With that, Jason Gibson is out of the race for U.S. Senate. Didn’t know he was running? … or who he was? You weren’t alone. Former State Rep. Paul Sadler is now the presumed ceremonial candidate. If he raises $5M, that’ll be impressive enough to do some limited damage, though probably not enough to be taken seriously. Sadler has had some strength in his East Texas base – he got 48% during a Special Election in a district that votes south of 35% for Dems elsewhere on the ballot. That suggests to me that he’s capable of pulling a Sam Houston in 2012. Namely, running significantly ahead of Obama in East Texas. We’ll see. And maybe we’ll see Jason Gibson in another campaign for long enough to actually remember him being a candidate.

I think Ed Kilgore (previously noted as one of my favorite bloggers) manages to both find a way to “get” the concept of “Run Everywhere” while at the same time as missing much of the concept. Along the way, Ed cheers the announcement that Heath Shuler won’t run for re-election in 2012.

What should matter now for Democrats is an effort, not just in the 11th district of North Carolina, but in every tough or even hostile district, to find candidates who can manage to reflect their constituents’ values and preferences, even if they are far from the progressive mainstream, while maintaining some respect for the traditions of their party and its collective interests as an agency for governing. If that’s impossible, well, you can’t win them all—but you can stop holding out a hand to a “colleague” for the sole purpose of having it slapped away.

In part, that’s a great sentiment for the “Run Everywhere” concept that I’ve been harping on. By running campaigns in places like NC-11, you quickly realize that there’s a market for ideas that are not quite as far to the left as many under the Democratic tent might prefer. And you also realize that, sometimes, the tent expands enough to pick up a win – as in the case of NC-11. There are certainly some in that tent who view the concept as a means of running far-left candidates in deep red pockets so that those ideas get voiced, have a champion, and get voted on. That’s fine and well, too.

I’m sure there are several districts where people like Shuler couldn’t break through the primary even though they might have better odds in November. From my vantage point, that stinks. But that’s the price of admission to the marketplace of ideas. The problem is that, without candidates, there is no market efficiency. I’d rather have a crowded marketplace than a barren one. Maybe that’s just me.

I’m not sure how Ed squares the notion of there being a) a candidate “who can manage to reflect their constituents’ values and preferences, even if they are far from the progressive mainstream”; and b) maintaining some respect for the traditions of their party and its collective interests as an agency for governing. Whatever b) means, of course, is open to interpretation.

I do know that Ed is old enough to recall the days of routine Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. It’s not like his old boss, Sam Nunn, was considered any better than Shuler is today. But there’s a huge difference between Shuler and the likes of Zell Miller or Ralph Hall (pre-party switch). Joe Lieberman was with his caucus something like 75-90% of the time and was considered the biggest apostate the party’s ever seen.

But I still think that to consider Heath on par with any of the worst Dems in recent memory is to really forget a lot about politics. And I know Ed’s old enough to know better. Let’s face it, a lot of the votes Pelosi has asked her caucus to take have been worthy of both some intraparty dissent and some open questioning about the direction she was allowing the committee chairs to take the caucus.

ADD-ON: More confusion from Ed…

Paul Starobin reports at TNR that Elizabeth Warren is routing Scott Brown among female voters, which may provide some lessons for Obama campaign.

What lesson? … be a chick? I’m not so sure it would end up any better than the Wayans Brothers movie.

This could prove interesting in the years ahead …

The new poll found a sharp divide among Maryland Democrats based on race. Among whites, 71 percent support same-sex marriage, while 24 percent do not. Among blacks, 41 percent are supportive, while 53 percent are opposed. Maryland has the largest percentage of African Americans of any state outside of the Deep South.

…

And support differs considerably by region. In Democratic-leaning Montgomery County, 62 percent say they support same-sex marriage, while 28 percent do not. In Prince George’s County, 36 percent are supportive, while 59 percent are opposed.

The geographic divide is a function of the demographic divide, as PG has a higher share of African-American population while Montgomery is a mix of Anglo Dem and African-American and a touch of GOP-friendly suburban. The map included in this post demonstrates the Citizen Voting Age Population breakdown in the two counties.

Frankly, I’m surprised that support for the issue is as strong as it is among Afr-Am voters. Whether it ends up that way once a ballot initiative ever finds its way to the voters, we’ll see. I’m clearly not the optimist for what it means for the future cohesiveness of the coalition of voters that back Democratic candidates.

I’ve been a fan of Ed’s ever since I was vaguely aware of the policy work he did for Sen. Sam Nunn as far back as 1989 and his writing as a blogger since the New Donkey days has been about what I expected in terms of the cultural background he adds to the blogosphere and the policy depth on issues I tend to agree with him on from time to time.

Of course, the move also represents a continuation of a great blogging tradition at one of my favorite publications. Kevin Drum and Steve Benen are among the best reads of the day. I’m not quite comfortable with the idea of having a Benen’s feed from the Rachel Maddow blog in my “Heavy Rotation” feed for daily reading, but that seems to be a faustian bargain I’ll end up making. With Kilgore at the flagship launched by Charlie Peters, the moment really represents a unified theory of centrist/moderate/whateveryouwanttocallit bliss. So I’m obviously tickled pink these days.

Two different takes on the Dem side of the US Senate contest: one with a focus on East Texas former State Rep. Paul Sadler and another with a focus on Houston attorney Jason Gibson. Neither is a particularly wonderful frame, with Ross Ramsey’s NYT piece dwelling on the fact that Dems just don’t win a lot statewide here in Texas and Joe Holley’s piece suggesting that Gibson is “punching above his weight class” with his run. If this is another example of a monolithic liberal media at work, I sure hate to see what our GOP friends consider to be “fair and balanced”.

Still, Ross’ writeup is worth reading with a thought on what it means to “Run Everywhere“. The following snippet, in particular:

Some candidates run because they think the party should be represented even when it will probably lose. Mr. Sadler contends that the personal costs of running for office are too high for that rationale, and he’s trying to make the case for why a Democrat can win here.

…

“The state is turning,” Mr. Sadler said. “I think the right Democrat can win. The people of Texas are independent enough to do that.”

Maybe. Mr. Sadler has lost two races since leaving the House, winning 48 percent in a 2004 special election for the State Senate against Kevin Eltife, Republican of Tyler. In a local school board race — the main issue, he said, was whether or not a local coach should have been fired — he lost by one vote. He said he lost the Senate election, partly because the district was drawn for a Republican. (He also credits Mr. Eltife for running a strong campaign.) “I never want to be trapped in that kind of district again,” he said.

But isn’t Texas, with its current Republican bent, just a bigger version of the same thing? Isn’t this statewide Senate district just as unwelcoming to a Democrat as that State Senate district back in 2004?

There are a number of factors that make 2012 a challenging cycle for candidate recruitment around the state. And with a particular emphasis on statewide offices. It’s similar to the situation we ran into with CD7 after Michael Skelly dropped a fair amount of money into an uphill race for that seat in 2008, only to see the needle remain right around where it had been two years previously. Namely, after someone’s given it the best shot anyone’s seen in years, it’s pretty hard to go tell someone else that they can pull it off with less resources, less of a profile to appeal to voters, and probably less activity on the ground. If nothing else, it’s effectively impossible to go back to donors who have given in that contest and say “No, this time we can really do it” with all of the shortcomings previously mentioned. That’s why there wasn’t a candidate in CD7 in 2010. That’s why the candidate pitches in 2012 that I’ve heard ring hollow.

And that’s why there won’t be much serious funding for a statewide race in 2012. Bill White dropped $25M in 2010. In a normal year, a candidate finishing 7.5% above the baseline Dem performance would have been in a competitive photo finish. But with GOP turnout amped up in 2010 and the baseline hammered down to 35%, tacking on an extra 7.5% doesn’t get you any more of the vote than an underfunded US Senate candidate from 2008. Good luck to anyone who can go back to the donor pool now and say “I know the guy who spent $25M couldn’t do it, but I can.” I don’t envy them for having to make the rounds with that argument.

In the 2005-06 cycle when “Run Everywhere” was a nice idea, it was also an idea that coincided with a lot of pent-up Dem frustration nationwide that led to the reverse impact of 2010′s turnout phenomenon. GOP voters weren’t motivated to come out at higher levels than before and Dem voters had an extra ounce or two of energy to do so. It was enough to chalk up some nice wins, but the real Dem tsunami would be two years later.

A number of lessons since then on what “Run Everywhere” can accomplish, where it’s fallen short, and where it still has hope to generate improvement for Democratic candidate prospects are worth talking about, I think. With that, here’s my starting point for the discussion:

1. “Run Everywhere” does not mean “Run Anyone”. Nor should it.

If you want to meet the vainest people in the world with the grandest of delusions, I heartily recommend a career in politics. If you’d like to lead a more normal life, though, I strongly suggest avoiding it. This falls most heavily on the class of candidate that does not win a lot of elections – people who, instead, get a 2- to 6-year itch to run for office and be the saving grace of local politics and end up losing a lot of elections based on the poor decisions that led to them being a candidate in the first place.

It’s easy to mimic the language to pitch to a group of Democrats and offer some variation of “We’re going to defeat {insert safe incumbent name here} by running a grassroots campaign and convincing people that we’re right on the issues.” Believe me, there’s not a room full of Democrats that meet who want to think that anything to the contrary is possible. And if the only choice is between candidates who all offer this approach, there’s not much room to go elsewhere.

About the only advice I can offer is that there needs to be improvement in the language of making advances in races that simply will not be won … as well as greater acceptance that, in some areas, part of the work ahead involves holding house parties and convincing friends that it’s worth $100 or $250 to chip away at the stone for a candidate willing to talk on those terms.

From my Bill White campaign days, I remember that there were a few folks who were convinced that we could win some counties represented by WD-40 State Reps. I’m not talking the realistic ones like Jefferson, either. I’m talking counties where any conceivable objective review would lead you to say “there is an absolute zero chance of getting 50% or more.” We had paid field staff in several of them – and I’m glad we did. The more realistic view (certainly my view and one that I know was emphasized by the candidate himself) was that it is important to cut into the margin in places like that. That means emphasizing what you can accomplish by getting 40% of the vote sometimes and shooting for that goal in a smart way. In a county where the down-side risk is getting as little as 25-30%, finishing with 40% can be enormous.

2. “Run Everywhere” should focus more on developing the campaign infrastructure within the candidate’s network and community rather than trying to leach off of other campaign infrastructures.

Actual conversations in years past – and even this cycle – will lead to comments or requests for donor lists for certain successful candidates by upstart challengers. The first one I recall was a candidate who thought they could raise money off of Borris Miles’s 2006 donor list. Borris raised a lot of money from friends and his professional network. Those people aren’t going to write a check for someone they don’t know. In this most recent cycle, I’ve had people ask our shop for lists of a Congressional candidate because “those donors share our beliefs on the issues.” This is the language of a candidate who has yet to meet the reality of modern American politics.

When I first wrote on the topic of “Run Everywhere”, my ideal scenario would be that a State Rep candidate would find new outlets of donors within that district and within their own personal and professional network. Some may not have substantial enough networks to raise significant funds, but the hope remains that a fair number of them do and that this occasionally coincides with them being in districts that are trending our way over the short-to-intermediate term. I think this ranks as one of the biggest disappointments in that not enough candidates are willing to do this. For whatever solace it offers, candidates we work with at our shop do just that sort of development.

3. “Run Everywhere” shouldn’t be afraid to lose. Nor should it be afraid to talk about long-term improvements.

This is obviously the hardest part. But I’ve met with candidates and asked if they viewed certain races as 2-cycle projects. In a very rare set of instances, they’ve said “yes”. And I’ve never seen them take up the second half of the challenge. Running for office the first time is a huge learning experience, moreso when you do it at a professional level. But even a DIY campaign can be an eye-opener. There are consultants who will fleece you and those who will help out at an affordable rate that rewards them for their time without making them exceedingly wealthy in the process. There are absolutely zero guidelines for separating the two out.

If you were to start a business from scratch, you would generally try to work with people you know well, have known for a while, and trust as much as possible. In politics, the timeline is compressed and you’re generally forced to choose between competing claims among people you’ve met days or weeks earlier. More than I care to say, the “winner” is usually the consultant who pitches to the potential candidates’ ego the best. I’ve been very happy to be a part of a lot of campaigns that did not start off that way. If I worked with a shop that had to pay the bills with that approach, I assure you that I’d be happily greeting people at Wal Mart and enjoying the step up that my career has taken with that job.

To me, finding candidate who are willing to run two or three races in the hopes of improving the district over time may be the hardest of challenges. It’s certainly hard to raise money with that kind of premise. And it’s tough to get people to expend shoe leather on your behalf. But as we get into an increasingly open era where the prospects of winning/losing are far more known in a district, I think there has to be a willingness to try somewhere. I still hope it’s possible, but I don’t pretend to have all of the answers for this one yet.

———-

All in all, I still think it’s important to run everywhere. It’s important to force an incumbent or a heavily-favored candidate to defend their views rather than simply accumulate a warchest that they can then move upward with, spend on other candidates behalf, or merely fend off stronger challengers on money alone. Ensuring that campaigns are about ideas rarely means sitting on the sidelines.

The beginning of the decade would be an optimal time for starting to alter the way we talk about running in areas where immediate success isn’t likely. With a longer-term horizon, you can still aim for a few seats that don’t start the decade as “winnable” rather than lose them to redistricting a few years after some momentum. But if a change does happen, it won’t happen become some lone blog somewhere wrote about a mildly interesting aspect of political campaigning … it’ll be because there’s already a market for it that some pool of potential candidates haven’t addressed.

As a means of tracking my slightly-more-than-passing interest in Martin O’Malley as a potential 2016 Presidential candidate ….

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley lacks clear public support for key budget and tax proposals and a bid to legalize same-sex marriage, underscoring the uncertainty of an ambitious legislative agenda that could shape his legacy and political future.

A new poll by The Washington Post finds that 55 percent of Marylanders approve of O’Malley’s overall job performance, even as half of all respondents say he has accomplished only some or not much during his five years as governor. And a slimmer 41 percent approve of the way he’s handling fiscal issues.

The coming year could be an interesting one for both the state of Maryland and possibly as a glimpse into the future state of the Democratic Party’s coalition. If either or both of the DREAM Act or gay marriage make it to the ballot as a referendum, both votes should shed some light on where different constituencies fall on both matters. From the vantage point of political geography, it’ll be interesting to see how a fairly reliable Democratic state votes in different areas. But from the perspective of one who occasionally reminds an audience that the “Democratic coalition” isn’t quite the same as “the beliefs of liberal activists”, I think there’s a lot to anticipate about how Democratic voters really are a world apart from the folks who take a more purist tilt to their worldview.

More importantly, if you start running down the names of potential 2016 Democratic candidates, I think it will be a given that the ultimate nominee will be one who supports gay marriage that year. O’Malley is certainly one candidate that I hope to see run, that I’ll give an extensive ear to for supporting, and supports gay marriage. I disagree with him on the matter, but it will be interesting to see what lessons are learned about pushing the issue over the next four years.

SIDENOTE: Annise Parker won’t be running for President in 2016, but this happened over the past week. It remains to be seen how much of an advocate she becomes on the topic since Houston doesn’t even allow domestic partner benefits and there hasn’t been much of a push to undo that. We’ll see what there is to see about this effort when there’s more to see, though.

I mention this primarily since one of the references is to the worship band at my church, the Robbie Seay Band. Nice to see them getting some mention in the local rag …

More artists are parting ways with traditional record labels to make and promote music on their own. One company playing a pivotal role in the trend is Kickstarter.

In addition to making their music available, bands are offering those who sign up on these sites incentives that range from release-party tickets to personal phone calls, dinner with the band, instruments used in the recording and private concerts in your home.

…

Houston’s own Robbie Seay Band launched a successful Kickstarter after releasing its previous three albums on a major label.

A recent check on the site shows the band has 512 backers pledging $24,829. The band’s original goal to produce its new album was $16,500. A $10 pledge gets the donor a digital download of the finished album; a $15 pledge gets a hard copy, digital download and an immediate download of two new songs. For $1,000 donors get Seay’s company at a Texans game and for a round of golf.

The other band referenced in the article is an underground favorite: Five Iron Frenzy. There’s a great interview with band member Leonor Till here on how that band’s success with Kickstarter is impacting their future. What’s interesting about that, to me, is that while I never got into ska back in the day, I did get into FIF frontman, Reese Roper’s solo project … and still highly recommend it. Anyways, that project never spawned a follow-up, because as Reese told it, the project put him in a financial bind.

I’ve had the good fortune to meet other local musicians with enough national recognition to hope that a self-published release might get a good reception … all to no avail. In the two examples that the Chron story covers, both artists have a fairly decent national following due to prior work on a big label. Nothing wrong with that. Particularly when I count myself as a fan of both of these bands. It’s far more difficult to capture the story of a band who rises from a lesser starting point, though, and those strike me as more intriguing stories to learn more about due to the degree of difficulty.

Of course, I’m still convinced that there’s been no truly great music created by any band formed after 1989. Seriously … Mr. Big was the end of everything. Check back in 100 years and if you don’t see a direct correlation in the decline of western civ and the inability of musicians to either tune their guitars when recording popular music or rely on Autotune to sound halfway decent, I’ll own you a buck.

For the five people or so who might be interested in Cougar baseball …

A total of 14 Cougars return from that 27-32 squad that finished tied for fourth in C-USA (12-12) and they’re joined by a whopping 20 newcomers that look to add significant depth that wasn’t seen a season ago.

For starters, the Cougars will at least begin with a full deck of pitchers in tow. A year ago at this time, the Cougars were starting practice with just nine healthy pitchers that were expected to contribute. On Friday, they had 16 arms suited up for practice led by the pair of senior righthanders, Jared Ray and Mo Wiley and junior lefthander Jordan Lewis.

Ray, who missed most of last season while recovering from a third arm surgery but joined the rotation in time to contribute late in the regular season and the postseason, said he’s 100 percent and feels no ill effects from his multiple times under the knife. Wiley is coming off a productive season of his own in which he started 12 games, went 4-4 with a 4.63 ERA in 70 innings. Lewis threw a team-high 81 2/3 innings and was 5-3 with a 3.75 ERA (both team highs) and became a consistent Saturday starter for the Cougars last season.

I don’t know whether it qualifies as a New Years resolution or merely serves as the after-affect of a fairly successful football season pushing my Cougar Pride buttons. But I’m planning on taking in some Sunday afternoon games this season, in addition to the Minute Maid Classic. Hopefully, the new scorecard app for the Kindle works out and I’ll be able to test this hypothesis from Moneyball …

Baseball is theater. But it could not be artful unless its performances could be properly understood. The meaning of these performances depended on the clarity of the statistics that measure them; bad fielding statistics were like a fog hanging over the stage. That raised an obvious question: why would the people in charge allow professional baseball to be distorted so obviously? The answer was equally obvious: they believed they could judge a player’s performance simply by watching it. In this, James argued, they were deeply mistaken.

That was James’s most general point, buried beneath his outrage about fielding statistics: the naked eye was an inadequate tool for learning what you needed to know to evaluate baseball players and baseball games:

Think about it. One absolutely cannot tell, by watching, the difference between a .300 hitter and a .275 hitter. The difference is one hit every two weeks. It might be that a reporter, seeing every game that the team plays, could sense that difference over the course of the year if no records were kept, but I doubt it. Certainly the average fan, seeing perhaps a tenth of the team’s games, could never gauge two performances that accurately – in fact if you see both 15 games a year, there is a 40% change that the .275 hitter will have more hits than the .300 hitter in the games that you see. The difference between a good hitter and an average hitter is simply not visible – it is a matter of record.

But the hitter is the center of attention. We notice what he does, bend over the scorecard with his name in mind. If he hits a smash down the third base line and the third baseman makes a diving stop and throws the runner out, then we notice and applaud the third baseman. But until the smash is hit, who is watching the third baseman? If he anticipates, if he adjusts for the hitter and moves over just two steps, then the same smash is a routine backand stop – and nobody applauds ….

As an all-glove/sub-zero bat second baseman in little league, I tended to focus on second basemen for this very reason. Fans of my generation cooed over Ozzie Smith’s heroics at shortstop, but the point was made in certain circles that a truly great shortstop would be one that doesn’t require a high frequency of acrobatic plays. That spoke to me since I was more of a Joe Morgan/Lou Whitaker fan on the other side of the middle infield. Morgan was more of a routine view since the Astros were on TV more often. But Whitaker had better perks for his gig …

Compare and contrast, if you will, with Joe Morgan’s pop culture moment …

Coogs get going on Friday the 17th. I’ll be there for the Sunday game … trying to forget the memory of Pete Rose singing commercial jingles.

Anyways, some daily amusement for my own sake … a reminder that I still need to dust off the guitar to play this good over the weekend:

The clip is of Paul Gilbert (he of Mr. Big fame and Racer X shred cred). My feeble effort from March of last year to replicate a portion of this as best as I could:

PGRO.mp3

String skipping was one of those things I didn’t concern myself with back in the day. I didn’t quite grasp the musicality of some of the licks that were out there to start practicing on, so I didn’t bother. Now that I’m older, I get it in the musical sense … I just don’t have the chops to play it well. What you hear on my meager adaptation is one of the three positions that Gilbert plays it in and in a different timing.

Bad idea. Just all-out bad.

But changing the Astros name to anything would tick off true Astros fans to the highest of tickstivity. (Please note I cleaned that up for the family newspaper, though the mere mention of a possible name change compels one to use profane language.)

Stop while you are behind, Mr. Crane. Don’t change the name on the front of the jerseys; change the names on the back of the jerseys.

Dig deep into your pockets and field a team of players worthy of wearing “Astros” on their chests. Heck, while you’re at it — and I understand this might be asking a bit much — find some players for whom the stars on their jerseys might actually describe their status in baseball.

I’m not saying you can’t use cheap tricks to make fans want to want you — and you don’t have to be a band from Rockford, Ill., to know a name change is a cheap trick — but the name Astros is at the heart and soul of this franchise.

I grew up being indoctrinated in Houston and Texas history due to a temporary family move out of state in the 70s. I once successfully got out of doing chores while we lived in Euless because Nolan Ryan was pitching a no-hitter for the Astros and I had to stop everything and watch. I still remember where I was when I learned of J.R. Richard collapsing on the mound and when Jose Cruz cried over a playoff loss to the Phillies, I cried with him.

Changing the name of the Astros would be the quickest way to make me a season-ticket holder for the Skeeters. It’s truly the worst idea since John McMullen let Nolan Ryan go his merry way.

SOMEWHAT REMOTELY RELATED: Sunday games for the Coogs commence 2/19. Some schools may be changing away from the Cougar nickname, but not the University of Houston.

Already planning a trip to Euless in September …

Officials with the Hurst-Euless-Bedford and Carroll school districts said Friday they have joined forces to schedule some of the Lone Star state’s best football programs against Oklahoma’s elite for eight games over the next two seasons.

The yet-to-be-named slate of games consists of Southlake Carroll, Euless Trinity, Hurst L.D. Bell, DeSoto, Tulsa (Okla.) Union, Jenks (Okla.), Midland and Midland Lee.

….

On Sept. 8 at Pennington, DeSoto takes on Jenks, a 12-time Oklahoma 6A state champion, and Trinity will host four-time defending 6A champ Tulsa Union. Trinity and DeSoto switch Oklahoma opponents in 2013 and play at Dragon Stadium.

Back-to-back games with two of the best programs out of Oklahoma. A chance to watch a frequently great DeSoto program. And, the penultimate excuse … another opportunity to see the Trojans in a big game. Oh, and I’ve never actually been to a game at Pennington. Back in my day, Pennington was a much smaller facility between an apartment complex and Central Jr. High. Now it a 1987-era palace a few miles down the highway.

Interesting that these games aren’t part of the Herbstreit Classic at Cowboy Stadium. That’s usually a series that locks in a handful of the best DFW teams and with Trinity, DeSoto, and Carroll otherwise committed, what’s left to draw the crowds at Cowboy Stadium?

There’s something in reading these three articles together that compels me to re-read Michael Porter’s “The Competitive Advantage of Nations“. And once I decide between either plunking down the $33 cost of the Kindle version or lugging the 896 page staple of the personal library around with me on commutes, maybe I will.

A taste from the first link …

Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

Similar stories could be told about almost any electronics company — and outsourcing has also become common in hundreds of industries, including accounting, legal services, banking, auto manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.

But while Apple is far from alone, it offers a window into why the success of some prominent companies has not translated into large numbers of domestic jobs. What’s more, the company’s decisions pose broader questions about what corporate America owes Americans as the global and national economies are increasingly intertwined.

The thing about reading this that typically reminds me of Porter is that any quick fixes for problems such as this really seem to be non-existant. Think about it – if you wanted to plop a tech manufacturing conglomerate in the Mississippi Delta, what do you think the odds of success would be? Probably not good. The schools (private and public) aren’t turning out top-tier technical talent; colleges aren’t geared toward supporting the industry; and there’s no ready pool of talent to start hiring from. In short: place matters.

I’m by no means fatalistic on industrial comparisons to China. At some point, the urbanization process there slows down and corporate acquiescence to the relatively militaristic working conditions balance out. But for the problems that remain on our side, namely a fast-rising cost of higher education and challenges in turning wannabe engineers into degreed engineers … well, those are problems that would hopefully get addressed sooner rather than later. Because any cries for jobs of this nature aren’t going to magically convert the average 30-something workers into light-duty engineer workers.

Lastly, I’ll note particularly interesting anecdote from the first article again.

A few years after Mr. Saragoza started his job, his bosses explained how the California plant stacked up against overseas factories: the cost, excluding the materials, of building a $1,500 computer in Elk Grove was $22 a machine. In Singapore, it was $6. In Taiwan, $4.85. Wages weren’t the major reason for the disparities. Rather it was costs like inventory and how long it took workers to finish a task.

“We were told we would have to do 12-hour days, and come in on Saturdays,” Mr. Saragoza said. “I had a family. I wanted to see my kids play soccer.”

Bottom line: $22 vs $5-6 to build a $1,500 computer isn’t that big of a deal. Whether there’s room to fix the other side of the issue is a bigger question.

Anyways, read the source material if you want to follow the mental exercise. And if you want to get really deep into it, pick up any book by Michael Porter.

The San Antonio map goes into the trash bin. But the Supreme Court turns it back to them to redraw. From my decidedly non-lawyer perspective, the biggest things I see are that the San Antonio judges now have to take into account more of the legislative intent on the map that they draw. As much as I’ll delve into the law, it appears as if SCOTUS opted to treat their Upham ruling more in line with the way the state wanted it to be viewed than the plaintiffs. That issue turns on the treatment of considering non-precleared maps in the process of drawing interim plans. That results from the Dept. of Justice telling anyone and everyone in pre-clearance limbo that interim maps could not consider non-precleared maps as they drew interim maps. It was a nearly impossible standard as communities of interest typically have some similar shapes and contours that define a fair amount of any plan. All things considered, I’m not convinced that’s a whole lot of bad. At least not yet.

The timing of knowing what the interim districts is, of course, totally screwy right now. My hunch is that we could see something late next week. But if, as Michael Li points out, the DC preclearance trial wraps up on Feb. 3, I can see the San Antonio judges being a bit more cautious this time around and waiting until the DC folks are done. I think they have enough direction (or at least, CYA) from the Supreme Court to deal with the Section 5 side of things. But since the different trials was an issue before, I wouldn’t be surprised if San Antonio takes at least two more weeks to sort things out.

As far as districts, I’m not overly concerned on that for races where our shop is working or contests where I’m rooting for candidates. The San Antonio districts (20, 23, and 34) might get unsettled, but I think the only real question is whether they try to re-attach a Doggett/East Austin wing to CD34. CD33 in Tarrant, I’m wondering if that one goes away. That district alone would be a good excuse for the San Antonio court to wait on DC for. We’re working with Team Lampson here at the day job and I’m not sure that I expect to see any change that impacts us – the state’s plan and the court’s plan had negligible difference between the two.

House races may just be a bit more dicey. Even though it sounds like southwest Houston has better-than-decent odds of having a HD137 and HD149 as it does today, the fact that it’s smaller real estate can mean that folks can find themselves out of a district even if the nature of a district they were filed for is still good for them to run in. I’d hate to think that a few move-in candidates in HD137 will have to break a lease next month. It’s a competitive district as drawn by the court and it was a point of contention for the court to address. So even minor tweaks can change the performance in that district greatly. HD144, I’m a little more comfortable thinking that one remains a Hispanic opportunity district. Whether we see 24 or 25 seats in Harris County could be an issue since the lege’s intent was for it to be 24. That could be bad news for HD144′s Legler and the four-pack of GOP candidates running in what they hope to be an open HD136. Fort Bend’s HD26 is more of a concern to watch for if it moves closer to the Charlie Howard water faucet than a district that maintains the core of Fort Bend’s Asian community of interest.

Stay tuned. And stay on Michael Li’s blog if you’re following redistricting even halfway as closely as I am.

I’m sure you’ve heard the news by now. Perry’s fantasy of becoming the next President is over. One minor point to highlight in all of this now that he’s back in Texas is whether the state media will have learned anything from all of this. By Politico’s account, it might not …

In the end, Perry was undone not by any dirt that anyone had on him — the charges of crony capitalism, the unfortunately named hunting camp — but by his own unforced errors.

National reporters occasionally beat up on the Texas press for not getting the story of Perry’s weaknesses out there better.

Evan Smith, editor of the Texas Tribune, took note and laughed off the criticism.

“Interestingly, the press that irritated me most was the people on the left who used the Perry campaign as an opportunity to flog the Texas press corps as a whole for somehow not doing its job,” he said. “It’s as if we’ve all been asleep for 10 years and it took The Huffington Post to do our jobs. We watched with a mixture of amusement and irritation.”

Perry wasn’t the only one for whom those errors proved disastrous.

Ratcliffe was still finishing the details in his book contract for a book on Perry when he heard Perry’s fateful comment calling people who didn’t support granting in-state tuition to children of illegal immigrants “heartless.”

“I shrieked,” Ratcliffe said. “My wife asked what he said, and I said, ‘It doesn’t really matter what he said. I think he just killed my book deal.’ I knew instantaneously how bad that was going to be in the Republican primary vote. It wasn’t just that he had a position they didn’t like. It was that he has insulted his own voters.”

Am I the only one who notices that Ratfliffe just proved the very point Evan was trying to dismiss? If news writers in the state had concerned themselves with covering a broke farmer from Haskell became a millionaire while being in public office for the past quarter century, maybe the criticism wouldn’t be valid. But the ring-kissing we’ve been treated to over that span of time are a far cry from what should be expected.

As a case in point for how the state’s media (or, if you prefer the Newtonian version: “elite” media), here’s the latest sloppy wet kiss to laugh off. Taken on back-to-back days, at that.

The very next day …

Governor Roemer will be a guest this Friday on Real Time with Bill Maher. Since it’s on HBO, anything can happen so expect Buddy to call out the other candidates by name and expose their ties to the special interests.

I have only two words for this: Awe. Some.

There’s absolutely zero chance in the world that I’ll be in a position to cast a vote for Buddy. But he’s definitely been an interesting candidate for President this go-round.

Q: Did waiver of the five-day posting rule affect you in any way?

A: Things moved quickly, as I’ve said. I hadn’t even picked up the fact that they split down the middle a minority apartment complex until we were on the floor and one of my constituents made me aware of it. A single apartment complex. I had no time to do a detailed analysis while the issue was still pending before us.

The split in question is seen here.

There’s more good testimony reading in all of the links provided by Michael Li. I definitely recommend a full reading of Hochberg’s testimony if you’re pressed for time and/or interest level in the arcana of redistricting law.

Along those lines … no word from the Supreme Court so far. Not sure if that’s good or bad in terms of possible outcomes. But it’s definitely irritating for those of us trying to get campaigns underway.

Bob Ray Sanders does a public service by reminding us that the 2012-13 version of the Texas Almanac is out …

The latest volume includes an excellent article on the Civil War — in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the start of the War Between the States — as well as a history of the Almanac and the music icon Willie Nelson.

It also includes 2010 Census population data, county-by-county primary results, a history of professional football in Texas, and historical high school football and basketball records.

For under $20, it can’t be beat. I’ve been a fan of the books since the 80s and I keep a copy of the 2010-11 version handy, as well as an old copy (1996 to be precise) of the Barone/Ujifusa Almanac of American Politics when I try to sort out some stylistic and organization aspects of my own spin on the subject.

HD136 … I stand corrected on Mano DeAyala. He’s showing over $144k raised and $106k on hand. That leads the pack in a pretty strong field of candidates that at least a few people have cast a ballot for in elections past. I’d still rank him as an underdog, but he’s a very well-financed one.

HD137 … Joe Madden gets his report in and shows just over $10k on hand.

HD144 … Ken Legler gets his report in: $34k on hand.

A few more Harris County filing totals to highlight:

HD131

                      RAISED       SPENT          ON HAND
----------------------------------------------------------
Alma Allen          $5,565.00    $14,542.75     $18,764.13
Wanda Adams             $0.00     $4,697.82     $59,572.22

HD146

                      RAISED       SPENT          ON HAND
----------------------------------------------------------
Borris Miles          $15,900      $2750.00      $6,800.08
Al Edwards              $0.00         $0.00      $1,199.64

Adams’ money lead over Allen is pretty impressive. I’d probably have to peg Allen as a better campaigner in that one. We’ll see what the voters think, though. My hunch is that it gets more even in terms of resources. They should be at parity on dollars spent when it’s all said and done. The dollar figures on Miles and Edwards is a bit misleading. Miles will have whatever resources he feels he needs – he can either raise it or write the check. The question for Edwards is whether he’ll have the people driving his campaign that do all the work for him like Sylvester Turner has done in years past. If other people think Edwards is pushing it this time around, this could be the election where he becomes an afterthought. All that said, either new configuration for HD146 could show some interesting new twists.

District Attorney

                      RAISED       SPENT          ON HAND
----------------------------------------------------------
Mike Anderson           $0.00         $0.00          $0.00
Pat Lykos         $194,598.71    $40,927.94    $320,551.54

I’m not sure what Anderson can bring to the table in terms of resources, but given the high profile of his challenge, I’m just assuming he hasn’t gotten around to holding a fundraiser yet.

Tax Assessor

                      RAISED       SPENT          ON HAND
----------------------------------------------------------
Mike Sullivan       $8,200.00    $14,629.25     $53.641.89
Don Summers             $0.00     $2,788.56      $3,921.11

Interesting. Just interesting.

Harris County Sheriff

                      RAISED       SPENT          ON HAND
----------------------------------------------------------
Adrian Garcia     $187,726.78    $37,531.56    $302,290.00
Carl Pittman       $13,039.00    $25,178.31     $28,907.02
Paul Day                $0.00         $0.00          $0.00
Harold Heuszel          $0.00         $0.00          $0.00
Louis Guthrie      $96,690.00    $35,590.87     $21,641.03
Ruben Monzon       $33,250.23    $18,336.49     $14,913.74

All listed here but Garcia are running in the GOP primary. I have no idea what to expect from that electorate among the crew listed on their ballot. But it’s nice to see Garcia start off with a healthy advantage.

Constable – Pct 1

                      RAISED       SPENT          ON HAND
----------------------------------------------------------
Alan Rosen         $43,500.00     $5,923.87     $37,313.67
Quincy Whitaker     $5,475.00    $18,260.84          $0.00
Grady Castleberry   $3,741.06     $9,908.66      $4,568.00
Cindy Vara-Leija   $22,765.71     $3,256.01     $15,508.37

This could become more interesting if the “caretaker” appointed to Pct. 1 decides he’s got the itch to run for election. But this is going to be an eventful field to watch since the district – and the primary electorate in particular – is a bit of a catch-all with no clear distinct tilt favoring any particular candidate. The precinct includes Acres Homes, part of Fifth Ward, Northside, and much of the Anglo Dem belt inside the loop. And you’ve got a field of candidates that appeal to every corner of that precinct.

There are a few contests that I drew the line at researching just for the interests of time and personal interest. If you’re truly interested in putting together a more thorough list or adding to this one, feel free. I need to think through some placement on the Almanac for the county races as soon as time permits. Here’s hoping that it permits sometime this year.

HD136 … Mike Schofield (R) and Ann Witt (R) are the only two showing money so far, but I’m sure Pam Holm (R) can put together quickly in order to be competitive. Schofield has won the Bob & Doylene Primary, picking up $10,000 from the couple. If Ann Witt hasn’t set the record for State Rep spending in this cycle, I’ll be stunned: $85k spent, roughly $30k of it on consultants and staff. Witt has a record of starting early – she had yard signs placed at polling places for the 2003 City election for her 2004 primary in HD137. But still. That’s a lot of money to drop when few people are paying attention to a race that may or may not ever happen. Mano DeAyala (R) hasn’t filed anything, but I don’t think anyone’s expecting much out of that campaign.

HD137 … Gene Wu (D) leads the pack with over $70k on hand. Jamaal Smith (D) and Sarah Winkler (D) have $2,500 and $1,378 respectively. No report spotted yet for Joe Madden (D) or M.J. Khan (R). So far, the bulk of the spending in this contest is for filing fees. Probably a smart move considering that the race may or may not ever happen. For whatever its worth in the world, outgoing State Rep. Scott Hochberg filed a report with $24k on hand. On a minor note of full disclosure: our shop is working with Gene Wu.

HD144 … Only Mary Ann Perez (D) has a report filed with dollar amounts. Kevin Risner (D) has a report filed, but it’s all zeros. And handwritten. That’s some old-school politicking. Nothing yet from Ornaldo Ybarra (D). Our shop doesn’t have a dog in this race, but I’m curious to see how well Ybarra does. His 2009 win for a Pasadena City Council district over an Anglo incumbent was a great signal on the demographic change underway in that part of the county. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want him to do well in this race. Incumbent Ken Legler (R) doesn’t have a report filed yet, but had over $65k on hand as of June 30, 2011. Even if the San Antonio version of the State Rep map is the one we run on, that version of the district is close enough to competitive where Legler might be able to make it competitive. It might be less so in a Presidential year, but a close contest followed by a rematch in 2014 could be something to watch if the San Antonio version is the one in play.

HD26 … Only Vy Nguyen (D) has a report with money in it: just over $2k. Sonal Bhuchar (R) has filed a report, but with no money. From what I’m told, she should have plenty when it’s all said and done. No reports by Rick Miller (R) or Jacquie Chaumette (R). No disclosure on this one, but I’ve met Vy and there’s plenty good reason to be excited for her candidacy, particularly if the San Antonio version of the district is the one she’s running in. One particular note on Vy’s report is a $200 donation from Houston City Council Member Al Hoang.

The filings for Harris County offices are also underway. Those should be posted later today. Hopefully, we’ll see some interesting things in contested primaries in the District Attorney race as well as the Precinct 1 Constable race.

See for yourself …

… and then see where it came from.

I’d scream “SOPA” and black out my site for 24 hours, but my version was taken from Dave’s Redistricting App – where people who do their own work roll their own maps.

Still. Absolutely no credit, guys?

——–

ADD-ON: Possible alternate blog title: “Grand Theft Cartography“.

Letter From Birmingham Jail

There was a time when the Church was very powerful. It was during that period when the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the Church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Wherever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.” But they went on with the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven” and had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest.

Things are different now. The contemporary Church is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch-supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the Church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the Church’s silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the Church as never before. If the Church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early Church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. I am meeting young people every day whose disappointment with the Church has risen to outright disgust.

Maybe again I have been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Maybe I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual Church, the church within the Church, as the true ecclesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone through the highways of the South on torturous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been kicked out of their churches and lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have gone with the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. These men have been the leaven in the lump of the race. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the Gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.

I hope the Church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the Church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are presently misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with the destiny of America. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. For more than two centuries our foreparents labored in this country without wages; they made cotton “king”; and they built the homes of their masters in the midst of brutal injustice and shameful humiliation — and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

It’s an interesting (and challenging) snippet to process alongside either Greg Boyd’s “Myth of a Christian Nation” (a book that I greatly appreciate) or any of the more Christianist tomes (… which I appreciate far less) that offer a pure counterweight to Boyd and his predecessors.

For now, food for thought. There’s also a nice datapoint in the Smithsonian mag on Roger Williams – the Massachusetts/Rhode Island “heretic”, not the car dealer hoping for a congressional district to run in.

The first was obviously tougher to endure. As good fortune would have it, we piped the game into church on Sunday via DVR … slightly delayed for the opening to accommodate the ending of an 11am service, and resumed after a 1pm service. Once committed to the start of the game, there was really no leaving unless you wanted to walk out into the world where the final score was known about an hour ahead of what we knew it to be. I think it was the only church service we’ve had where threats were made against people checking the score on their phones.

Andi Morman, the commissioner’s wife and a high school economics teacher, said her husband vents less about work these days. He’s able to solve problems in a way he couldn’t in the courtroom. “If it’s a Precinct 2 issue and it’s something that needs to be fixed, I can go out and fix or make sure it gets fixed,” he said. “That’s refreshing.”

The biggest family change in the last year, Andi Morman said, has been their schedule, though she has welcomed the chance to get more involved in community events. The Mormans’ kids, Jordan, 5, and Jack, 3, have welcomed that, too – they were thrilled to ride in parades, for instance. They are less excited by their father’s many evening and weekend phone calls.

Consider this to be either a datapoint against the “liberal media” mythology … or a suggestion that John Williams is secretly ghost-writing homilies on the elected class for other reporters at the Chronicle.

» Chron: Heir apparent: Catching up with David Piland

In the comments, there’s discussion over whether Lamar HS QB Bram Kohlhausen might compete for the starting gig. Frankly, I’m not sure how much of that is a bit of Houston-centric homerism. I certainly do hope that he’s a strong enough competitor for the starting job, but I haven’t given up on hopes that Drew Hollingshead might have a little to show as well. Bottom line, though, is that if Piland isn’t the starter next season, then its news. The loss of senior receivers is more of a concern for the time being.

One point to tack on to all of this is the growing trend of high schools using multiple QB. What makes this particularly interesting is that this is exactly the format that Piland came out of in Southlake Carroll. So it’s not like it would be a new experience for him.

Another solid datapoint that highlights the slowdown in immigration:

The most startling evidence of the falloff is the effective disappearance of illegal border crossers from Mexico, with some experts estimating the net number of new Mexicans settling in the United States at zero. The size of the illegal-immigrant population peaked in 2007, with about 58 percent of it of Mexican origin, according to the Pew Hispanic Center; since 2008, that population has shrunk by roughly 200,000 a year. Illegal immigrants from Asia and other parts of the globe have similarly dwindled in numbers.

This new equilibrium is here to stay, in large part because Mexico’s birthrate is plunging. In 1970 a Mexican woman, on average, gave birth to 6.8 babies, and when they entered their 20s, millions journeyed north for work. Today the country’s birthrate — at 2.1 — is approaching that of the United States. That portends a shrinking pool of young adults to meet Mexico’s future labor needs, and less competition for jobs at home.

I’m still fairly skeptical of the impact that a declining birthrate will have. If anything, I’d bet on it being a negligible influence that can once more be overwhelmed if we see a good economy in America combined with a stagnant once in Mexico or elsewhere in Central America. Bottom line: the economy on both sides of the border are the biggest drivers of immigration.

The rest of the piece is worth a read in full. The results … those we’ll have to wait and see in the years ahead.

I checked to see if this sign was still visible downtown. Turns out it is not.

Obviously, there’s not a lot known about the new guy other than the fact that he’s El Franco Lee’s choice. It should be a spirited race among the (for now) four candidates running. Looks like our shop here at the day job will be involved. Who knows, I may have to do a full disclosure post sometime soon. Unfortunately, as a voter, I’m one precinct removed from the district.

“New Tattoo” is the new thing. I can’t say I’m overly impressed. But who goes to shows like this for the new material? Eddie Van Halen is still Eddie Freakin’ Van Halen. Close your eyes and “Unchained” is still “Unchained.”

Next year is definitely going to be a big wait & see effort for Cougar football …

New Houston head coach Tony Levine has made two new hires to his football staff on Wednesday, naming Mike Nesbitt as the Cougars new offensive coordinator and Jamie Christian as UH’s new special teams coordinator and inside receivers coach, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.

Nesbitt comes from Stephen F. Austin where he led the Lumberjacks to top-15 rankings in passing offense, scoring offense and total offense in the Football Championship Subdivision.

Nesbitt’s offensive background is rooted in the same offense UH uses, the Air Raid. Prior to joining SFA in 2011, he spent four years at West Texas A&M coordinating its offense, averaging 529 yards per game in 2010.

Not a big, sexy hire like Holgerson was. But maybe one with potential. We’ll see. It’s definitely a different era at U of H, though. And things like this don’t help …

Also, former UH co-offensive coordinator and inside receivers coach Jason Phillips joined June Jones’ staff at SMU on Wednesday. Phillips, who played for UH in 1987-88 and was an All-American receiver, has spent the last four years on the UH staff and has spent nine total seasons as a UH assistant.

If we get off to a good start next year, Coach Levine will likely deserve a lot of credit. For now, though, there’s a lot of reason for crossing some fingers in the meantime.

In reviewing the transcript of the proceedings and the news accounts afterward, it seems as if we know about as much now as we did before. The questioning by Alito, Roberts, and Kennedy are probably the most worthwhile reading.

If I had to throw a nickel down and bet on something that would be reflected in the outcome, I might suggest the following:

- The legislature’s plan will not be enacted as-is.

- I would expect to see SCOTUS rule that even though the above is an un-precleared plan, it can and should be taken into account when drawing an interim map.

- My sense is that the worst-case scenario of invalidating Section 5 of the VRA is not going to happen. The above may be a point of clarification for it, but I see it more as a knock on DOJ’s suggestion that the lege’s plan cannot be considered.

Now, what that means for any ultimate map remains to be seen. I can certainly see a number of districts where the San Antonio court did stay true to the lege’s version on a number of districts. That’s obviously not enough to please the GOP types trying to block it. But the bigger issue is that they spelled out their rationale in accordance with NOT being allowed to do that very thing. So I’m not sure they can realistically come back with something that says “No, we really did stick with the lege’s idea” unless they draw something new.

And if there’s a need to draw something new, that pushes on the timeline for primaries and filing deadlines. That’s where it gets fun for those who could care less about the particular cartography. At present, we’ve got April primaries with June runoffs. That accommodates the local May elections. So if there’s anything that pushes primaries back, some possible scenarios that I see are as follows:

- Stay clear of the May elections … This means a June primary with a July runoff. I’m not sure what the read on the Republican Party of Texas leaving Rick Perry out of an early primary win is, so maybe this increases the odds of a Presidential primary still being in April. This, of course, wrecks the state party conventions.

- To heck with the cities … Primaries and city elections in May. This will necessitate two polling places in a number of instances. And a lot of confusion. The locals won’t like this. But I’m not sure of what the largest cities holding elections that might raise an objections. I know Sugar Land will have mayoral and At Large elections. But a lot of the larger cities have odd-year elections.

- To heck with the budget … There are, of course, other weeks to do elections around the cities. And maybe instead of a “first Tuesday” plan, they pull the trigger on a “third Tuesday” or some such date. That still may lead to a bit of chaos … say, a primary election two weeks prior to a city election. It’s obviously an ugly scenario. But is it really that much more ugly than either of the above options?

- Why do we need primaries again? … We wouldn’t be the first state to leave it up to party conventions to pick a candidate, I suppose. I’m assuming that there’s state law getting in the way of this far-fetched scenario. But just to complete the mix of possible outcomes, it’s something to put on the back of the idea shelf.

There’s really not a great solution among these. But one of them seems likely to happen.

Of the political districts that strike me as likeliest for editing are CD25 (Doggett) and CD33 (open). If CD25 gets tweaked, that may have implications on CD34, CD20, and CD23. Which means that the now-tidy situation with Ciro Rodriguez, Joaquin Castro, Pete Gallego and Lloyd Doggett may get muddied up once again. As far as the State House map, I think it’s less clear. A lot of the “fixes” that people like me were wondering about are the HD137/HD149 situation in Harris County and whether Tarrant County’s HD93 remains a compact district that favors Dems or a gerrymandered oddity that favors the GOP.

If there are any grand ideas in the heads of the SCOTUS justices about Section 5 or other issues, we’ll see when we get an opinion. There remains a bit of hope that the ruling that comes out will deal with a more limited set of issues in this case. I think the optimal scenario would be an opinion that says the lege’s plan can be considered in some regards (hopefully without going so far as to grant “deference”). But my view of the Robert’s Court isn’t exactly one brimming with optimism. At the end of it all, this is still the most partisan Supreme Court we’ve seen. So set expectations accordingly.

I left for work later than normal – 9am. The driver opted to pull over and wait out this flood for a while. Got to work sometime around noon. After a while, he moved up to another resting point and it happened to be alongside of a Starbucks. So I had a brief period of productivity leeching off the Starbucks wifi.

One point of conversation for the day involved Rebuild Houston. You can barely make it out from this photo, but there’s a drainage backup that’s spewing upward to the right of the car. For about two minutes, it was spewing like a whale. I’m not about to suggest that less than a year of funding for projects should totally do away with scenes like this. But aside from the fact that I think the project was sold poorly on the front side, I don’t think there’s any kind of promise that scenes like this won’t happen years from now after the program has been in effect for a more suitable period of time to show some impact.

We may end up with some newer pipes here and there. And hopefully a few areas do see some real improvement. I’m told that my church in Montrose got a few inches of water in the building – the immediate area where it’s located is in some dire need of drainage updates. But there will still be floods like this around town. I don’t see Rebuild Houston ending this. So to those who look at the impact of yesterday’s weather as confirmation for supporting the plan … we’ll be having much more discomforting discussions about this over the ensuing years.

Consider this piece the overview/defense of Obama’s health care reform endeavor.

If health-care costs continue to rise unchecked, they will threaten America’s ability to compete and will become unaffordable for most families. One of the major reasons we passed the Affordable Care Act was to bring down costs, something the health-care law does in three ways: by increasing insurance-market competition, assisting those who can’t afford coverage, and tackling the underlying cost of medical care.

One of many reasons that I’m a sceptic is the effort is that many of the items Sec. Sebelius mentions are fairly minor things that can be (and I would expect to see) undone with a single vote in Congress. Take enough chips away it through small-ball votes rather than big-ticket “repeal” measures, and the plan is the gift that keeps on giving – weekly or monthly “end Obamacare” votes. And many of them are reforms that I’m sure the insurance industry will find the means to defeat and no constituency to defend exists. The 1099 measure is a perfect case in point for this.

Not that a slow-bleed attack wouldn’t happen to any health care reform approach. But for the price of this one, I see the “savings” still seem far more ephemeral and the costs far more real. If you spend north of $800B, I’d like to feel more confident that something good would come from it. It’ll take a bit more than general defenses of the plan to convince me of that.

More on the “Van Halen is back” meme …

As press briefings go, it rocked. On Thursday night, Van Halen took to the stage of the venerable Cafe Wha? on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, capacity 250. “Last time I stood on a stage this low, we had to have the car back by midnight,” said the singer David Lee Roth. The objective was to prove Van Halen is alive and amicable for an arena tour that starts Feb. 18 in Louisville, Ky.,after the Feb. 7 release of a new album, “A Different Kind of Truth.” It’s to be Van Halen’s first full album with Mr. Roth as lead singer since the band fired him in 1985, although they have done previous reunion tours.

I’ll definitely be picking up the new release … and hoping that a decent concert ticket can be had for under $75.

American mapmaking’s most prestigious honor is the “Best of Show” award at the annual competition of the Cartography and Geographic Information Society. The five most recent winners were all maps designed by large, well-known institutions: National Geographic (three times), the Central Intelligence Agency Cartography Center, and the U.S. Census Bureau. But earlier this year, the 38th annual Best of Show award went to a map created by Imus Geographics—which is basically one dude named David Imus working in a farmhouse outside Eugene, Ore.

I looked over the information on Imus’ website when I first read the Slate article. It definitely looks like it lives up to the award’s reputation. I think the last poster-size paper map I bought was a “Earth from Space” poster that was the first compilation of satellite imagery stitched together into a full map. At the time (mid-90s?), it was the coolest thing going. Now, it’s morphed into Google Maps/Earth and the perspective is a great deal more ubiquitous. Imus’ map is something of a throwback, but one with a much greater sense of detail and attention to the usability of the map.

Unfortunately, as I type (and hold credit card in hand), Imus’ website is down. Guess I’ll have to wait on ordering that map.

UPDATE: ImusGeographics.com … back up and running. Map ordered.

One bit of good fortune in all of this was that, in the process of having about 20-30 different tabs of stuff open at a time, I still had a browser open with the most recent copy. Google cache came in handy for the rest. But the lesson in all of this is that I should never prune and I should continue to work with everything open on my desktop at once. I take this to include the dozens of tabs open on my text editor for scratch pad purposes. Obviously, forced re-boots are my worst nightmare. But I think this is all God’s way of telling me to keep being a packrat.

Anyways. Now that all is well with the blog, time is too precious for any serious news blogging or whatnot. Maybe tonight.

Candidate   Votes    %
------------------------
Romney     30,015  24.56%
Santorum   30,007  24.55%
Paul       26,219  21.45%
Gingrich   16,251  13.29%
Perry      12,604  10.31%
Bachmann    6,073   4.97%
Huntsman      745   0.61%
No pref.      135   0.11%
Other         117   0.10%
Cain           58   0.05%
-------------------------
          122,224

The post-caucus speeches are listed in full here. I think the most intriguing of them all is the return of Bitter Newt:

Excessive adverbs aside, it remains to be seen whether Newt has enough money or leverage to help undermine Romney. But the game is already underway. So far, the contest is a Democrat’s dream: after seeing just about every GOP candidate short of Huntsman and Roemer get their 15 minutes of polling fame, the guy who’s presently assumed to be the nominee has a diehard core of vote that does not want him to be the party’s nominee.

Back to Texas, it looks like the fair-haired retiree we call a Governor may be looking for a way to pull the plug from his $20M failed campaign. It looks more like the heart wants to quit while the bankroll may be too rich to shut off the machine. Whichever way he goes, I can’t wait to see how the people who pitched the story of “Perry’s vaunted ground game” try and repair their reputations. To wit …

There are 1,774 Republican caucus precincts around the state, 900 of which are combined and held at the same location.

As of Friday, the Texas governor had signed up 1,500 precinct leaders in Iowa, a source inside the Perry campaign told CNN.

The source requested anonymity because staffers are not authorized to reveal the information.

The Perry camp also has 470 out-of-state volunteers descending on Iowa this weekend (including Perry’s own family, which flew in on Friday).

The source said that by caucus night, “we will easily have over 2,000 Perry volunteers” fanning out across the state knocking on doors and speaking for Perry at their voting sites.

2,000 volunteers fanned out across the state. 12,000 votes. That’s a laughable ROI. And still, it’s worth comparing this to the Texas spin that came out after Perry’s 2010 primary win against Hutchison:

Employing an Amway-style organizational model, during the primary season the Perry campaign recruited both paid contractors and volunteers to establish their own “home headquarters” from which they were tasked with locating 11 Perry voters by focusing on their family and friends, and then ensuring that those individuals voted (ideally early). Those recruited were in turn encouraged to form their own home headquarters by recruiting an additional 11 voters, and so on. As is often the case with these types of pyramid arrangements, the initial paid recruiters received funds for forming not only their first headquarters group but also for each additional headquarters group formed as part of their pyramid (i.e., their downline).

This use of monetary incentives to motivate individuals to establish home headquarters was not, however, without controversy, with several instances of convicted felons receiving payments from the Perry campaign for their organizational efforts. This caused the campaign to end the recruitment incentive phase (while still maintaining voter turnout incentives) a few weeks before the March primary.

The establishment of this vast home headquarters network was crucial to Perry’s success in the Republican primary, which, in spite of a record turnout, only involved the participation of 1.5 million Texans (11 percent of the state’s registered voters and 8 percent of its voting age population). In the event Perry runs for president, we should expect a more polished version of this identification and mobilization model to be used in early presidential caucuses (e.g., Iowa, Nevada) and primaries (e.g., New Hampshire, South Carolina).

That mainstream media gobbles up this spin is key among the reasons that political reporting is a joke today. Whether it continues after Perry’s failed Presidential experiment heads home will be worth watching for. A somewhat more critical view of state government and it’s officials just might be in order rather than boosterism such as this.

Bachmann may be announcing her departure today. We’ll see what we see out of Team Perry when we see it. For now, the muddled race goes to New Hampshire, where Jon Huntsman might have an opportunity to make things even less settled.

And in a perfect world, this guy, Buddy Roemer would be seeing his poll numbers rise right about now:

The campaign sent out their daily update today with a subject line of “Roemermentum.” I don’t think it’s that they don’t get the irony of the ____mentum meme. I think they’re just having fun at this point. Nice to see.