Patty Murray’s explanation for why she thinks Texas might be in play is “demographic change.” We have been hearing that line for many years now, and there is no evidence that demographic change has changed voting patterns. Democrats make the mistake of looking at Hispanic participation in California, in Colorado, in Arizona, in New Mexico, and thinking that Texas could be just like those states. I disagree. Hispanics in those states are alienated. Angry people vote. Hispanics in Texas are not alienated. Unless the Democrats have some pretty good polling that shows the Republicans are overreaching with their budget cuts–and I doubt that they do–they should continue to regard Texas as a lost cause.
National first quarter fundraising winners and losers from both the Washington Post and Hotline on Call. I’ve been checking the FEC site regularly, and the numbers for Texas Senate candidates (beyond the withdrawn Florence Shapiro) still aren’t up yet.
If Sanchez runs as a Democrat, the groups that would have been most likely to push for further investigation at this late date–the antiwar Left–will not be interested in pursuing the issue. The antiwar Left will, in fact, enthusiastically support the man who was their head devil in their designated Hell on Earth…because to do otherwise would be to show some elementary sense of self-worth and dignity, and the antiwar Left has neither. So–when your Democratic masters get around to picking your candidate for you–go ahead and endorse Sanchez, ye progressives. Get on the floor and lick those boots. Not that Sanchez will win, anyway; 2012 will be a bad year for a Democrat in Texas. But it’s always fun to watch the antiwar movement futilely beat its own ‘principles’ to death on command for the benefit of their masters. You’d think that it’d get old eventually, but no.
Texas Democrats may have finally lured a high-profile candidate to the race: retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez. The only problem? His last notable job was being commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Which was, as Democrats wanted us to know in 2004, The Most Evil Thing Ever. Sean Hubbard now has a ready-made campaign slogan: Sean Hubbard: He Never Had Subordinates Violate the Geneva Convention.
Here’s a piece where David Jennings defends Tom Leppert from charges of being a liberal…but which also points out that he donated money to the Democratic campaigns of Ron Kirk and Daniel Inouye. I’m not sure you’re helping his cause…
That’s the money quote from Mickey Kaus, a Democrat who voted for Obama (and may very well vote for him again), in an article about why Obama seems so bad a politics.
Now that Kaus has uttered an obvious truth, that Obama owes much of his success to white guilt (and, to his credit, to being the first serious black candidate for President who (unlike Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton) wasn’t a complete scumbag), do you think the MSM, whose hero worship was such a large factor in getting Obama elected, might cease accusing anyone who opposes him of racism?
More than two years after Obama’s election, we’re still waiting for an honest “national conversation about race.”
There is talk of moving Texas’ Presidential primary to April. The blog is called Frontloading, which I don’t know much about. The orientation seems less Left or Right than election wonkishness for the sake of election wonkishness.
(I know, tired meme is tired. But I just like saying “Facebook Boogaloo.”)
It being the second decade of the 21st century and all, it occurs to me that merely providing links to the individual candidates blogs is probably insufficient to keep up with their latest statements. So, in the interest of providing myself a handy cheat sheet informing my readers of the latest developments, here are the major candidates’ Facebook pages (plus that of the undeclared Dewhurst):
Oh, and in case you think numbers of Facebook fans are a serious measure of popularity 11 months before an election (I don’t), here are the number of “likes” for each candidate’s respective pages:
I’ve seen reports that a Nick Latham is running (he declared in 2009), but it’s hard to take him seriously as even a longshot candidate when all the links on his website are 404.
Websites for 2012 Democratic Senate Candidates
Through diligent research, I have finally found an actual, declared candidate for the Democratic nomination. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you your de facto Democratic Senate front-runner, Sean Hubbard. Yes, it’s a Facebook page. I was able to reach Hubbard by email, and he says he’s just waiting for the domain transfer for his actual campaign website to go through. To his credit, that Facebook page has been updated recently, which puts him one up on John Sharp. (Actually, it appears that a few other people have finally posted encouragement on Sharp’s Facebook page, although Sharp himself still hasn’t posted in more than a year.) One problem facing Hubbard is that Texas voters might be a little hesitant to vote for someone who looks like he still gets carded trying to buy a beer…
As for other Democratic Senate candidates, I sent email to Sharp to see if he was running and received no reply. I emailed Chet Edwards today, but there hasn’t been much time for him to get back to me. I see Chris Bell’s name being bandied about, but his law firm doesn’t have an e-mail address for him, and it seems rude to bug him by phone.
Supposedly there’s a transsexual bodybuilder named Chris Tina Bruce running as an independent, but I can’t find a campaign website. Given the paucity of Democratic candidates, I’m not sure why Bruce doesn’t just declare for the Democratic primary, as the field is wide open…
And finally a dollop of Senate race tidbits:
Ted Cruz says he has raised (extend Dr. Evil pinkie) one MILLION dollars for his campaign.
Tom Leppert says he’s raised $2.6 million…but that includes a $1.6 million loan from himself to his campaign.
China posts a trade deficit. No, really, That’s what rising food prices will do for a country whose per capita income is still less than half that of Mexico. Maybe the “China will take over the world” types can give it a rest for a while…
So the AP is reporting. This is news to me, sine the last time I drove from Austin to Dallas and Austin to Houston, I didn’t see any signs over 70 MPH. According to Wikipedia (the source of all vaguely accurate knowledge), all the ares with 80 MPH limits are in the sparsely populated stretch between San Antonio and El Paso. Evidently the Texas legislature is considering raising it to 85. Great, but it would be nice to have the speed limits on I-35, I-45, and I-30 raised up to the 80 MPH speed people are already driving…
When I first read on Ace of Spades that Obama intended to let our soldiers go without paychecks during the shutdown, I was somewhat incredulous. After all, even Obama should be able to see how lousy the “optics” are with withholding paychecks from troops involved in no less than three wars kinetic military actions overseas. Surely not even Obama could be that stupid?
To dramatize the issue, I’ve actually created a small film about the topic. I’ve taken the details of who all will still be getting checks in a shutdown from this piece up on Reason (which was, in turn, taken from The New York Times, saving you the 15 seconds it would have taken you to defeat the paywall…) Keep in mind that I’m putting it up in advance of the actual shutdown, so the details may vary…
I did this quick and dirty, and I didn’t see any actually U.S. soldiers as part of any character sets…
