…enjoy a Golden Retriever nodding its head in time to the music:
There may or may not be any real content today, as it’s a Stuff Needs To Be Done day. But certainly I’ll have something tomorrow at the latest…
Instead of Actual Content…
March 6th, 2014WILLisms Breaks Down Democratic Turnout Failure
March 5th, 2014Will Franklin has an interesting piece up detailing just how poorly Democrats did in primary turnout on Tuesday, noting that both the Democratic Party total, and Wendy Davis’ numbers compared to Bill White, were down significantly from 2010. By contrast, “Abbott received 1,219,831 votes, or 91.50% in a four-way primary race. 1,333,010 Republicans voted in the 2014 primary.”
For all the money BattleGround Texas is pouring into the state, Democrats are doing worse than they did in 2010.
Although Franklin doesn’t go into the 2012 numbers, I’d also like to note that overall Democratic votes are down from 590,164 in 2012 to 546,480. Normally a presidential election year will have higher numbers, but there were no big-money, hotly contested races at the top of the Democratic ticket that year. Turnout should have been up this year. It wasn’t.
More Will Franklin:
In short, there is a partisan enthusiasm gap in Texas, and Republicans are winning it. Democrats have years of soul searching and retooling to do before they’ll even sniff winning their first statewide race since the early 90s. Anointing someone known almost exclusively for filibustering on behalf of elective late-term abortion post 5 months of pregnancy may have set the Democrats’ plan back at least one full election cycle, if not more.”
Read the whole thing.
A Quick Overview of Primary Results
March 5th, 2014A very brief look at last night’s primary results:
Dan Patrick Beating David Dewhurst Soundly
March 4th, 2014Most people were expecting to see a David Dewhurst-Dan Patrick runoff for Lt. Governor. however, you’d be hard=pressed to find anyone who would predict that not only would Patrick garner more votes in the primary than Dewhurst, but also do so by a significant margin. Right now, with 59% of the vote in, Patrick is ahead of Dewhurst by over 100,000 votes, garnering 41.8 of the vote, while Dewhurst is getting 28.3%.
People we’re saying that Patrick was lucky Jerry Patterson and Todd Staples were the race, ensuring a runoff. Now it appears that Dewhurst should be thankful they’re keeping Dan Patrick from winning outright…
On Barack Obama’s “Flexibility” With Russia
March 4th, 2014
Vote Today!
March 4th, 2014It’s primary election day in Texas.
This winter storm is likely to depress voting somewhat, so candidates with the most dedicated voters have an advantage.
Go vote!
A Ridiculously Brief Williamson County Election Update
March 3rd, 2014Since I live in Williamson and have received a ton of flyers on local judicial races, I should probably get together some semi-coherent thoughts about the race and post them here.
Fortunately, Holly Hansen has already done the heavy lifting.
County Court at Law Judge Doug Arnold has been challenged by GOP newcomer Tallion Taylor (Taylor used to vote Democrat, but recently switched to the Republican party).
Three candidates have filed to replace retiring Williamson County Treasurer Vivian Wood: Leander City Councilwoman Michell Cantwell, Jerri Jones, and Ralph Pruyn. As I’ve previously written, Jones is an alleged Republican who publicly supported a Democrat for District Attorney in 2012.
Indeed, I emailed Taylor to see if he wanted to deny reports of formerly being a Democrat. He never replied.
And now the tl;dr recommendation from Holly:
@BattleSwarmBlog lol. Voting Arnold, Kennon & Matthews in #wilco #GOP judges races.
— Holly Hansen (@hollyshansen) February 22, 2014
Let me also state my skepticism of those who still view the Michael Morton case as a universal “get into office free” card. Yes, it was a miscarriage of justice. No, that doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore your past record of supporting Democrats or lack of conservative credentials to vote for you. In fact, from now on I’m going to vote against those using the case in their attack mailers just on general principle. That means you, Ryan Larson.
A Random Assortment of Texas Statewide Race News
March 3rd, 2014With primary voting upon us tomorrow, it looks like I’ve run out of campaign to cover. Here then is a quick, scatter-shot batch of snippets on various races:
Pete Sessions vs. Katrina Pierson: Super-Brief Race Update
March 3rd, 2014I haven’t been covering the primary race between incumbent Pete Sessions and Tea Party favorite Katrina Pierson for a couple of reasons. First, it’s not my district. Second, when it comes to incumbent Republicans drifting too far left, Sessions (with an ACU rating of 97%) doesn’t even rank among the top 100. Even though I was on the other side of the battle over defunding ObamaCare. I didn’t regard inter-party tactical disagreement as a reason for excommunication.
However, a lot of news has been popping up on the race:
Will the Arpaio kerfuffle blunt her momentum? Maybe, but Sessions more than 10-1 fundraising advantage will be a much steeper obstacle to overcome against an entrenched incumbent…
Steve Stockman is Not Getting The Job Done Against John Cornyn
March 3rd, 2014Given Senator John Cornyn’s deviations from conservative orthodoxy, many Tea Party supporters were relieved when Rep. Steve Stockman finally stepped up to primary him at the last minute. Stockman was a solid conservative, and people hoped he could at least give Cornyn a run for his money.
That hope proved short-lived.
Stockman has run a very poor campaign. He has missed numerous campaign events. I would say his fundraising has been poor, except the most recent FEC report I have been able to find doesn’t show him having raised any funds at all. (This is not the first time Stockman has had problems with filling out FEC forms.) His missing-in-action campaign is a sharp contrast with Ted Cruz’s smart, disciplined underdog campaign in 2012.
Other revelations about his past haven’t helped either. Records show that Stockman hasn’t voted in a primary in 10 years.
Given the dysfunctional nature of the Stockman campaign, it’s not a surprise that Tea Party supporters have largely given up on him as well.
I thought that Stockman got into the race too late to have real chance to beat Cornyn, but I didn’t expect him to do such a miserable job.