2010: The Year of the Independent?

I was very much taken with the Chronicle’s Fort Bend County blog covering the grand opening of the coordinated campaign headquarters of the Fort Bend Democratic Party.

Taken by it because of its air of breathy unreality whose theme was given away by the lead: Are Democrats Staging a Comeback? A question, not a statement.

Locals remember Fort Bend County as a staunch ultra-right wing bastion of conservative and neoconservative politics. Tom DeLay’s base. And as such, Republicans, who hold nearly every elected office in the county, have claimed, and rightly so, primacy in the county. They have even gone to the extent of projecting a sense of invincibility that permeates almost all areas of the county, even to the extent of fostering a sense of defeatism among Democrats.

But I take to heart the remarks of the new Democratic Party Chairman, Steve Brown:

“‘This county is now home to wonderfully diverse communities and families. Today, the face of Fort Bend reflects a tapestry of ethnicities and cultures,’ Brown said.”

Yes, the demographics in Fort Bend County are changing; shifting slowly but surely toward a Democratic majority. Figures don’t lie. If you look at the past 4 general elections, and not at the hotly contested races that evoke strong feelings, but the ones that reveal base political trends, that is, low key statewide and judicial races, you see a clear trend. For your convenience I will summarize the trend below, but you can peruse the raw data that I have gleaned from the county elections results if you like.

Republicans lost 3.74% of the vote between 2002 and 2004, 3.25% of the vote between 2004 and 2006, and 1.4% of the vote between 2006 and 2008. Looking at just one statewide race, Supreme Court Chief Justice, the Republican won in 2002 with 59.18% of the vote, but barely eked a majority in Fort Bend County with 51.3% of the vote in 2008. This one race mirrors the trend, a loss of 8 percentage points in 6 years.

Democrats have beat Republicans in straight party votes in both 2006 and 2008, reversing the 2004 outcome.

A conservative projection of this trend in 2010 puts Democrats and Republicans at about parity. This is good news for swing voters and Independents who like their votes to count. This year, in Fort Bend County, at least, will be the Year of the Independent.

2002:

Supreme Court Chief Justice: R - 59.18% D - 39.55%

Supreme Court Justice Place 2: R - 58.71 % D – 39.9%

Criminal Appeals Court Judge Place 1: R - 59.12 % D – 38.46%

Criminal Appeals Court Judge Place 3: R - 59.02 % D – 38.48%

2004:

Straight Party Votes: R - 55.53 % D – 44.07%

Railroad Commissioner: R - 54.37 % D – 42.61%

Supreme Court Justice Place 9: R - 56.83 % D – 43.17%

Criminal Appeals Court Judge Place 6: R - 55.04 % D – 44.96%

Justice 1st Court of Appeals Place 4: R - 54.82 % D – 45.18%

2006:

Straight Party Votes: R - 47.82 % D – 51.27%

Supreme Court Justice Place 2: R - 52.46 % D – 45.84%

Justice 1st Court of Appeals Place 8: R - 52.31 % D – 47.69%

Justice 14th Court of Appeals Place 6: R – 51.285 % D – 42.551%

2008:

Straight Party Votes: R - 49.1 % D – 50.3%

Railroad Commissioner: R - 50.1 % D – 47.6%

Supreme Court Chief Justice: R - 51.3% D - 46.8%

Supreme Court Justice Place 7: R - 49.6 % D – 48.6%

Justice 1st Court of Appeals Place 5: R - 51.4 % D – 48.6%

Houston City Council Member Jolanda Jones at the Fort Bend Fish Fry

Jolanda Jones is well-known in the political beehive known as the City of Houston, but even though Fort Bend County has a mere 11 precincts within the City of Houston, she took some time out of her schedule to come to neighboring Fort Bend County to help Fort Bend Democrats initiate their 5000 square foot campaign headquarters.

She presented County Chair Steve Brown with a certificate.

I wonder if this gets him into Astros games for free . . .

Fort Bend County Democratic Party Grand Opening Fish Fry

Well the Fort Bend Democratic Party held its first in a long, long time headquarters grand opening party today. A head count was difficult because people came and left at will, but at the height of the event estimates ran to about 200 to 250 attendees. Lots of new faces, lots of old faces, but one thing I am sure you can see in the arena pictures below, what Fort Bend County Democrats lack in church ladies and dirty old white men we more than make up for in diversity.

The anteroom was a place to meet and greet party goers, as we see here with Frederika Allen and her campaign manager. Frederika Allen is running for 240th District Court Judge.

It was also a place to get campaign paraphernalia and sign in at the guest table.

Standing in the food line you eventually got a plateful of fried catfish fried up by County Commissioner Richard Morrison, some potato salad and fried hush puppies, and then you got to slather any manner of sauce on top of any of that.

Not just a few speeches followed and I will have more on that tomorrow. I was keen to get something from Congressman Al Green on the Shirley Sherrod affair and he did not disappoint. Tune in later this week for video clips on that and others.

But finally as a crowning glory to the day we got to give the boot once more to the LaRouchenik Democrat who managed to get herself nominated in the March primary to run against Pete Olson, Kesha Rogers.

Rogers and her retinue decided to crash the party, perhaps with the mistaken notion that the Fort Bend Democratic Party would allow her a place at the podium, something that was never, never going to happen. Here is a bit of video that I shot of Kesha Rogers being shown the door.

Finishing her sentence ...

"what I look like without my tin foil hat."