Thoughts at the End of the 2008 Election

With the Senatorial race in Minnesota remaining the only undecided race, because of a slow recount process, it’s time to take a minute and think about what the 2008 campaign season and elections mean, and what bodes for the future.

Here in Texas, I’m afraid we still have a southern red state on our hands. Indeed, as revealed by the voter trend map published by the New York Times, Republicans did better than the last election in small pockets of Texas. But the in vast majority of the state, Democrats performed at the same level as in the last election, or actually improved their performance.

The trend is clear. Texas is slowly but surely swinging to blue.

Yes, Democrats won at the top of the ticket (no thanks to Texas), and that is going to affect national policy, but as they say, all politics is local. A win that is truly life-changing is a win at the local level.

And we had one. Precinct 1 voters in Fort Bend County stopped the Republican juggernaut in its tracks as 800 voters decided that Richard Morrison was going to be a better bet in office than former Fort Bend Toll Road Authority Treasurer, Greg Ordineaux. Morrison made the issue of ethics a cornerstone in his campaign, and it appears he will carry on the fight to introduce ethics to county government (at this point, a novel idea in the county). And who knows, if contractors are finally made aware that they cannot buy votes for contracts, they just might bid more competitively. And who knows, that just might save taxpayer dollars. Another novel idea in Fort Bend County.

But for the most part, what we saw statewide and locally was only a slight change in the legislature, but with Republicans holding only a slight edge in the Texas House, 76-74, and a 19-12 margin in the Senate, it should prove to be more of a challenge for Republicans to carry out their agenda this next year.

No, our main victory is that overall we lost most of our races less spectacularly this year. This was not so apparent in nearby Harris County where a significant number of races were won by Democrats. But here in neighboring Fort Bend County, Republicans are still in the majority.

Slightly.

Fort Bend County has gone from a 60-40 county in 2004 to a 51-49 county.

What this tells me is that if the demographic trend continues, Democrats must run a candidate in every available county race in 2010, and must be well-poised to mount an aggressive well-funded campaign á la Harris County’s coordinated campaign.

The last race of the election season underlines the point.

In the SD 17 race, as I mentioned in yesterday’s posting, we saw a possible 5% demographic shift toward the left in a two-year period. Now this is counter-intuitive if you consider that most low turnout elections favor the Republican. Should not, then, the victory margin be at least the same as it usually is in that district? 61-38? Instead, in this low turnout election (12.34%) the historic margin was cut to 56-44.

So we have a very promising trend here in SD 17, a trend that should improve over time.

This brings me to Chris Bell’s election night speech. It was caught on video by one of his staff members, on her camera phone, no less. So I have embedded it below.

By the way, I’ve always thought that this particular staffer had a novel title: Online Instigator. The only online instigators I was aware of until now are the rabble rousers that incite flame wars. Times change.

I’ll See Your Lawsuit and Raise You One “Boutique” Law Firm

Dallas County Commissioners today have decided to wade into the HD 105 fray by voting to hire a “boutique law firm headquartered in Dallas,” the Munck Carter law firm that is said to “specialize in election law.” As found in the Dallas Morning News.

This is in response to the recent lawsuit filed by the Texas Democratic Party over how the Dallas County Elections Office is effecting the HD 105 recount, which presently has the Republican incumbent Harper-Brown in the lead by 20 votes over her Democratic opponent Bob Romano.

The TDP, in a news release, filed the lawsuit to prevent the Dallas County Elections Office from complying with a ruling by Republican State Attorney General Greg Abbott that would “change the election rules in the middle of the game, ignoring Department of Justice requirements that demand pre-clearance for changes.”

In their lawsuit, the TDP is requesting that the elections office “be required to count for each candidate the straight-party votes from electronic voting machines not tallied during the initial count because no candidate was chosen.”

In this argument, the Democratic Party seeks to include so-called “emphasis votes” where an ill-informed voter votes a straight party ticket, but then votes for the candidate again in the next electronic ballot screens. Rather than adding emphasis, the voter actually deselects the candidate that they so energetically wish to elect.

Abbott has ruled that this doesn’t need to occur.

The TDP cried foul in their lawsuit, saying that the votes were therefore not counted under the same rules, enfranchising some voters and disenfranchising others.

Shades of Bush v. Gore.

Well Dallas County isn’t taking this lying down, and in a move that is beginning to look more and more like the judicio-political 5 act play that took place in Florida in November to December 2000, the commissioners court has upped the stakes.

And the reason they (and Greg Abbott) are doing this couldn’t be clearer. If Romano succeeds in winning the race as the results of the recount favor him, the State House becomes a 75 to 75 tie, with neither party in the majority.

And wouldn’t that be just too bad if that happens? If that happens, Republicans will actually have to start making deals and compromises in their legislation. They might have to give up on plans for Voter ID laws and other tools of voter suppression.

Things might actually get done that might help things get better around here.

Not a pretty picture, huh?

Nick Lampson’s Miscalculation Revealed in the Numbers

Now when Harry S Truman uttered this memorable quote, “When given a choice between a Democrat who votes like a Republican, and a Republican, voters will vote for the Republican every time,” he really did not have Nick Lampson in mind at all.

But he might as well have.

Because Nick Lampson, who ran against a write-in candidate in 2006, found himself between a rock and a hard place when he took office.

He was a centrist Democrat elected by a bare majority in a decidedly right wing-dominated congressional district.

How do you get yourself re-elected in a congressional district whose boundaries were personally redrawn in 2003 by Tom DeLay himself? You can hope for the demographics to shift in two years, or you can do what Nick Lampson finally calculated: bring money into the district, excel in constituent services, and vote with the Republicans whenever you can.

Whenever you can. If a bill is doomed to failure, vote with the Republicans. This, in combination with the other two was a calculation that could produce a winning year for Nick Lampson.

And then along came the FISA bill. The bill that not only extended the extreme measures that the Bush regime granted itself to spy on American citizens, but also made it impossible for these citizens to redress colluding telecommunications companies in its courts. Nick Lampson voted with a majority of Republicans to pass this heinous bill, and we Americans collectively lost some of our 4th Amendment rights.

In that vote, Nick Lampson enraged the left wing voters of his party.

But in Nick’s calculation was this: who are the left wing going to vote for if not for Nick? Nick was unopposed in the March primary. He was the Democratic Party nominee, and the only alternative would be to vote for Pete Olson, a Phil Gramm acolyte.

So we had no choice, and anyone who simply fails to cast their vote either way is simply howling into the wind.

Apparently that is not how some of those of us in the left wing of the party felt.

Looking today at the Fort Bend County portion of CD 22 (because Harris County has yet to post their precinct canvass reports), I arrived at the not so startling conclusion that Nick Lampson just may have miscalculated on two fronts.

The Republican votes he hoped to attract were few and far between, and the Democratic votes that he hoped to retain may have been less numerous than his vote totals could withstand.

I put it on an Excel spreadsheet. I listed all Fort Bend County precincts that fall within CD 22, and recorded the votes for Lampson, Olson, Obama, and the total ballots cast in each precinct.

To get an idea of the number of Republican voters who voted for Lampson, I subtracted the number of votes that Obama got in each precinct from the number of votes that Lampson received. A positive number resulted in 81% of the precincts, but this vote total was only 1,984 voters, or 1.4% of the total votes cast.

Now in many countywide races, 1.4% would have been enough to put the candidate over the top. Fort Bend county is a 51:49 Republican to Democrat county right now. But this didn’t happen in Nick’s case.

And I think the reason it didn’t happen was the left wing undervote.

Now I vote a straight unadulterated Democratic ticket. I do. But I am acquainted with others in my party who did not. I heard more than just a few confess that they voted a straight Democratic ticket when they went to the polls, but then deselected Nick Lampson when presented with the next eSlate screen.

Rather than vote for his opponent, Pete Olson, they simply did not vote in this race.

Now that’s called an undervote with authority.

To find out the total number of Fort Bend County voters who did not vote in the CD 22 race, I added the vote totals of Olson and Lampson in each precinct and subtracted that from the total votes cast.

And the total Fort Bend undervotes for the CD 22 race was 7046, or 5% of the total votes cast.

Now does this number reflect a 100% left wing Democratic voter participation (or non-participation in this case)? Who knows? But even if half of the undervotes reflect voter disaffection with Nick Lampson, this undervote represents a nuclear explosion in a wind storm. An explosion that undoes any effect that the wind has on anything.

So is this the story? Nick’s failure to garner more Republican votes was exacerbated by left wing voters who withheld their votes from him?

Maybe so.

All I know is that in Fort Bend County Nick Lampson lost to Pete Olson by exactly 6000 votes. He improved on this number by 1,984 Republicans, but may have suffered the loss of 7000 or so votes that were cast in neither direction.

That, and a 1% difference in voter party preference cost him re-election.

Now here’s the question: who will we see coming up to the CD 22 plate in 2010? Will it be a sadder but wiser Nick Lampson?

Or am I just dreaming this whole thing up?

The World Welcomes America Back

Never in our 232-year history has the United States of America had such a negative image in the world. The America of the Marshall Plan, the Emancipation Proclamation and the Voting Rights Act became the America of the Bush Doctrine, the Patriot Act and Abu Ghraib.

There are those of us who really don't care about how people throughout the world view this country. These are likely to be those among us who have never set foot in another country, let alone interacted with the locals. There is something about having done this for a number of years that sets some of us apart from our countrymen.

I have done this. For several years I lived and worked in an Islamic nation. The same nation, I might add, that Barack Obama lived in and attended school. It gives you unique views and a general concern for how others see us.

In other pursuits I have had the chance to reestablish contacts with European descendents of my ancestors. Contacts that have been lost for 3 generations. So I have had the chance to hear about the thoughts and feelings of Europeans on news of the victory of Barack Obama in a direct sense. Here is what my 4th cousin, Jean-François says about our victory:

"I guess you're a happy man! It is so good news that Obama won. Really you would be amazed by the event it creates here, it was like if the vote was for our own president! People in the streets singing and crying..."

"We have the feeling that the America we love is back; it is like if a shadow were removed or a "parenthèse" in our long friendship is now closed."

You may already know also that I am an educator. If I may, I’d like to make an analogy of what just happened last week to a classroom situation.

It’s as if the child in the classroom who always gets his name written on the board, the miscreant who makes it hard for others to learn has, over night, become the model student who now gets gold stars on his homework.

Let’s all hope that the praise we are receiving from around the world this week remains well-deserved.

Another Election Story: Toilet Plungers and Republicans

I heard about this last Monday evening, and got an actual copy of the memo on Election Day, but things prevented me from posting a story on this uniquely silly set of circumstances until today.

Steve Radack is a County Commissioner in Harris County, the third precinct to be exact. How he got in that position is an insight into the former Republican majority in Harris County. Radack decided to, from a Fort Bend perspective, pull “an Andy Meyers.”

Andy Meyers, it will be recalled is the County Commissioner of Fort Bend County, by coincidence, the third precinct as well, who spent some of his own campaign cash to print up big morally offensive signs and posted them all over his precinct late in the 2006 campaign season. For a brief review of his past antics, go here and here.

Steve Radack decided to go Meyers one better, and bought 1,000 toilet plungers. These toilet plungers, Radack claimed, represented his partisan choice for President of the United States, John McCain.

A curious choice for a symbol, that.

A toilet plunger representing a presidential candidate.

To me, a toilet plunger represents a tool that is used to free a blockage that prevents the proper conveyance of feces into the sewer line. So to me, this toilet plunger idea is one that would make more sense as a symbol to the voters who flushed down a majority of Republican Harris County office holders last Tuesday.

But that wasn’t Radack’s line of thought. Radack made a leap of logic, relating the plumbing occupation to a toilet plunger. Relating a toilet plunger to “Joe the Plumber.”

Again, this leap of logic escapes me. A toilet plunger is something you use before calling a plumber, not during or after. You call a plumber when the plunger fails to resolve the situation.

But Radack had himself a great idea, to his own mind, and sought to distribute these toilet plungers to Republican voters who would carry them into the polls on Election Day.

Sneaky, sneakyx sneaky. Who in their right mind would object to a voter carrying such an innocent object as a toilet plunger to a polling location? Especially since there are lots of people out there who would never make that logical connection that seemed so clear in Radack’s anomalous mind.

But Radack had an answer to that one, too. Explain the logical relationship, just as one has to explain the punchline of a poorly delivered joke.

So he did.

And in answer, the Obama Voter Protection team issued an advisory to Harris County Poll Watchers, Election Judges, and Voter Protection Attorneys. One of these was manning a phone at the Fort Bend Democrats headquarters on Election Day, and he showed me the advisory.

Now here’s the thing. It’s as serious as a heart attack, but when you read it, it sounds like it was meant to be a seriocomic construction.

You have to read it to understand what I am saying, so here it is in all it’s glory. (Click on the images to enlarge)

Page 2:

I just have to repeat it:

“Plungers represent support for a presidential candidate.”

This election for all its ups and downs, will go down in history as not only the historical event that saw the election of the first black president, but as an election that presented voters with just about the silliest electioneering ploys in US history.

Fort Bend Voters in the Final Analysis

So I want to put this election to rest today, or so I hope. The headline on the Fort Bend Star this week says it all: “Fort Bend voting breaks records but Republicans still triumphant.”

And all but for the very bottom of the ticket, that is a correct statement.

While Barack Obama carried the day in the Electoral College and popular vote, he failed to win in Fort Bend County, despite the huge voter turnout. My guess is, because of the very strong feelings Republicans in this county have against having a black Democratic president, Republicans themselves turned out in their greater numbers.

They did that everywhere but in Precinct 1, where they may have split their vote between the Democrat, Richard Morrison, whose name is forever associated with opposition to the Grand Parkway toll road, and Greg Ordineaux whose name is intricately linked with toll roads in general.

The theory goes that voter demographic shifts can be best revealed in looking at the non-controversial county-wide level.

Judge races in other words.

And this time we saw some races in the very uncontroversial areas like district judges and appeals court justices that were much closer than in any time in the past.

Except for Jim Sharp, who actually won his race this time for 1st Court of Appeals Court Judge, these races were squeakers for the Republican incumbents.

Look at my graphic. I deduced the way Democrats and Republicans voted in these non-controversial races and can see a trend. From a near 40:60 Democratic to Republican ratio in the nineties, we see the spread between the two parties get narrower. From 40:60 in the early nineties, to 42:58 in the late nineties, and ’00 to ’02, to 45:55 in ’04 and ’06, to 49:51 this year.

And this is ahead of the “Obama Bump,” I think, because of the undervotes associated with these judge races, and because even after discounting undervotes, the proportions voting for Obama were just about the same as the ones voting for Democrats for judgeships.

No, I think we are witnessing an effective shift in voter demographics in Fort Bend County, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 to 2% per election cycle.

That being said, as Bev Carter mentions in her weekly Fort Bend Star column, if Democrats don’t file for every countywide race there is in 2010, there is something seriously wrong as it looks like, barring any change in the trend, it will be their big year.

Our big year.

Our big year to flip this county.

Election Night Part Deux

Yesterday’s posting had still photos of various parts of Election Day at the Fort Bend Democrats’ Rosenberg headquarters. Today, why not go to video.



Now that was a party.

Now it’s 75 days until the end of our national nightmare.

Endgame: A Day at the Fort Bend Democrats Headquarters

And it finally came.

Election Day. November 4th 2008.

The day started slow enough, but over time more and more volunteers came in to help get out the vote. We had people driving the elderly and disabled to the polls. We had people calling voters who hadn’t voted in the early voting.

We had people analyzing data and looking for areas of opportunity.

We had lawyers standing by to help voters who were having trouble getting in to cast their ballot.

We had people making more campaign buttons to meet the high demand.

We had people showing voters who came in where they were supposed to vote.

We had people coming in all day to buy campaign memorabilia.

And then, all of a sudden it was 6:30 and the calling stopped.

And at 7:00 the polls closed.

And the election night victory party crowd started to stream in. People came in and out all night so an accurate head count is impossible, but the estimate is that more than a hundred and fifty celebrants crossed our front entrance last night.

Every once in awhile, especially at the top of the hour, the election watchers would burst into spontaneous applause as another state’s projected vote totals went into Barack Obama’s column. The crowd grew more agitated as the electoral vote surpassed 100, then hit 200, then pegged at 207 where it stayed.

Then at 10:01 CST the polls closed on the west coast and vote projections took Barack Obama’s lead to 284. At that point the crowd erupted in a deafening roar.

And the champagne came out.

And the exuberant youth among us went outside to wave Obama signs at passing motorists, screaming and yelling, and getting gleeful honks from many of these cars.

Lots of self-congratulation went on. Lots of feelings of gladness and relief.

And we had one more victory. Richard Morrison won his race to become County Commissioner. He won by 802 votes. It was announced, and Richard responded with a salute to the crowd.

Then the crowd thinned as we waited to hear Obama’s speech to a crowd at his Chicago victory party. Then Barack Obama gave his memorable speech to the throng in front of him, and to millions around the world.

This last one is of Richard Morrison taken during Obama’s speech. It looks like he is watching the television intently, but in actual fact I was standing between him and the TV. No, that is a shot of Richard’s 21 foot stare in a 20 foot room.

It is a very candid shot of a successful candidate in a close political race who is now in deep thought as he moves to the next step.

Making a difference in Fort Bend County

Yes We Did

Exhausted tonight (this morning).

Photos and movies tomorrow.

And . . . oh yeah . . . we won.

Where to Vote In Fort Bend County

It’s pretty easy. All you need is your Voter Registration Certificate. It’s that card that the Fort Bend Elections office sent you. It has orange rectangles on it.

Then you look in the box that says Precinct. There will be a 4 digit number in that box, whose first number is 1, 2, 3, or 4.

Then go here to look up the name of the building and its street address. If you don’t know where that is, click on the polling place and then click on “Google maps” to get a street map of the area.

Now if you have misplaced your Voter Registration Certificate, don’t fret. You can use your driver’s license as a form of identification at the poll. But you need to find your precinct number, right? So to do that, click here and scroll to the bottom of the county’s voter database and enter your last name in the first box and your first name in the second. If you have a unique name, after you click “Start Search” one name will be returned with your precinct number. It will also show whether you are an active voter or are in “suspense”. If you have a name like 18 others, you can narrow the search by using the name/birthday search option.

Then go vote. You have no option not to this year. The stakes are too high and there will be H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks to pay if we are stuck with another four years of Republican policies that do nothing for us, but plenty for the fat cats and corporations.

More Early Voter Stats From Fort Bend County

Yesterday I looked at early voters and young voters and compared them. Today I thought I would look at the statistic that is being reported all over the country: How many Democrats voted in the early vote vs. Republicans.

Now the Texas Voter Activation Network is still not right in tune with numbers reported by the county elections office, but it’s closer now. And again, I am looking at trends, not raw numbers. Well rough raw numbers later.

Of the total voters who showed up at the early voting polls in Fort Bend County, 46% of them voted in the 2008 Democratic Primary. Of these numbers, 1% of these registered to vote in Fort Bend County this year. My guess is that these numbers are in and among the voters who are in the 18-30 age group studied yesterday.

Republicans who early voted? 21% of Republicans who early voted also voted in the Republican Primary. Not a single one of them registered to vote this year. Now it is known that Republicans like to vote on Election Day because it is all over TV that they do.

But not in Fort Bend County.

In fact, in Fort Bend County Republicans have beat Democrats to the early vote every year. In 2006 early votes for Kay Bailey Hutchison in Fort Bend County numbered 24,611 (62%) to 13,186 (34.4%) for Barbara Ann Radnofsky.

In 2004, Fort Bend County Republicans cast 50,663 early votes for Bush/Cheney (60%) where Democrats cast 33,351 early votes for Kerry/Edwards (40%). That year, it was the Democrats who cast more votes than Republicans on Election Day.

Things are kind of different this year.

If Republicans can scare up the 43,000 votes that they voted on Election Day in 2004, that gets them up to 70,000 votes more or less. These are sure thing votes I would think. Then you have to guess how many of the remaining 33% of early voters who did not vote in the March primary were Republicans. That’s around 50,000 votes.

Likewise, if Democrats can bring in the 35,000 Democratic votes in 2004, that brings them up to roughly total 85,000 votes.

Get it? Democrats will only need 36% of those 50,000 unknown early votes to win in Fort Bend County, Republicans will need 64% of that pot.

And that’s assuming that the Democrats will keep to their unexceptional 2004 turnout numbers.

And what are the chances of that happening?

Statistics Upon the End of Early Voting, and the Eve of Election Day

The Texas Democratic Party has a secret weapon in its Voter Activation Network. It gives one unique insight into how the vote is going, and what the trends are. In Fort Bend County, I have some interesting stats to reveal.

Now first, a caveat. The VAN shows too few voters as having early voted in Fort Bend County. They do not yet list the early voter totals that you see when you look at the County Elections webpage, here. At the county site, they show that 148,518 county residents went to the early vote polls. That, friends and neighbors, is 51.2% of the total registered voters in the county. So while the VAN is light in the vote totals, we can look at trends without looking at the raw numbers, which will be a bit off.

Here is one trend. Of the total number of voters that the VAN shows having early voted, 1.2% of them are young voters who are newly registered this year, and have never voted in a presidential election – at least in Fort Bend County anyway.

Early voting is a sophisticated concept that is new to many voters who have voted year in and year out. That 1.2% of the early vote is by those who have never voted in an election of any kind before is absolutely amazing to me.

What about that age group in general? It seems that 30% of all registered voters in Fort Bend County who are between 18 and 30 years old have yet to vote in this election, and will have to show up at the polls on November 4th, or forever hold their piece. And of that group, 76% of them are first time voters – in Fort Bend County, anyway.

Now the youth vote is what everyone is watching because they are uniquely under the radar as far as polling statistics go, and are generally regarded as more likely to vote for Barack Obama than John McGeezer.

If this brand of voter shows up at the polls on Tuesday in big numbers, my guess is that the Republicans who serve as the ruling class in Fort Bend County will take notice.

And maybe some of them, reading the writing on the wall, will start updating their resumés.

NRCC Lies, Pete Olson Approved of That Message

Is it any wonder that you don’t hear a peep from Pete Olson about the recent NRCC hit piece against Nick Lampson? The piece is running on several TV channels in the Houston media market and has raised eyebrows of those of us who watch what our congressman does, and what he doesn’t do.

Take a gander at the hit piece in this You Tube embed. Hit the pause button when you see the photo of the military jet taking off. You see in the lower left corner their citation of the house vote of the bill that Nick Lampson supposedly voted against on December 17, 2007.



Interesting huh? Now take a look here at his actual vote on HR 2764.

So shall we say that the NRCC ad is “inaccurate”?

Shall we say that it is an outright lie that is provable by public record? Something that Pete Olson wishes he had for his explanation on why it was that it was not he who voted in that Connecticut special election in 2003?

Kay Bailey Hutchison is the one that pushed that bill through her committee. She was approached by Alastair Rami who recorded his conversation with her, and asked her why some ads were saying that the bill inadequately funded the military.

Here is the conversation courtesy of BurntOrangeReport and You Tube



Now, I didn’t see the connection, exactly, with the inadequate funding claim and how the ad is inaccurate in that as well. I want to speculate that the version I have is brand spanking new. But it was nice to see that Kay Bailey Hutchison was so easy to set up against Olson and the NRCC.

I also thought that it was nice to see that the NRCC thinks that putting a tax on private health insurance is a bad, bad idea. Nice because it is something that John McCain thinks is a very good idea.

Odd, isn’t it? Usually the Republican Party is the party that has all their ducks in a row and stand arm in arm in solid agreement with each other, and it’s the Democrats that often look like buffoons as they disagree with everyone else, especially those in their own party.

Are we seeing yet another example of role reversal here?

S.T.O.P. Coalition Candidates Forum Tonight

Last February I attended a candidate’s forum sponsored by S.T.O.P., a coalition that opposes extending the Grand Parkway as a toll road south from where it ends at US 59 here in Fort Bend County. It was a crowded stage with multiple candidates for the same office – obviously – because it was a pre-primary forum.

Well, S.T.O.P is reprising its sponsorship of another forum, this tima a pre-general election candidates forum, tonight, October 29th. On the tenth day of early voting. Yes, as I type this, over 90,000 Fort Bend County voters will have cast their ballots at the early voting locations.

So that was a small SNAFU.

A SNAFU because I wonder what the chances would have been that more candidates would have appeared had the forum taken place before early voting started.

Because as it stands, it appears that of all the candidates running for Fort Bend federal, state and local offices, only eight have agreed to appear.

At the top of the ballot, Nick Lampson will square off against his Libertarian opponent John Weider. Dorothy Bottos, the Democrat running for HD 28 will have her words unanswered as John Zerwas is passing on this forum. However, Democratic incumbent Dora Olivo will be on stage with her Republican challenger, Steve Host. It would be interesting to see if there is anything behind Host but his ubiquitous campaign signs.

Andy Meyers, unopposed on the ballot for Precinct 3 County Commissioner, has also agreed to participate. For what reason I cannot possibly fathom. Perhaps it’s because there will be nothing on TV for him to watch since Barack Obama has preempted every television broadcast tonight except for the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.

And finally, Democrat Richard Morrison will attend, as will his opponent Greg Ordineaux. Last time they shared the stage, the incumbent, Tom Stavinoha was the chief target. The one to beat. And beaten he became. This time we have Morrison, a vocal opponent of Section C of the Grand Parkway, who will square off against the ex-treasurer of the Fort Bend Toll Road Authority, Greg Ordineaux.

This would be an interesting match up, as Ordineaux, a once fervid supporter of the Grand Parkway extension as a toll road, is now firmly against it . . . too. Or maybe not. We’re not really sure.

Maybe someone can find out for me how this all turned out because I just (as in 30 seconds ago) got a call asking me to come to the headquarters for more Get Out the Vote activity so . . . oh well. Priorities, priorities.

Too much to do, so little time.

S.T.O.P. Coalition Candidates Forum Tonight

Last February I attended a candidate’s forum sponsored by S.T.O.P., a coalition that opposes extending the Grand Parkway as a toll road south from where it ends at US 59 here in Fort Bend County. It was a crowded stage with multiple candidates for the same office – obviously – because it was a pre-primary forum.

Well, S.T.O.P is reprising its sponsorship of another forum, this tima a pre-general election candidates forum, tonight, October 29th. On the tenth day of early voting. Yes, as I type this, over 90,000 Fort Bend County voters will have cast their ballots at the early voting locations.

So that was a small SNAFU.

A SNAFU because I wonder what the chances would have been that more candidates would have appeared had the forum taken place before early voting started.

Because as it stands, it appears that of all the candidates running for Fort Bend federal, state and local offices, only eight have agreed to appear.

At the top of the ballot, Nick Lampson will square off against his Libertarian opponent John Weider. Dorothy Bottos, the Democrat running for HD 28 will have her words unanswered as John Zerwas is passing on this forum. However, Democratic incumbent Dora Olivo will be on stage with her Republican challenger, Steve Host. It would be interesting to see if there is anything behind Host but his ubiquitous campaign signs.

Andy Meyers, unopposed on the ballot for Precinct 3 County Commissioner, has also agreed to participate. For what reason I cannot possibly fathom. Perhaps it’s because there will be nothing on TV for him to watch since Barack Obama has preempted every television broadcast tonight except for the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.

And finally, Democrat Richard Morrison will attend, as will his opponent Greg Ordineaux. Last time they shared the stage, the incumbent, Tom Stavinoha was the chief target. The one to beat. And beaten he became. This time we have Morrison, a vocal opponent of Section C of the Grand Parkway, who will square off against the ex-treasurer of the Fort Bend Toll Road Authority, Greg Ordineaux.

This would be an interesting match up, as Ordineaux, a once fervid supporter of the Grand Parkway extension as a toll road, is now firmly against it . . . too. Or maybe not. We’re not really sure.

Maybe someone can find out for me how this all turned out because I just (as in 30 seconds ago) got a call asking me to come to the headquarters for more Get Out the Vote activity so . . . oh well. Priorities, priorities.

Too much to do, so little time.

They’re Stealing Our Signs

Early voting continued strong over this weekend. Up to this Saturday 71,471 voters have cast their votes, with Saturday being the biggest day of the week (naturally). However there were reports of a line of 100 people coming out of the Hightower High School polling place at 12:20 PM today. This, I am told represents “Power Sunday,” when parishioners are exhorted to get themselves to the polls after services are over.

I also heard a report by Mark Campos, a local political consultant, that 2/3rds of early voters in Harris County voted in the Democratic Primary in March. So things are looking up.

And up.

And the Fort Bend Democrats have been making sure that the Obama/Biden flag is flying at all early vote locations. We have our yard signs at all 20 locations and some 4x4 Obama/Biden signs at some of them

But the Republicans in this county are a bunch of dirty, low, sneak thieves at night. Over night, the signs disappear. I am sure that they think Jesus would approve. I am on my third yard sign at my house, and am holding one in reserve.

We called the Rosenberg PD and tried to file a complaint. The man listened quietly and then came up with this little gem: “we have reports that McCain signs are also being stolen.”

Meaning . . . what?

Meaning that if a girl calls the police claiming that she had been raped by a man, the police may respond by saying that there are also reports of men being raped by women?

And that makes it all OK?

This is the nature of living here in politically incestuous Fort Bend County.

The signs were replaced, but once again, over night, they were stolen. We filed another complaint; this time with the County Sheriff’s Department and got a little better reaction from the sheriff’s deputy that responded.

Coming home today from the headquarters where Get Out The Vote activities are in full gear, I passed a cluster of signs along FM 359 next to a great Mexican restaurant called La Cocina. I noticed something out of the ordinary so I turned around and stopped.

Here is the sign cluster. Looks pretty normal, but you have to look closely. Look over to the left next to the Obama/Biden sign.

Yep, that’s called a “lay down.”

It seems that Pete Olson’s drones are out and about laying down Nick Lampson’s signs. It seems that being investigated for voter fraud in Virginia hasn’t tempered the feelings of Olson’s supporters. Olson’s people are showing their true colors by imitating their leader by being ethically challenged also.

The term “Ethical Republicans,”in this county anyway, is an oxymoron.

Pete Olson Blames Lampson for Virginia Voter Fraud Investigation

In his latest fit of silliness, Pete Olson has laid the blame for being investigated for fraud in Virginia squarely at the feet of Nick Lampson. From an article in today’s Fort Bend Now:

“Olson called the allegation a ‘smear’ orchestrated by his opponent, incumbent Nick Lampson (D-Stafford), through a Democratic political action committee, the Lone Star Project.”

And later in the article:

“Olson also said that although the allegations came from the Lone Star Project, the Lampson campaign was behind the effort. He claimed to have seen ‘a document from Lampson’s campaign’ showing the allegations originated with Lampson. Olson did not provide a copy of that document to reporters at the press conference.”

And finally, this:

“’I now see him for what he is – a classic politician that cares more about getting re-elected than representing the values of the people he represents.’”

Now here’s my take.

I wish to God it was true. I wish to God that we fair-minded Democrats had as much gall, and as much go-for-the-throat instincts as our Republican counterparts do. The fact is, Olson’s position, ethics-wise, calls on him to accuse Lampson’s campaign for acts that are more closely associated with his own party’s operatives. The fact is, Olson is now accusing Lampson of behaving like a Republican.

I know Nick Lampson, and there is something you get about him: Nick Lampson only behaves like a Republican when he casts his vote with them.

And he does that sometimes.

That is not to say that the Lampson campaign has not glommed on to this ethics windfall that allows them to further compare Pete Olson to former Congressman Tom DeLay. They have. It took them about a week, but they finally started talking about Matt Angle’s Virginia criminal complaint against Pete Olson.

“Did Pete Olson commit a felony? All signs point to yes but the criminal investigation that was opened in Fairfax County this week will decide.

Prosecutors were quick to move on a felony complaint that was filed after evidence was discovered showing Pete Olson (with the same addresses and signature of candidate Olson) voted and maintained voter registration in Connecticut and Virginia. Voter fraud is a felony in both states.”

And so on.

The DCCC also chimed in with a hit piece that I have seen played during prime time. It’s actually one of their best hit pieces, tying Pete Olson to McCain’s recent comments on voter fraud and then to Tom DeLay:



Then Olson had his press conference.

And then, the Lampson campaign answered with a video response:



On October 3rd, a millennium ago in terms of political campaigns, Burnt Orange Report, citing a non-partisan polling organization Cook Political Report, rated the CD 22 race as a “toss up.”

My guess is that Pete Olson hopes that that is still the case.

My guess is that it isn’t.

Voter Identification in Texas: Know Your Rights

In 2007 State Rep. Phil King (R - Weatherford) introduced House Bill 626. This bill would have required voters to come to their polling locations not only with their voter registration certificate, but some form of identification that has your photograph on it.

That and another similar bill, HB 218, were voted down.

Texas, unlike Indiana, has no law on the books requiring voters provide a photo ID in order to vote.

But wouldn’t you know, there is a story going around that someone at the Texas Secretary of State help desk is saying that voters must provide a photo ID. They can have a registration certificate, but they need to see that photo ID before they’ll let you vote.

Now this didn’t happen to me when I early voted on Monday. But you can bet that if this lie gets spread often enough and long enough, someone is not going to be allowed to vote this year.

So if you haven’t voted yet, know your rights before you go to the polls. This information on what is required for a voter to identify him/herself was taken right off the Texas SecState’s website:

Voter registration certificate

• Once you apply, a voter registration certificate (proof of registration) will be mailed to you within 30 days.
• Check your certificate to be sure all information is correct. (If there is a mistake, make corrections and return it to the voter registrar immediately.)
• When you go to the polls to vote, present your certificate as proof of registration.
  You may vote without your certificate by signing an affidavit at the polling place and showing some other form of identification (for example, driver's license, birth certificate, copy of electric bill).
• If you lose your certificate, notify your county Voter Registrar in writing to receive a new one.
• You will automatically receive a new certificate every two years, if you haven't moved from the address at which you are registered.

Now that fourth bullet is a little odd. I have been in voting lines year after year and I have never seen a poll worker make a voter sign an affidavit when they present their driver’s license instead of a voter registration certificate. I have actually heard one poll worker make snide comments about driver’s licenses, that they are “real forms of identification,” implying that voter registration certificates are not.

So if anything, we have poll workers in Fort Bend County that operate in contravention of the law. What a big surprise.

This idea that a photo ID will prevent voting fraud is complete nonsense. The only reason Republicans came up with it is because they are the most probable practitioners of the process. Take Republican congressional candidate Pete Olson, for example. Here’s a guy who maintained voter registration in two states, and voted in two states during the same year. A level 6 felony in Virginia.

So, do you want to see good examples of voter fraud? Go to a poll and watch a Republican poll worker to get some ideas.

Or tap into the voting records of Republicans in multiple states. Republicans love to vote, and love to vote more often than you do.

Voter Information Free and Easy

The Fort Bend Democrats website has been revved up and is now running like a well-oiled machine. They are now your one-stop place to shop for voter information, and it’s all free because that is what the Fort Bend Democrats do: help the voters go and vote.

They have links to every Democratic candidate’s website that they know about and is relevant to Fort Bend County, Texas state-wide, and Obama/Biden. That’s right here and you scroll down looking at the right-hand sidebar.

They have Fort Bend Early Voting Locations. Fort Bend County has expanded its early voting locations to 20 sites, and has purchased 444 additional Hart Intercivic voter machines. And if you need to find out where these locations are, you click on each location name and you have a screen of days and hours the site is open, and a link to a Google map to the place.

They have information on how to cast a straight Democratic ticket, in case you’ve decided to start doing that, but are unsure how to.

And finally, if you just couldn’t make it to any of the 20 early voting locations, they have a comprehensive list of where you vote in Fort Bend County on Election Day.

See? They've done everything for you, but it’s up to you to get your . . . self down and cast your ballot.

I have, and the view from here is fantastic.

Vote in the PBS Palin Poll

I received an email from one of my California relatives today warning me about a Right Wing plan to stuff the ballot box in a PBS Online Poll. Here is what it says:

Subject: PBS Sarah Palin Poll

PBS has an online poll posted asking if Sarah Palin is qualified. Apparently the right wing knew about this in advance and are flooding the voting with YES votes.

The poll will be reported on PBS and picked up by mainstream media. It can influence undecided voters in swing states.

Please do two things -- takes 20 seconds.

1) Click on link and vote yourself. Here's the link: http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html

2) Then send this to every single Obama-Biden voter you know, and urge them to vote and pass it on.

The last thing we need is PBS saying their viewers think Sarah Palin is qualified.

I just voted and the vote is now a 49% to 49% split (2% not sure).

So in addition to everything else you are going to do today, do that, too, OK?