Posts Tagged ‘2012 Election’

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Bright Spots

Wednesday, November 7th, 2012

Well, that could have gone better.

As an effort at alleviating depression among the vast right wing conspiracy, here are a few glimmers of hope amidst the dismal news:

  • Republicans kept the House.
  • Ted Cruz won. And here’s his victory speech:

  • Democrats picked up senate seats, but they still don’t have a filibuster-proof majority.
  • Randy Weber won.
  • Republicans hold as many statewide offices in Texas as they did before, i.e. all of them.
  • Republicans won all four seats on the Third Court of Appeals.
  • Donna Campbell won.
  • Tony Dale won.

    • In the real-life 2012 version of Atlas Shrugged, Texas has taken the place of Colorado, i.e. the redoubt of a dynamic economy, freedom and limited government in a country grown ever-more statist. Thankfully, it’s not the only one, and red states are still outperforming blue states by a good measure. A narrow Obama victory can’t change that. We’ve got to keep on fighting the good fight.

    We lost the battle. The war goes on.

    Tags:, , , , , , ,
    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas, video | 1 Comment »

    LiveBlogging/LiveTweeting the Election

    Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

    Congratulations to Ted Cruz and Tony Dale on well-deserved victories!

    And on that bit of good news, off to sleep…

    Weber beats Lampson in CD14.

    Obama 303, Romney 203, Florida and Alaska undecided. And Obama is edging Romney in the popular vote as well, but not by much.

    Fox calls election for Obama. Still not sure I trust the Wisconsin call. It looks like Romney may very well win the popular vote. Even so, I still don’t believe in abolishing the electoral college.

    Fox calls Ohio for Obama. That may be all she wrote.

    All annoying local news now.

    PBS calls Iowa for Obama.

    Obama still up .5% in Florida with 94% of the vote in.

    Florida, Florida, Florida.

    Any way this turns out, this is 1% difference election.

    No, Romney playing the bio film at the GOP convention wouldn’t have made any difference.

    AP RACE CALL: Romney wins North Carolina.

    Maybe we should have nominated #Hypnotoad.

    David Brooks (click) Elizabeth Warren (click) Crowd interview (click) Grrrrr

    Whether Obama wins or not, GOP house should refuse to pass a debt limit increase, and force government to live within it’s means.

    Hit my tweet limit!

    [Swing state name here] Too close to call. Repeat as necessary.

    Looks like it’s going to be a long night before this thing is decided.

    7:23 Romney up in VA, FL too close to call, but Panhandle polls close late, and that’s Romney territory.

    Everything in the battleground states is too close to call.

    6:50 PM
    ROMNEY: Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia, South Carolina
    OBAMA:Vermont

    #ElectionNightSurprises: Fox News calls race for Obama, ABC for Romney, CBS for Gary Johnson, CNN for Jill Stein, and MSNBC for the reanimated corpse of Howard Taft

    Please note that I will be live-blogging and live-tweeting the election tonight as the returns roll in starting around 7 PM CST. Judging from my live-tweeting of the debates, there’s a good chance I’ll “exceed the tweet limit”, so you’ll want to check both places for pithy insight and wily snark.

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Elections, Texas | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for November 6, 2012 (Election Day!)

    Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

    Today’s the day! Get out there and vote!

  • Politician says FEMA’s response to Sandy is as incompetent as it was to Katrina. But what does Rudy Giuliani know about managing New York City in a crisis?
  • Texas Speaker of the House Joe Straus doesn’t seem wild about conservatives. Go figure.
  • Sheldon Anderson on how the Democratic Party left him. “When you look at states where Democrats have enjoyed years of one-party dominance-California, Illinois, New York-you find that their liberal policies simply don’t deliver on their promises of social justice.”
  • When Obama took office unemployment was 12.7% for blacks. Now it’s 14.3%.
  • NAACP decides that Texas election laws are for other people.

    • Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

    How Big Will Ted Cruz Win Tomorrow?

    Monday, November 5th, 2012

    I’m pretty confident that Ted Cruz will win the election (and deservedly so). The only question now is: By how much?

    To determine that, let’s look at the recent history of non-Presidential top-of-the-ballot races in Texas:

  • 2000 Senate: Kay Bailey Hutchison 4,078,954 (65%) over Gene Kelly 2,025,024 (32%)
  • 2002 Senate: John Cornyn 2,480,991 (55%) over Ron Kirk 1,946,681 (43%)
  • 2002 Governor: Rick Perry 2,617,106 (58%) over Tony Sanchez 1,809,915 (40%)
  • 2006 Senate: Kay Bailey Hutchison 2,661,789 (62%) over Barbara Ann Radnofsky 1,555,202 (36%)
  • 2008 Senate: John Cornyn 4,326,639 (55%) over Rick Noriega 3,383,890 (43%)
  • 2010 Governor: Rick Perry 2,733,784 (55%) over Bill White 2,102,606 (42%)

    • (I’m throwing out the 4-way 2006 gubernatorial race as not germane. All numbers via Wikipdia, % rounded.)

    In terms of financial resources, Sadler’s fundraising has been very poor, having raised just over $800,000; poorer even than Rick Noriega, who managed to raise over $4 million, or Barbara Ann Radnofsky, who raised about $1.5 million. Then again, money isn’t everything: Tony Sanchez spent $60 million of his own money to garner a meager 40% against Rick Perry in 2002.

    I don’t think Sadler will do as poorly as vanity candidate Gene Kelly did in 2000. I expect Obama to run 4-5 points worse than he did in 2008, and I expect Sadler to probably lose a point or two off Obama’s total. So, I predict: Ted Cruz gets 61% of the vote, and Paul Sadler gets around 39%.

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Texas Senate Race Update for November 5, 2012

    Monday, November 5th, 2012

    And here’s your final Texas Senate Race update for 2012! I’ve been covering this race since Kay Bailey Hutchison decided not to run again on January 13, 2011.

    I expect Ted Cruz to beat Paul Sadler handily (and here’s my endorsement of Cruz). Later today I hope to have a prediction up on just how well I expect him to do.

  • Last poll shows Cruz leading Sadler 57%-36%.
  • Cruz picks up the endorsements of Texas mayors.
  • Sen. John Cornyn backs Cruz, but may be wary of the rising power of the Tea Party he represents. As well he should.
  • Paul Sadler managed to raise more money for his 2004 Texas Senate race than his 2012 U.S. Senate race. (Repeated from last week’s LinkSwarm.)
  • Sadler finally buys some ads a week before the election. Note how Robert T. Garrett references the previous item, but doesn’t have the decency to link to it.
  • Sadler gets in some last minute hispandering by pushing amnesty down on the border.
  • Perry vs. World wonders why Sadler’s ads suck so badly.
  • In his ad, Sadler asks if Texans really want to elect a Tea Party candidate. I suspect voters will answer overwhelmingly in the affirmative.

    • Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Elections, Media Watch, Texas | No Comments »

    Romney is Talking About Hope and the Future

    Sunday, November 4th, 2012

    Mitt Romney’s latest video, “Red Rocks,” talks about hope for America’s future:

    That was posted yesterday, and already has over 117,000 views.

    Obama is talking about revenge and rape.

    Tags:, , , , ,
    Posted in Elections, video | No Comments »

    Nick Lampson: “We need greater civility. That’s why I’m going to shove your camera away.”

    Saturday, November 3rd, 2012

    Obviously Democratic 14th Congressional District candidate (and former congressman) Nick Lampson really doesn’t like being asked how often he voted with Nancy Pelosi in the middle of his lecture on bipartisanship.

    I talked about the CD14 race between Lampson and Randy Weber earlier this week.

    (Hat tip: David Bellow)

    Tags:, , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas, video | 2 Comments »

    Ohio: Mitt Romney is Drawing Crowds Like U2, Obama is Drawing Crowds Like Whitesnake

    Friday, November 2nd, 2012

    Romney draws 30,000 at single rally in Ohio.

    (Pic via Brennan Hall (@bren_nan) on Twitter)

    Meanwhile, Obama is drawing crowds in Ohio between 2,800 and 4,000. That’s a good crowd…for a Whitesnake concert. It’s pretty piss poor for the President of the United States of America. I guess it’s hard to draw a crowd when you already have the stink of failure on you.

    (I would like to apologize in advance to any Whitesnake fans offended by crowd size comparisons to Obama. If you believe limited government, the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy welcomes you whether you’re a hair metal fan, a brony, a hipster, a juggalo, or even a furry (I thought it best not to link anything for that one), as long as you’re voting against Obama!)

    Tags:, , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Elections, Republicans | No Comments »

    Republicans Serious About Winning Third Court of Appeals Ground Game

    Thursday, November 1st, 2012

    I just got my fourth direct mailer supporting Jeff Rose, Scott Field, David Puryear, and Bob Pemberton for the Third Court of Appeals.

    The Third Court of Appeals covers a large swath of central Texas, stretching from Fayette up to Sterling county:

    I don’t ever recall so much obvious money and effort being put into a down ballot judicial race before.

    The most important race is Field’s attempt to unset the very liberal Diane Henson. Speaking of Field, this is what was on the back of the card he handed me at last week’s Ted Cruz/Tony Dale event:

    I think that’s pretty much all you can ask for in a judicial philosophy.

    Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Republicans, Texas, Uncategorized | No Comments »

    Texas vs. California: Halloween 2012 Edition

    Wednesday, October 31st, 2012

    Six days to the election, and I’ve spent most of the night handing out candy. Six days until we choose to follow the successful Texas Red State path of low taxes and limited government, or the failing Blue State California path of bankruptcy and bigger government.

  • CalPERS sues Compton to force the bankrupt city to keep donating to the underfunded, soon-to-be-bankrupt state pension fund.
  • Incarcerating someone in a California prison guards costs and average of $47,000 a year. Ridiculous guard salaries and perks.
  • Texas has one of the lowest State-Local debt burdens in the country.
  • For a contrarian view, Victor David Hanson offers up reasons not to leave California.
  • Nothing at all to do with politics, but I can’t resist noting that the “Dream Team” Los Angeles Lakers have hit a little snag on their way to going undefeated in the regular season. Meanwhile, the completely gutted and rebuilt Houston Rockets are 1-0. You take your satisfaction where you can find it…

    • Tags:, , , , , , ,
    Posted in Budget, Economics, Elections, Texas | 2 Comments »

    « Older Entries
    Newer Entries »