Election-Eve Aggreposting
A random assortment of election coverage as I take care of my own State Rep district. I’ll be back in action Tuesday night.
» KHOU: Allegations of dirty politics arise in civil court judge race
I’ve been in campaigns for judges who were under attack from a lawyer scorned. It’s rarely fun. But it also makes me more sympathetic for Judge Kirkland over the lady with fake supporters.
» Chron: Crowded field vies to succeed Ron Paul in US House
Nearly a dozen candidates crammed into a brief overview. It is what it is. But this’ll be phase two of my year. It’d be easier reading if people got over the fact that this district has very little in common with the district Ron Paul has been representing since 2005.
» New Yorker: Cory Booker: The Dilemma of the New Black Politician
» National Journal: The Emerging Democratic Divide
Two articles that really deserve to be read alongside of each other. The strain of belief within the Democratic Party that believe in things like free markets, entrepreneurship, and liberalized trade isn’t dead. Its just not on the Sunday talk shows and is increasingly hard to find in DC. The voters are still there, though. Knock on a door or two in a any Democratic district and you’ll find them easily enough. That said, there are a lot of electeds who need to drop the DC-centric talking points and reflect their district a little more. Kudos to Cory Booker for letting that happen … on a Sunday talk show, no less.
» New Yorker: Do We Still Need the Voting Rights Act? (Jeffrey Toobin)
There’s room for improvement in a nation where multicultural areas are proliferating. It would also be a good thing to see greater protections afforded to Asian populations (spoken as one who is campaigning in one such area that has been fractured into no less than 5 different State Rep districts!). But the short answer is … yes. Until there’s any reasonable discourse allowed on the topic from the far right, the middle ground will just be a continuation of the same 60′s era solution applied for as long as SCOTUS allows.
» Chron: Census count stirs up debate (Jeannie Kever)
The Chron follows up with some Texas reactions toward the single biggest issue known to mankind the brouhaha over the American Community Survey. There’s also an update that Houston will get an answer to their appeal on undercounting in the city in a couple of weeks.
» Texas Observer: House District 26: As Fort Bend Goes
Fort Bend has been called a bellwether county so often that it’s easy to become skeptical about the use of the term ….
I’m too overworked to have enough patience to dig through the archives for where I might have first made mention of this. I’m fairly certain I had to have been part of the early crowd, though. But the article is more of a snapshot of the HD26 contest. Unfortunately, the court didn’t maintain a more competitive district in this instance.
» 538: Swing Voters and Elastic States
After doing my own round of number-crunching of historical voting patterns in HD137 as well as the daily ritual with the Early Vote rosters provided by the County, its actually very soothing to read someone else’s work with election data for a change.
The Kirkland race is ridiculous. One of the only sane judges in the county and he could get knocked under by a woman whose alleged supporters have “Stockphoto” watermarks across their faces…