Some dirty tricks in the SD17 runoff

PDiddie reports:

Some Democrats -- I am one -- are getting late-night robo-calls (11:00pm-2:00am) about ethics complaints against an unnamed candidate in the SD-17 runoff. Since this slime is NOT coming from the Chris Bell campaign, it's obviously the latest effort by the usual shadowy group of Republicans who used the same tactic of smear calls and websites on Huffman herself in the general election. The purpose is not to encourage support for Huffman but to simply discourage Democratic voters from going to the polls. The website mentioned in the call, www.texasethicsreport.com, is a poor ripoff of Drudge and is quite visibly shoddy and hastily thrown together. It contains a sham ethics complaint against Bell.

Several people who were at our house last night for Lights in the Heights reported receiving one of those calls as well. It's a crappy and cowardly thing to do - probably illegal, too, though no one will ever suffer any consequences for it, even if the callers are ultimately identified. Just know that if this happens to you or to someone you know that it's being done to Chris Bell, not by him.

Tuesday is Runoff Day for this race. Here's how the early vote went:

County       Total EV    % of EV

Harris          6,623     49.61%

Fort Bend       3,101     23.23%

Brazoria        2,006     15.03%

Galveston         676      5.06%

Jefferson         945      7.08%

Total          13,351    100.00%

Here's how those numbers compare to the November results:

County    Total votes     Vote %

================================

Harris        119,759     53.63%

Fort Bend      62,095     27.83%

Brazoria       21,218      9.50%

Galveston       9,209      4.12%

Jefferson      11,014      4.93%

Total           13351    100.00%

Bell dominated in Jefferson, where he won a clear majority, and Galveston, where he won a near-majority, so the early vote totals in those counties are good news for him. Huffman was the leading vote-getter in Brazoria, so that's good for her. Bell led in Harris and Fort Bend, so he would prefer to have those numbers get up a bit. Whatever the case, you still need to vote for Bell if you live in SD17, and exhort everyone you know who lives there to do so as well. You can also still make a donation or a phone call to help out. If not now, then when?

Posted by Charles Kuffner on December 14, 2008 to Election 2008