Posts Tagged ‘Lee Ann Seitsinger’

Mailers. I Get Mailers.

Monday, May 28th, 2012

If you’re wondering what this election year is like in Williamson County, I’ve saved all the political flyers I’ve gotten. As usual, click to embiggen.

The most mail I’ve gotten has been for the Lisa Birkman vs. Lee Ann Seitsinger race (which is going to be very close), and the Seitsinger piece comparing Birkman to Obama is probably the most ridiculous attack mailer I’ve received (unless I get one from Dewhurst pushing the amnesty lie tomorrow). Next would probably be Jana Duty vs. John Bradley for the Williamson County District Attorney race, and the State Senate District 5 (Charles Schwertner vs. Ben Bius) and House District 136 (Tony Dale vs. Paul Matthews) all ranking ahead of the U.S. Senate race. I don’t think I’ve received a single flyer from Tom Leppert or Craig James.

LinkSwarm for May 16, 2012

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

All sorts of news bubbling up, reportage of which is in various stages of completion.

  • 49 headless bodies found in Mexico.
  • Bork bork bork.
  • Cherokee genealogist to Elizabeth Warren: “Your ancestors are found in plenty of historical records, and every time, they are found living as white people among other white people. Never are your ancestors ever found living among the Cherokees.”
  • Ten things about Rille Hunter. Words “crazy” and “golddigger” strangely absent. But the fact her father once paid a hitman to kill his own daughter’s horse is plenty weird…
  • Even with a Republican House, spending cuts are still a tough sell. But not as tough as they once were. Baby steps…
  • But high ranking Republicans are still addicted to earmarks.
  • Boehner growing a spine?
  • Holly Hunter has more on Lee Ann Seitsinger’s endorsement of a Democrat.
  • A look at the Senate District 5 race. I supported Ben Bius the last time around, mainly because I thought Steve Ogden had been in the office too long, was dismissive of constituent concerns and insufficiently conservative. This time around, I’m a lot more comfortable with Charles Schwertner’s conservative bonafides than I was with Ogden’s. Schwertner will probably win the race running away.
  • The astrotruf campaign for UT President Bill Powers.
  • The Wisconsin recall effort may be backfiring.
  • Today’s amusing Twitter tag roundup: #Fauxcahontas, #LowerUnderObama”, and #ObamainHistory.
  • Trying to Piece Together a Picture of the Birkman/Seitsinger Race

    Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

    Sometimes you post even though you don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle, if only because you have more of them than the average voter.

    With early voting upon us, I wanted to try to come to grips with the Williamson County Precinct 1 Commissioner’s race, where Lee Ann Seitsinger is challenging incumbent Lisa Birkman. The Seitsinger camp has a run a very active race, walking neighborhood and putting up a lot of signs, and have done several direct mailers, which suggests a fairly serious commitment to the race on their part.

    And Seitsinger is certainly talking the conservative talk. On Friday, I sent three questions off to the Seitsinger campaign, and received a reply back yesterday. Questions in italics, answers in bold.

    1. Do you support or oppose the EPA’s attempts to designate several Williamson County salamanders as endangered species?

    Opposed. In fact, I’m opposed to the very existence of the EPA. The federal government has no business being involved in our local decisions.

    2. Do you support or oppose attempts to make allow automatic payroll deductions for the Williamson County Employees Association?

    Opposed. Employees should have to make the conscious decision every month to contribute. Otherwise the potential for abuse is great. It’s a bit like the withholding tax with the IRS. If we had to write a check quarterly to the IRS instead of having it automatically deducted from our paychecks, people would be marching in the streets and we’d finally get real IRS reform.

    3. I’m having a hard time finding information out about you online. Can you point to evidence of your involvement in Republican politics prior to this election cycle?

    I have not been involved in politics prior. I’ve been serving in the U.S. Navy and running a small business while raising a son. I’m just a conservative citizen who has watched our county debt grow to the point that we are the third most indebt county in all of Texas. My neighbors came to me and asked me to run, and so I did.

    All solid, conservative answers. But for all of that, some things just don’t seem to add up.

    For instances, her biggest blog supporters (and Birkman’s biggest detractors) seem to be Williamson County public employee representatives at http://blog.wilcoea.org/ and http://wilcowatchdog.org/. Those are constituencies that usually campaign and vote Democratic, and their biggest beef seems to be that Birkman has held the line on spending and not given them the raises they want.

    Holly Hansen, who usually follows these things far more closely than I do, is not impressed with Seitsinger and is backing Birkman. Birkman has also been endorsed by House District 52 Rep. Larry Gonzalez, who’s a pretty good guy. By contrast, Seitsinger’s endorsements seem pretty heavy on public employee groups.

    There also seems to be significant overlap between Seitsinger supporters and those supporting Jana Duty’s District Attorney run against John Bradley, another race I don’t have a firm grasp on (though I do know that Rick Perry has endorsed Bradley, which counts for something, even if I’m not taking Perry’s advice in the Senate race).

    I poked around Seitsinger’s supporters, and found many Republicans (including a few vocal Ron Paul supporters), a number of realtors (her day job), a few Democrats, and a number of public employees groups.

    For all those reasons I’m leaning toward Birkman. I wish I could come up with a more definitive judgment, but Google has a distinct paucity of information about Seitsinger.

    I get the feeling this is going to be a very close race.

    LinkSwarm for April 9, 2012

    Monday, April 9th, 2012

    A LinkSwarm to start your day with:

  • Today’s Democrat calling her fellow Texans bigots comes to you from Rep. Donna Howard (D-Austin).
  • How the story of today’s media transformation is being written by the losers: “We should not expect anything like impartial analysis from people whose very livelihoods—and those of their close friends—are directly threatened by their subject matter.”
  • Want a glimpse of where health care is headed if ObamaCare isn’t repealed or overturned? In the UK, doctors told a woman to find another provider because her carbon footprint to visit them was too large. All two miles of driving worth. (Hat tip: Say Uncle.)
  • Holly Hansen reports on a Williamson County Republican candidates forum. County commissioner Lisa Birkman attended, but her opponent Lee Ann Seitsinger didn’t.
  • “Please excuse Kelly Lee McCarty from her job at the Texas Water Development Board because she was sick and has to spend five days of bed rest. Signed, Epstein’s Mother.”
  • Sen. John Cornyn notes the failure of Obama’s cheeseburger diplomacy with Russia.

  • Mark Davis leaving WBAP?