this campaign to the left. Even when it became obvious that he was more than a longshot for the nomination, I thought his candidacy was important because it did that. I think he can still have an influence on politics and policy from where he's going now, even if he never holds a position in government again. It's doubtful that someone as passionate as Edwards will fade into private life now that his campaign is over.
I'm not sure if any other Edwards supporters feel a little bit betrayed - he was the only candidate I was really excited about, and he said over and over again that he wasn't dropping out yet. I'm sure his wife's health was a factor in the decision, but I also think he was probably itching to get back on the ground and wasn't all that interested in playing kingmaker. Ezra Klein did a good profile on Edwards almost a year ago that highlights a lot of the reasons I supported him as well as why the time is right for progressive candidates. Hopefully that will still hold true for other 2008 races.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the GOP Presidential primary field as demons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I think the only quibble I have is that the Mayor was about a billion times more witty than Mitt Romney could ever hope to be. But still, excellent work there, so check it out. Thanks to Pandagon for the link.
Oops. Romney not only did not get the Concord Monitor of New Hampshire endorsement, they told their readers NOT to vote for him and why. Smack those flip-flops together, he's not "trustworthy".
Several newspapers made endorsements Sunday.Democrat Barack Obama:
• The Nashua Telegraph in New Hampshire endorsed Obama as the best choice for Democratic voters, citing his "inspired leadership."
• The Dallas Morning News noted Obama's "consistently solid judgment" and "poise under pressure."
Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton:
• Iowa's Burlington Hawk Eye endorsed Clinton as the most impressive of the Democratic candidates.
• The Quad City Times in Davenport, Iowa, also chose Clinton on the basis of her experience.Republican John McCain:
• The Quad City Times chose McCain, calling him "a leader whose life experiences" have tested his mettle for the nation's top job."
Republican Mike Huckabee:
• The Dallas Morning News called Huckabeee "the change agent the nation most needs."
Republican Mitt Romney:
• The Sioux City Journal of Iowa endorsed Romney as combining "an outsider's new face with a proven track record of success."
• The Concord Monitor of New Hampshire broke with political tradition, telling readers why they should not vote for Romney. It said he looks and acts like a presidential contender but "surely must be stopped" because he lacks the core philosophical beliefs to be a trustworthy president.
This does not sound good.
A man claiming to have a bomb walked into Hillary Rodham Clinton's storefront campaign office today and took at least two hostages, police and witnesses said. One woman was later released.''We are in close contact with state and local authorities and are acting at their direction,'' Clinton said in a statement. ``We will release additional details as appropriate.''
The man ordered the hostages onto the floor and then released a mother and her baby, said State Police Maj. Michael Hambrook. Two campaign volunteers were still being held, said Bill Shaheen, a top state campaign official.
Witness Lettie Tzizik told television station WMUR of Manchester that she spoke to the woman shortly after she was released and that she was crying, holding the infant.
"She said, 'You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape," Tzizik said.
Thankfully, it now appears that at least two more hostages have been released, although it's not clear whether there are others. Live video coverage of the situation is here. I sincerely hope that this comes to a safe and peaceful resolution.
UPDATE: It's over, with no one getting hurt. Thank God for that.
You've probably heard about Robert Draper's book Dead Certain, in which the author got a remarkable amount of access to President Bush. If you haven't bought the book yet, you can read an excerpt from the excerpt that Texas Monthly will be publishing in its October issue, which covers how Bush went from deciding to run for Governor to deciding to run for President. It's here for the usual limited time only. I found it fascinating, and more than once wanted to build a time machine so I could travel back to 1994 and beat some sense into Ann Richards' campaign team.
For years, Bush's stunning 53--46 victory over the mighty Richards would be seen by some as a referendum on Clinton, part of the Newt Gingrich tidal wave that washed away scores of Democrats great and small. Mainly, though, it would be hailed as a triumph of ferocious discipline--the challenger inseparable from those four issues, his "Roman candle" temper never once igniting as he waded obliviously through the rivers of kerosene Governor Richards poured with her incessant references to "Shrub" and other Molly Ivins inspirations. It would be remembered for [Karl] Rove's crafty incursion into the yellow-dog-Democrat territory of East Texas, where allegiances were wobbly to Hollywood Ann, what with her alleged posse of lesbians and her rumored druggie past.Unremembered would be the Bush campaign's missteps--so many of them early on that [Jim] Francis and Rove sacked nearly the entire staff in the spring of 1994, bringing in the burly Joe Allbaugh from Oklahoma and a former TV reporter and state Republican party director named Karen Hughes to right the foundering vessel. Forgotten as well were the clunky early speeches Rove wrote for George W. and the latter's tendency to bark out alarming declarations on the stump like "I am a capitalist!" before Message Dominatrix Hughes curbed his tongue.
For all the Rove/Hughes/Allbaugh Iron Triangle's shrewdness, the Bush campaign was far from seasoned. Its policy director, Vance McMahan, had not worked a day in politics or government. Hughes herself had no experience in a campaign, Allbaugh none in Texas. And the man on whom George W. would most frequently rely for clarifying issue sticking points--and for delving into his past so as to anticipate questions about his bachelor days and his service in the National Guard--would be a 23-year-old University of Texas graduate named Dan Bartlett who happened to be the only one in the office when the candidate would call at seven in the morning, asking, "It says general crime's gone up in Brazos County by thirty-six percent, but how do we know that?"
This first Bush Machine was more akin to a children's crusade, and Richards had ample opportunity to squash it. But the governor preferred her exquisite put-downs to an engaged campaign. For months she paid her opponent no heed while he laid out the four defining issues. (But only those four; George W. had no life experience in matters such as health care, and it did not occur to the Richards camp to expose his ignorance early on.) For the same period, she spent little from her huge, Hollywood-endowed war chest when she could have forced the Bush camp to drain its lesser coffers. And Richards assumed that areas of Texas in which Republicans from time immemorial had been gaily tarred and feathered did not require her attention. She had forgotten one of her favorite aphorisms, that 80 percent of life is just showing up. That formula seldom holds true in politics, but it did in Texas in 1994: George W. showed up, Richards did not, and that made 80 percent of the difference.
sigh What might have been, what might have been. I'm not disputing the assertion that Texas would have gone Republican with or without Karl Rove and George W. Bush. I just don't think it necessarily had to go as Republican as it did. Remember, the Democrats came within a whisker of electing John Sharp over Rick Perry as Lite Guv, and Paul Hobby over Carol Keeton Rylander as Comptroller, in 1998. Had it not been for Bush's huge coattails, aided by his close relationship with the likes of Pete Laney and Bob Bullock, who knows how thing might have turned out with, say, the 2001 redistricting effort. I have a hard time imagining things being that much worse for the Democrats in just about any possible alternate universe you can reasonably conjure.
Anyway, there's plenty there, but get it while you can. Slate has some more excerpts if this wasn't enough for you.
If the GOP is the party that doesn't "get" the internet, are they also the party that doesn't "get" Hispanic voters? When only John McCain committed to attending a Spanish language debate in Miami, it was indefinitely postponed:
Univisión planned to air the first presidential debates in Spanish on Sept. 9 and 16, one for Democrats, the other for Republicans, trumpeting a national coming-out party for Hispanic voters.Except Republican candidates aren't coming. Only Ariz. Sen. John McCain agreed to participate in the event at the University of Miami.
So much for Sept. 16.
''That date is off the table,'' university spokeswoman Bárbara Gutiérrez said Wednesday.
She said a GOP debate hasn't been ruled out for later in the fall.
''We're thinking that everyone wants to see how the Democratic one goes before they commit,'' she said.
All eight Democratic candidates are slated to show up Sept. 9, and party leaders plan to highlight the contrast. The New Democratic Network, a nationwide political group, is planning news conferences and inviting Hispanic leaders, including Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, former Cabinet member Henry Cisneros and U.S. Rep. Luís Gutiérrez of Illinois.
Most of the Republican field also ignored invitations to attend Hispanic-oriented conferences in Florida organized by the National Association of Latin Elected Officials and the National Council of La Raza.
That doesn't mean they're not courting Hispanic votes. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani campaigned in Hialeah in June and July.
On Wednesday, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney announced endorsements from Hispanic leaders around the country.
''This is all part of a continuous effort to reach out to the Hispanic community,'' said Romney spokesman Alex Burgos. ``We had a conflict with the debate, but we continue to be in contact with them about potential opportunities in the future.''
So, the message the Republicans are sending: we want Hispanic votes but aren't willing to put in the legwork to get them. It's such an unbelievably bad decision to decline to attend this debate. I just can't imagine what these campaigns think they're doing. I'm sure they declined due to scheduling conflicts, but that's not exactly the same thing as wanting to see how the Democrats do before they commit, which is the only reason this article mentions. I hope the Dems really let them have it over this.
There are two things that will make me drop my current undecided status for the Democratic Presidential nominee. One is actually going to the polls next March with the nomination on the line. I can't say how that will turn out - you may not want to get stuck in line behind me, as it could take awhile - but one way or another I'll have to get off the fence and make a commitment.
The other is this.
Dear Al,Can I call you Al? (I'm picturing you saying, "You can call me Al." and then us chuckling over the clever Paul Simon joke).
Al, the love-ins are over.
No more Oscars. No more Leonardo DiCaprio kissing your butt. No more Time Magazine back-scratching. No more pretty, graphically pleasing websites begging you to run.
Clearly, none of this has worked. It's time for a new tactic.
This time, we're just telling you that you're running.
That's right. The option really isn't yours anymore. We've decided.
You're a candidate for President in 2008.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Please start preparing a platform.
Sincerely,
America
Yeah. It's not that the choices we have now aren't good ones. They are, and that's why I'm having a hard time deciding. It's just that this choice would be even better, and thus would settle things in a flash for me. Link via Susie.
I love the fact that I live in a country where this sort of thing is considered to be worthy of space in a major news weekly.
Election season is taking over the front page, the evening news, and--sticker by sticker--the nation's bumpers. Like any ad, the logos of the '08 contenders are designed to sell a brand and subliminally play up a candidate's winning image. PERISCOPE sat with Michael Bierut, a partner at design firm Pentagram, to parse the good, the bad and the sans serifs.
His comments are actually pretty interesting, if a bit over my aesthetically-challenged head. I kind of wish he'd gone past the conventional frontrunners and explored the fringier candidates (assuming they've actually got bumper sticker designs), for the fun of it if nothing else. You just know that there'll be a deeper meaning to a Ron Paul sticker, for example. Alas. Link via MyDD.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg changes tack.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced Tuesday that he was dropping his Republican affiliation, a step that could clear the way for him to make an independent bid for the presidency.[...]
Until he ran for mayor in 2001, Mr. Bloomberg was a lifelong Democrat, and his success in New York reflected his ability to draw Democratic votes: he is for abortion rights, gay rights and gun control.
I hereby make a solemn vow to you, my readers: If Michael Bloomberg gets into the Presidential race as an independent, I will refer to him forevermore as "Michael Bloomberg Keeton Strayhorn". And I will start a petition to demand that he be referred to as "Grandpa" on the ballot. It's just the right thing to do.
Obviously, I don't actually care who will win the Republican nomination for President. Having said that, if I were a John McCain fan, I'd shudder in horror at this news.
Josh Robinson-State Field Director [for South Carolina]A graduate of Texas A&M University, Josh comes from Houston, Texas after working on a number of Congressional, State House, and State Senate races. Additionally, Josh has spent time at RNC Headquarters in the Department of Grassroots Development.
If that name sounds familiar, it's because the last campaign Josh Robinson worked for was Martha Wong's. Along the way, he called the Texas ParentPAC a "fringe group", gave a bogus explanation for using clumsily-altered campaign signs, and of course oversaw the release of the worst campaign ad ever.We know how well all that went. Let me just say I hope Robinson goes from this campaign to that of the eventual Republican nominee, so he can do for him what he did for Martha and will do for McCain.
Nice to see that at least some decent bills have made it through despite the neverending sideshows and distractions this session.
The Texas House unanimously passed an omnibus bill Tuesday that would radically reform the troubled Texas Youth Commission.The bill, by Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, likely heads to a conference committee where lawmakers can iron out differences between the House version and one passed by the Senate last month.
[...]
Both bills call for enhanced training for guards, the creation of an independent inspector general's office and an ombudsman's office, and no more than 12 offenders per guard. It also reduces the overall juvenile population by not accepting misdemeanor offenders and offenders older than 18. Also, offenders younger than 14 would be housed separately from 18-year-olds.
The major difference between the two proposals centers on management.
The Senate bill calls for a single individual, an executive commissioner, to run TYC, with the help of an advisory commission. The House bill calls for the reinstatement of a board of directors, which would have oversight over an executive director.
That was the structure in place earlier this year, when news reports carried allegations that two administrators at the West Texas State School sexually abused youths in their care and that alerts to administrators at the school and in Austin were ignored or covered up.
Grits has more, including some well-deserved kudos for Rep. Jerry Madden and Isela Gutierrez of the Texas Coalition Advocating Justice for Juveniles, who was one of the first whistleblowers on the whole TYC scandal. I truly hope that we've finally done right by these kids.
My very best wishes to Elizabeth Edwards as she continues her battle against cancer. I agree with Kos - in a fairer world, she'd be a Senator or something similar. Regardless, she's a fighter and a huge asset to her husband and his aspirations, and I join many others today in hoping for the best for her and her family. Fellow cancer survivor Jane Hamsher has more.
By the time you read this, Rep. Ron Paul will most likely have made the announcement that he is running for President.
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, a fierce critic of the Iraq war, formally will declare his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination Monday when he appears as a guest on a C-SPAN call-in program.Paul, R-Lake Jackson, created a presidential exploratory committee in January, allowing him to begin collecting money on behalf of his bid.
Kent Snyder, the chairman of that committee, said Saturday that Paul is scheduled to be a guest on Washington Journal on Monday morning and will make his announcement then.
Some folks, like me and Vince, have speculated that Paul's desire to party like it's 1988 means his Congressional seat will come open. That may yet come to pass, but the word at this time is that he still plans to run for re-election in CD14. So he's free to pursue being the Republican version of Dennis Kucinich and to shake the national fundraising tree in a more effective manner, something which will no doubt come in handy when he does stand for re-election in CD14. And who knows, maybe he'll catch fire. It's not like the GOP frontrunners are a compelling lot, so why shouldn't Ron Paul believe that his time is now? If Anthony Dutrow can believe, so can Ron Paul.
We've had a visit from Barack Obama, and now it's time for John Edwards to pay a visit to the Lone Star State. I expect to have more details later, but for now here's what I know:
WHAT: A rally with John Edwards.WHEN: This Wednesday, March 7, 2007 at 4:30 pm
WHERE: Sunset Station Depot
1174 E. Commerce St.
San Antonio, TX 78205
Here's a map to the event, which is free and open to the public. Whether or not we get an earlier primary date, it's safe to say that Texas will at least get some attention this cycle, and that's a good thing in and of itself.
It'll be interesting to see, given the recent attention that the Edwards campaign has received from Republican operative Ann Coulter, how this event is covered. Will this all have blown over by then, or will the Texas media just be catching up to it and decide to ask a few questions about her? Stay tuned.
Took him a little while to do it, but in the end John Edwards did the right thing.
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said Thursday he was personally offended by the provocative messages two of his campaign bloggers wrote criticizing the Catholic church, but he's not firing them.Edwards issued a written statement about the fate of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwen, two days after the head of the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights demanded they be fired for messages they wrote before working on the campaign.
The campaign distributed written apologies from the two women, who stressed they were writing on personal blogs and not on behalf of the campaign. Edwards said he believes in giving everyone a "fair shake."
Edwards' statement is here, Marcotte's is here, and McEwen's is here. I'd have liked something a little stronger from Edwards, not to mention sooner, but he hits the main points and basically gets it. I still don't know who I'll vote for in the primary, but he's still on the list.
This isn't over, however. Just because it was Edwards' turn in the barrel this week doesn't let the other contenders off the hook. If they don't realize that sooner or later they'll be exactly where Edwards was, they're deluding themselves. While it would be ideal for them all to issue some kind of statement in support of Edwards, that's probably too much to ask. What's not too much to ask is for them to not buy into this bogus line of attack for their own gain. Any Democratic contender who sides with Bill Donahue and criticizes Edwards for not firing Marcotte and McEwen will lose my vote just as surely as Edwards would have had he caved. Bill Donahue is not your friend. You can't appease him. You can only fight him. Whether you do that on your terms or his is up to you. Anybody who doesn't get that is not who I want representing the Democratic Party next November.
Now then. When will we be taking that closer look at some of the genuinely shady characters on other campaigns? Or at William Donahue, for that matter? It's only fair, after all.
I've already said that I'm not terribly interested in obsessing over the Presidential primaries right now. I have, however, figured out what my minimum requirement is for being considered worthy for my vote.
Two bloggers hired by John Edwards to reach out to liberals in the online world have landed his presidential campaign in hot water for doing what bloggers do -- expressing their opinions in provocative and often crude language.The Catholic League, a conservative religious group, is demanding that Mr. Edwards dismiss the two, Amanda Marcotte of the Pandagon blog site and Melissa McEwan, who writes on her blog, Shakespeare's Sister, for expressing anti-Catholic opinions.
Mr. Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, is among the leading Democratic presidential candidates.
Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said in a statement on Tuesday, "John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots."
Mr. Edwards's spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri, said Tuesday night that the campaign was weighing the fate of the two bloggers.
If you want my vote, the bare minimum that I expect of you is that when a two-bit thug like Bill Donahue threatens you, you fight back instead of handing over your lunch money like a little weak-kneed fraidy cat. Anybody who tries to appease the likes of William Donahue instead of standing up for himself or herself is not going to be able to survive the general election, so I'll be looking for someone else to represent the Democratic ticket. You would think that John Kerry's running mate would understand that.
Now, I don't want to jump the gun here. No decision has been made yet, so John Edwards hasn't lost me yet. But the fact that they're publicly "weighing the fate" of their bloggers instead of telling Donahue to go pound sand means they've lost some measure of my respect. What they do from here is up to them.
And on a side note, will the people associated with other candidates' campaigns get this kind of scrutiny, or only those who William Donahue disapproves of? John McCain has a blogger with a foul mouth, for example, not to mention a campaign manager with an extremely spotty history. If we're going to engage in this exercise, I say let's go all out.
So, Hillary Clinton is running for President. Quelle surprise, eh? I'm going to spend as much time as possible this year not blogging about the 2008 Presidential primaries, so let me say this now and get it out of the way: I'll be happy to support Hillary Clinton for President if she's the nominee. I'll be happy to support someone else if she's not. Like the other main contenders, she has her pros and cons - I pretty much agree with Kos' assessment of the top tier candidates (as does PDiddie), and Kevin Drum sums up the Hillster succinctly. Unlike 2004, I don't think anyone will spend too much time fretting about "electability". I think this one is the Dems' to lose (and I'm not the only one who sees it that way), so I say pick your favorite and make no apologies for it. And feel free not to be in a rush about it.
Some day I will have a preference, and I'll state it when I do. If I'm really lucky, I'll even get to cast a meaningful vote in March. But it will be several months before I begin to worry about that. Meanwhile, enjoy the spectacle as much or as little as you want. There's plenty of time to get serious about it later.
Looks like we might have an open seat race in CD14 in 2008.
Ron Paul, the iconoclastic nine-term congressman from southeast Texas, took the first step Thursday toward launching a second presidential bid in 2008, this time as a Republican.Paul filed incorporation papers in Texas on Thursday to create a presidential exploratory committee that allows him and his supporters to collect money on behalf of his bid. This will be Paul's second try for the White House; he was the Libertarian nominee for president in 1988.
Kent Snyder, the chairman of Paul's exploratory committee and a former staffer on Paul's Libertarian campaign, said the congressman knows he's a long shot.
"There's no question that it's an uphill battle, and that Dr. Paul is an underdog," Snyder said. "But we think it's well worth doing and we'll let the voters decide."
You have to admit, he'd fill a niche that isn't otherwise occupied. Who knows, he might be a spoiler for someone, especially if he makes immigration a linchpin of his campaign. He'd be very appealing to the xenophobic voter. Hard to say right now who that might affect the most, but it'll be interesting to watch.
BOR has more. Will this give the CD14 race a higher priority by the national parties next year? I think both of them would be wise to pay attention to it. I don't have full precinct data for CD14, but I can do a comparison on the seven counties that are entirely within that district: Aransas, Calhoun, Chambers, Jackson, Matagorda, Victoria, and Wharton. About a third of the total vote resided in those counties. It looks like this:
Candidate Votes Pct
==========================
Ron Paul 31,523 55.69
Shane Sklar 25,079 44.31Don Willett 28,859 56.17
Bill Moody 22,523 43.83Avg GOP 33,686 63.35
Avg Dem 19,487 36.65
Moody was of course the high scorer among statewide Dems. Sklar overperformed the statewide average by nearly eight points, and he ran better than everyone else. Only Sklar carried Jackson County; only he and Moody carried Calhoun (Moody ran ahead of him there). I'd guess that when I see the rest of the data it'll confirm what this indicates, that Sklar ran well above the baseline partisan index in a tough district (tougher than I admit I thought it would be). In other words, I'd love to see him run again. We'll see what he does.
(Spreadsheet with comparison data is here. All data was taken from the Secretary of State's election returns page.)
Via Dwight, here's a thought from Scott Adams that will either get you nodding your head or recoiling in abject horror.
I think that in an election cycle or two you will see an atheist business leader emerge as a legitimate candidate for president. And his name will be Bill Gates.By then, Bill Gates will have done so much good for the world through his charitable works that combined with his business success he’ll appear more qualified than any other candidate. His early bachelor life and some of his business practices will come back to haunt him if he runs, but he can still win with this simple slogan: “Who would you rather have on your side?” He’ll confess to all of his past imperfections and say that presidents are poor choices for role models. He’ll advise you to look to your parents for role models while you let him run the country.
I doubt Bill Gates is considering a run for president right now, largely because it’s so hard to make a difference from that job. His charities will have more impact. But I think he’ll someday realize that the world needs a rational thinker in the top spot and no one else can win.
At least you’d know he wouldn’t be in it for the money or to speed up the Rapture. He has my vote.
I've got to say, I'd give it strong consideration. My only hope would be that he picks a party and runs on a mantle of competence and getting things done rather than disdain for the system and lame quips about how hard the job is. What do you think?
Via Polstate, a county by county comparison of the two-party Presidential vote in Texas for 2000 and 2004. I actually started some work on this very topic myself just before leaving town for Thanksgiving. You can see my spreadsheet here. I've added in data calculating the Republican Partisan Index (RPI - see explanation here) to get a feel for which counties are becoming more Democratic and which are becoming more Republican. In the spreadsheet, a negative RPI means that county voted more Democratic than the state overall, and a positive RPI means the county voted more Republican than the state overall. A negative "RPI Change" number means that county became more Democratic between 2000 and 2004, at least in terms of the Presidential vote. Note that this does not necessarily mean anything in absolute terms. For example, the infamous Glasscock County, which Lasso has noted as being one of the five most Republican counties in America, actually saw an increase in Democratic votes and a decrease in Republican votes between 2000 and 2004, making them the only county in Texas for which that was true. Of course, in absolute terms, the vote went from 528-39 in favor of George Bush to 488-44 in his favor. Not something on which to hang one's demographic Stetson, that's for sure.
Anyway. From my perspective, the counties of greatest interest are (in no particular order) Travis, Hays, Dallas, Fort Bend, Harris, Caldwell, Williamson, Bexar, Tarrant, and El Paso. I'll have some more organized thoughts on these places in the coming weeks, probably after the holidays.
I think Byron is right about the potential trap in the "Amend for Arnold" movement, and I approve of his solution:
If Republicans are smart, they'll turn this into a campaign about supporting immigrants, and enlist prominent Hispanic elected officials and donors to bankroll the campaign. They'll turn this into a wedge issue to paint Democrats not supporting the amendment as anti-immigrant. And frankly, there's no reason Democrats should be running from this issue. After all, we've historically been the party of immigrants.So how do we balance the concerns of supporting immigrants and of not wanting an amendment to our constitution designed to benefit one particular person? I see an easy solution that would take the politics out. As long as this amendment is seen as benefiting one politician or one party or another, there's no way that it will pass. There's no way it gets two-thirds majorities in both houses and three-quarters of the state legislatures if this is seen as a partisan issue. So take the politics out of it.
Pass an amendment that allows naturalized American citizens to run for president that are born after 34 years prior to the amendment's enactment. For example, should the amendment pass in 2005, any naturalized citizen born after 1971 would be eligible to run for president (assuming they meet the other requirements). Thus, no current politician would benefit, but within a few decades most leading non-U.S. born politicians would be eligible to run for president.
One can quibble over the details, but I think the basic concept is right on - the Constitution should not be amended for the primary benefit of one person, but for the benefit of a whole class of people. Amending "for Arnold", or on the Democratic side, for Canadian-born Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, is wrong. Since it's also wrong to single people out for exclusion, the best compromise is to aim the amendment for the Presidents of the future, namely those who aren't old enough to qualify yet.
Let me throw my hat in here with Ginger regarding all this "Fsck the South" stuff. It's insulting, and I refuse to loathe myself because of where I live. I'm doing what I can to help turn my little corner of the world blue (actually, my immediate vicinity is already a deep and robust shade of blue, thankyouverymuch), and I'd appreciate it if y'all would not make it any harder than it has to be. OK? Thanks.
Similar expressions of what I'm talking about also come from one of Josh's readers and from Texas Law Chick. Nota bene:
And there are thousands like me here in the "red America." There are only four states in the US (California, New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania) that had more votes for John Kerry than Texas. 2,825,000 people here voted for Kerry. That is not an insignificant number of votes, and there are millions more in the other red states.
Texas may have gone for Bush in a big way, but this is a big state, and that means there were a lot of us who didn't. Be sure to read all the way through for TLC's experiences going door to door for US PIRG and the Sierra Club. There's a lesson in there we need to understand.
I don't really have much to say about what happened in the Presidential election. I think John Kerry is correct to pursue claims of irregularities in Ohio, but in the end I don't think it will matter. That's all I've got.
For the record, I overestimated the support Kerry/Edwards would get in Texas - I thought they'd pull about 42%, but they finished at 38%, falling short of Gore's total from 2000. Harris and Bexar Counties were not as close as I thought they'd be, with Bush pulling around 55% in each. Dallas County was the squeaker I thought all three of the biggest counties would be, with Bush taking it by about 10,000 votes for a 50.4-49.1% margin. Travis County was about as heavy for Kerry as I thought it would be, finishing up at 56-42.
UPDATE: It's over. I have nothing more to say today, other than to recommend you read this.
Has there been an upswing in rivers running uphill lately that no one has told me about? Jim Henley has endorsed John Kerry for President. OK, so it's not much more enthusiastic than the Denver Post endorsement of Bush was, but hey. He's a libertarian. It comes with the territory. And I'm sure he won't get 700 angry letters criticizing him for it.
I took another drive through my neighborhood, making sure I covered every block this time, to get an updated yard sign count. With a week to go before the election, the count stands 163 for Kerry, and 33 for Bush. That's actually a pretty substantial improvement for Bush since last time - the new signs tally as 89 Kerry, 27 Bush, taking the ratio from over 12-1 to just under 5-1. That's also still a better performance for the Democratic ticket in my highly Democratic neighborhood than in 2000, and from what I can tell there's just a heck of a lot more signs overall.
A few notes:
- I didn't see the Michael Badnarik sign this time around, but I did see one lonely sign for Green Party candidate David Cobb.
- Other candidates for whom I saw signs were Democrats Richard Morrison, John Martinez, Jim Dougherty (none of whom would represent this neighborhood, as their districts are elsewhere), Sheila Jackson Lee, Kathy Stone, Bruce Mosier, Jim Sharp, and Dale Gorczynski; Republicans Ted Poe (also not representing this area; typically, the sign in question read "Bush/Cheney/Poe", with Poe's name barely visible on the bottom), Chuck Rosenthal, Sharon McCally, and Riecke Baumann; and Libertarian Congressional candidate Brent Sullivan (running against Jackson Lee, who actually does represent this area). There were in fact quite a few signs for Jim Sharp, which is not too surprising since he lives here. Though I could probably infer support for one Presidential candidate or the other via these signs, I didn't count a house unless it had a genuine Kerry or Bush placard.
- I saw exactly one house with a sign for the city propositions (it advocated a vote for Prop 2). Two hundred plus houses with campaign signs, and one having anything to do with the election that will have the biggest impact on all of them. That's what I call confusion.
I note with some interest this story about yard signs in Alamo Heights.
[In Alamo Heights], one of the city's more affluent enclaves that has long been considered a conservative stronghold, residents are noticing a roughly equal smattering of Bush and Kerry signs.Political experts say it's yet another indication that neither candidate has a lock on this year's vote.
"The wonderful thing about Bexar County is it's still a two-party county," said Larry Hufford, a political scientist at St. Mary's University.
Hufford had one explanation for what appears to be a split in places like Alamo Heights.
"In communities where, economically, one would think it would be overwhelmingly Republican, you find mainstream Protestants and Jewish people very concerned about the influence of the Christian right," he said.
Alamo Heights is to San Antonio more or less as West University Place is to Houston, with fewer speed traps.
In Bexar County, during the first six days of early voting, 107,167 people cast ballots, compared with 56,218 votes cast during the same period in 2000, said Christian Anderson of Election Support Services.The early voting period runs through Friday.
Although local early voting is strong everywhere in the county, it is mostly being driven by North Side poll sites. Typically, that indicates strong support for Republican candidates, including President Bush.
But this year, things are too up in the air to rely on that kind of assumptions.
"The thing we wonder about now is has there been an increase in percentages of support for either Republicans or Democrats, or are we just seeing a higher volume?" Anderson said. "It's hard to tell yet."
[...]
Both campaigns have stepped up outreach efforts and voters hungry to participate routinely visit campaign offices asking for bumper stickers, signs and anything else they can get to show their support for their candidate.
The Bexar County Republican Party has handed out about 10,000 Bush yard signs, officials there said.
Meanwhile, Bexar County Democratic Party officials estimate that more than 11,000 Kerry yard signs have been doled out at their six area offices.
"It's like they're playing chess with their neighbors," said Jesus Huerta, with the Democratic Leadership Council and the party's West Side office. "Their neighbor gets a sign and then they want one."
Jim Lunz, a longtime Republican activist, lives in Alamo Heights and said the three precincts that make up the community usually vote about two-thirds Republican.
He agrees there are more Kerry signs in the area than he would have expected, but doesn't think that necessarily means a stronger Democratic vote this year.
"It may just be that the 33 percent who normally vote Democratic are just expressing themselves openly this year," he said. "I would look for Bush to at least maintain the level of support he had last time."
Maybe, but I see a high level of interest as a rising tide, in the sense that if the partisans are more involved then everyone else will be to some extent as well. There's evidence of that everywhere, and not just in yards or on cars.
Nielsen Media Research reported 62 million viewers watched the first presidential debate; only 51 million tuned in to the "Friends" finale earlier this year.
And even if it is just the case that those who already support one side are just being more vocal about it this time around, isn't that still a positive sign for the Democrats this year? Compare to 2000: The lack of enthusiasm over Al Gore, the presence of Ralph Nader, the belief that it didn't matter - surely all of those things depressed Democratic turnout, especially in Texas, last time around. Sure, maybe most of those Kerry/Edwards sign-planters in Alamo Heights are people who would have voted for Gore in 2000, but the question is how many of them actually did vote for Gore back then. And yes, George Bush will likely get some benefit from the same fervor, but ask yourself which group in Texas is larger: The people who would have voted for Bush in 2000 but didn't get around to it, or the people who would have voted for Gore in 2000 but didn't bother. Seems pretty clear to me.
The Statesman and the Chronicle gave President Bush a clean sweep of Texas major newspaper endorsements today. I'm not surprised by this - in fact, I predicted it. I simply never expected any of the major Texas dailies to hold Bush accountable for any of his screwups. The cognitive dissonance would be too great for them.
I understand that a lot of people in Austin are mad about the Statesman endorsement. Democracy for Texas is apparently holding an impromptu anti-Statesman rally today (see Sarah for details; the DFT email is below the fold). I say don't get mad, get even. The best revenge you can take is to do whatever you can to see to it that John Kerry carries Travis, Harris, Dallas, and Bexar counties. Make those newspapers realize that they're the ones who are out of touch. Put up a yard sign, knock on doors, drive someone to the polls, it doesn't matter. Take action and make a difference. There's no excuse.
(One point to note: The DFT mail is incorrect when it says that Bush "didn't carry Austin the last time". Bush won a plurality of Travis County votes with 45%, thanks in large part to the 10% share that Ralph Nader got - Al Gore finished with 41%. I don't care how red Texas is - your vote matters. Make the right choice.)
Finally, some kudos to Texas papers that do get it: The Waco Tribune (via Byron), the Baytown Sun (via Tom), and of course, the Lone Star Iconoclast. Let me know if I missed any.
UPDATE: Lasso has a report on the protest, along with a picture. Another picture is here, currently on the Statesman homepage.
The Austin American-Statesman will endorse George Bush on Sunday. After enduring weeks of this paper's piously endorsing Republicans because they "reflect the wishes of the people of their district," and trashing people like David Van Os and Stephen Yelenosky for being too partisan, the hometown rag has endorsed a man who didn't carry Austin the last time, and will lose it by an even bigger margin this time around.
WHAT CAN YOU DO? Be at the Congress Avenue Bridge
This is what Austin is doing for democracy this week!
Your DFT Steering Committee -
Marla Camp, Glen Maxey, Teri Sperry and Fran Vincent
Bringing out the base and persuading swing voters are important and all, but converting one of the other guy's supporters is the sweetest thing of all. You just have to find the right issue. Here's how Texas Law Chick did it.
Kevin T. Keith has an interesting story of door-knocking for Kerry in Pennsylvania. It's worth a read, especially if you plan on volunteering or organizing volunteers this year.
One thing I'd like to comment on:
Since we were working off Kerry-centric voter lists, it didn't surprise me that a large majority of the people we spoke to said they were for Kerry. What surprised me is that almost all of them said they were very strongly committed in their positions - both the Kerry supporters and the few Bush supporters. Over the whole afternoon, only a few people said they were uncommitted or even lukewarm.This caused me to question the effectiveness of what we were doing. I've already noted that nobody wanted to talk about issues. It also seemed that nobody even needed any encouragement to make up their minds. About all we were really accomplishing was letting people know that the campaign cared about their votes. Even the potential absentee voters had all, uniformly, already sent in their absentee ballot applications. Since I have never done this before, I don't know if this represents a higher-than-normal level of voter involvement. At any rate, it did mean that, this year at least, the voters seem to need little encouragement to make their voices heard. Even the few young, first-time voters we spoke to - a group notoriously uninvolved in elections - were all well on top of things and seemed energized.
I've not done any blockwalking like this, but I did do some phonebanking in 2002. My experience, in terms of level of commitment from the targeted (friendly) audience, was similar. Make of that what you will.
Ralph Nader's bid to get on the Texas ballot has been rejected by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The state ballot without Nader has already been certified and sent to all 254 Texas counties.Nader tried to get on the ballot by collecting voter signatures, but his campaign submitted them two weeks after the May deadline. His attorneys argued the state had no legitimate reason to have different requirements for independent and third-party candidates.
Nader was required to collect at least 64,076 signatures by May 10 from registered voters who did not vote in the Democratic or Republican primaries. That equals 1 percent of all votes cast for president in the most recent election in Texas.
Third-party candidates needed to collect 45,540 signatures by May 24, the day Nader's campaign turned in its signatures. State officials argue the signature and time requirements were not unreasonable and could have been met with a better effort by Nader's group.
Of the 80,000 signatures Nader's campaign filed in May, a random sample by the state showed that between 56,215 and 63,374 were valid. Those numbers would have qualified Nader under the third-party access rules but not as an independent candidate.
I guess I can officially stop worrying about how Nader will affect Democratic vote totals in Texas this year. Whew!
Vice President Cheney, last night: "Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer.... The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight."
Except for the 2001 National Prayer Breakfast.
"Thank you. Thank you very much. Congressman Watts, Senator Edwards, friends from across America and distinguished visitors to our country from all over the world, Lynne and I honored to be with you all this morning."
Here's a picture.
The first link also notes that as per Senate tradition, Sen. John Edwards escorted Liddy Dole onto the floor for her swearing in, which was performed by Vice President Dick Cheney.
I'm sure Mr. Cheney will clarify his remarks any day now.
UPDATE: And another picture, with John Edwards standing behind Sen. Dole as she gets sworn in ("in", not "at") by Cheney. According to Kos, Tim Russert is now saying that Cheney and Edwards met and shook hands backstage before his show. But hey, what's three little meetings?
UPDATE: Ooooh, this is even better: Mary Beth notes that for much of 2004, Vice President Cheney was delinquent in his Constitutional duty to preside over the Senate. Maybe that's why he didn't remember meeting John Edwards before - it'd been too long since Cheney had had the opportunity to do so.
UPDATE: SoonerGrunt notes that John Edwards has presided over the Senate as many times as Dick Cheney has since 2001. And the story of Cheney's "we've never met" fib is now on the wires.
Inspired by this Kevin Drum post, I took a little informal yard-sign survey of my neighborhood this past weekend. Now, I expected Kerry/Edwards supporters to greatly outnumber Bush/Cheney fans. I live in a Democratic enclave, I had only seen K/E signs so far walking around, and to the best of my recollection there were more Gore/Lieberman signs than Bush/Cheney by about a 3-1 ratio in 2000. (There were also a handful of Nader/LaDukes, and one lonely personal billboard for Harry Browne, the Libertarian candidate.) So I drove around and I counted how many houses had K/E signs, and how many had B/Cs.
The tally: 74 for Kerry/Edwards, six for Bush/Cheney. Oh, and one for Michael Badnarik; it was in front of the same house that had supported Harry Browne, as best I could tell.
Seventy-four to six. I expected a big difference, but a 12-1 ratio was more than I thought. Maybe, just maybe, Kerry's supporters are more enthusiastic than you might think. As for Bush/Cheney, I feel pretty certain there were more than six signs in their favor last time, but at the time I didn't realize I'd someday have an audience for that kind of rumination, so I can't say for sure what their level of support was. I can say for sure that K/E is kicking G/L's behind.
I'll check again the weekend before the election and see what the final tally is. How does it look where you are?
So Kerry appears to have won the post-debate spin as well as the debate, and it's showing in the polls. Of course, as Steve Casburn reminds us, Walter Mondale did pretty well in the first debate of 1984, too, so this is no time to relax. With Johnny Sunshine going against Dick Effing Cheney tomorrow and Bush-Kerry II - Electric Boogaloo later on, I expect to exhale again sometime around Saturday.
You want to know why exactly Kerry kicked Bush's tuchus in the first debate? Check out this DCCC video and see.
Surely by now you've heard that the Lone Star Iconoclast, Crawford, TX's hometown newspaper, has endorsed John Kerry. I was going to do a longish post on this, tying together some of the other iconoclastic things this paper has done, but thanks to the keen foresight of having too many other things to do first, the Burnt Orange guys beat me to it, thus sparing me the work. And to think that in real life I have to justify my tendency to procrastinate. Thanks, guys! Check it out.
Pretty clever idea, getting red staters and blue staters to actually talk about issues so we can all see where they agree and disagree (and, as Hope points out, where they're just plain factually challenged). Now if I can only get the Dr Seuss rhyme out of my mind...
Want an example of former Bush voters switching to John Kerry? Try this on for size. And check out this interview (scroll down) that Kristen Breitweiser, 9/11 widow and Bush voter in 2000, did with Judy Woodruff:
BREITWEISER: ...I spent, along with the other 9/11 family members, three years trying to get 9/11 issues addressed by this administration.And it's been a long fight, and I use the word fight because that's what it was.
And I think it's disappointing to be this far removed from 9/11 and to still not feel as safe as we could be feeling...
...We tried to have accountability assigned, and it's just not happening under this administration.
And I have a five-year-old daughter. I want to know that I'm safer than I am right now.
And President Bush has not put me in that place, and I believe Senator Kerry will.
WOODRUFF: You said that you voted for George W. Bush in 2000. What has turned you around?
BREITWEISER: I think my own personal experience in the last three years...
...I'd hoped that President Bush -- someone that I voted for, that my husband voted for -- would have been my biggest ally in trying to correct the problems that occurred on the morning of September 11th and trying to make this nation safer.
And what I found out, for the last three years, is that he was our biggest adversary.
And I'm very disappointed --
WOODRUFF: Specifically because he what?
BREITWEISER: With regard to the 9/11 Commission, President Bush:
Fought the creation of the commission;
Fought the legislative language to make sure the commission was set up in a bipartisan manner;
Fought the funding of the commission;
Fought an extension for the commission;
Fought access to individuals and documents.
...
WOODRUFF: But in the last analysis, the president did come around on most of that, didn't he?
BREITWEISER: He came around after he was backed into a corner and after a 90-8 vote in the Senate. And it was a long year.
Powerful stuff. Via Liberal Oasis.
Regarding all the stuff that has now come out regarding George W. Bush's apparent failure to fulfill his duties in the Texas Air National Guard, I refer you to what Josh says:
And, finally, let's not miss the obvious point here. This isn't about what President Bush did 30+ years ago. Or at least it's not primarily about that. The issue here is that for a decade President Bush has been denying all of these things. He did so last January. He did so again as recently as last month. He's continued to cover this stuff up right from the Oval Office.
Putting it another way is Kevin Drum, regarding the just-now-released memos on Bush's service by the White House:
The real question now is: what other documents does the White House have? Obviously they've had these sitting around for a while, and just as obviously they've held them back even though they claimed in February that they had made available every known document related to Bush's National Guard record.So what else are they hiding? And when are they going to approve AP's FOIA request to view all relevant microfilm records directly?
(UPDATE: See update here. The White House did not have its own copies of those memos, just what CBS faxed to them.)
Eric Boehlert puts the pieces together into a narrative. Read and decide for yourself.
Finally, I note that Dan Bartlett is saying you can't read the mind of a dead man. (Full transcript of the Bartlett interview here. I have to say, this (PDF) seems pretty clear to me:
18 August 1973
Memo to FileSUBJECT: CYA
1. Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush. Im having trouble running interference and doing my job. Harris gave me a message today from Grp regarding Bushs OETR and Staudt is pushing to sugar coat it. Bush wasnt here during rating period and I dont have any feedback from 187th in Alabama. I will not rate. Austin is not happy today either.
Names and acronyms explained here.
Ralph Nader's bid to overturn Texas' ballot access laws was rejected by a federal court today, meaning that he is still not on the Texas ballot.
Nader's campaign had claimed Texas ballot access requirements for independent candidates are the toughest in the nation and unconstitutional, noting they are more stringent than those faced by third-party candidates.Texas has one of the earliest deadlines to qualify for the presidential ballot and requires independent candidates to collect about 20,000 more signatures than those required by third-party contenders.
Nader's campaign tried to get him on the ballot by collecting voter signatures but turned them in two weeks after the state deadline in May.
U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel ruled state ballot access laws did not create an unconstitutional burden.
Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese said the campaign would appeal.
"We find the position to be unpersuasive and it doesn't look like the judge understands the issues," Zeese said.
Such a lovely comment. These guys sure do know how to make friends, don't they?
At trial, Nader's attorneys argued the state has no legitimate reason to have different requirements for independent and third-party candidates.Lawyers for the state argued the signature and time requirements were not unreasonable and could have been met with a better effort by Nader's group.
Nader was required to collect at least 64,076 signatures by May 10 from registered voters who did not vote in the Democratic or Republican primaries. That equals 1 percent of all votes cast for president in the last election in Texas.
Third-party candidates needed to collect 45,540 signatures by May 24, the day Nader's campaign turned in its signatures. Earlier this week, the Libertarian Party was certified for the Texas ballot.
Of the 80,000 signatures Nader's campaign filed in May, a random sample by the state showed that between 56,215 and 63,374 were valid. Those numbers would have qualified Nader under the third-party access rules but not as an independent candidate.
So he likely didn't miss by much, which in my mind lends a lot of credence to the state's argument that Nader could have met this burden but simply failed to do so. Not sure what Kevin Zeese thinks the judge failed to comprehend, but these guys do exist on a higher plane than the rest of us, so I suppose I'll just have to take his word for it.
Elsewhere, Nader appears to have been nominated by the national Reform Party, or whatever is left of it after their debacle of 2000. Anyone who thinks that the two major parties are incoherent should ponder what an organization that would have Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, and Ralph Nader in succession as its standard-bearer might represent. Anyway, in doing so this appears to have gotten Nader on the Florida ballot, though that state's Democratic Party seems likely to challenge him.
Pretty strong stuff here from William Saletan about Bush's "heroism" after 9/11. The Talent Show notes that Bill Clinton arrived in New York before Bush did, even though he'd been in Australia when the attack occurred. Somehow, I don't think that's gonna get mentioned all that much this week.