Perry wins a low turn-out Republican primary, so naturally one must rush into print the “Perry is a viable candidate for 2012” story. And of course these wankers were first out of the gate with this drivel:
It is a typical example of the foolishness one can read everyday at Politico. What I really like is the “any reporter” in the upper corner. No doubt. This is what one can expect to read from “any ‘reporter'” at this Pravda for the Beltway.
While this was their lead story this morning, it is safe to assume that it will not be the stupidest thing posted at Politico today. But still, it is a classic. The stupid of it just burns.
Cheers
dengre
The Grand Panjandrum
Yeah, a Tenther has a real shot at winning a national election.
Bret
Just an FYI, the “any reporter” thing is a search field. The post was written by Martin.
stevie314159
And what platform will he run on? That America should secede from the United States?
norbizness
Hutchinson finally ran a decent radio commercial near the end, basically calling out Perry as a stimulus hypocrite. The Texas Constitution requires a balanced budget, and we were only able to do it last time with sweet sweet federal money. This biennium, without it, we’re running a $15 billion deficit, and state leaders are pretty clueless about how to fix it.
4tehlulz
Obligatory
Annie
@stevie314159:
Yes, exactly…Or, maybe he can run on an education reform platform that takes evolution of out science classes, and puts the fundamentalist religious heritage of our founding fathers back into history classes.
Both platforms work for me….
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@norbizness: Hopefully White will run on that message as well.
Scott
I’m a Texan, and I really had no idea we had quite that many wingnuts in the state. I had Hutchison picked for an easy victory, just because I know so many Republicans who hate Perry’s guts.
jeffreyw
Turnout at the polls was heavy throughout the night.
Citizen_X
@stevie314159: Plus, if it’s Perry vs. Palin in the primaries, are the two secessionists going to be competing over Who Hates America More?
Ash Can
Doesn’t Perry still have to win an actual gubernatorial race?
Oh, that’s right. If he loses, he has more time to work on his 2012 campaign. Of course. Silly me.
In other, far more important news, something else that happened in yesterday’s Texas primary was Don McLeroy, the Chief Asshat of the Texas State Board of Education, was defeated. Parents of schoolchildren everywhere, and Americans in general, rejoice.
Litlebritdifrnt
Can someone please explain to me where the “this is a throw the bums out anti-incumbent year” thing disappeared to? Cause I haz a confused.
Norbrook
@Scott: The problem with any primary, particularly one this early, is that it becomes a matter of who can turn out their voters. In this case, the wingnuts who bought into Perry’s tenther crap and his pandering to the Tea Party groups paid off.
Given that the Republicans that have been getting touted as potential nominees for the party in the 2012 election are all wingnuts, it’s not all that much of a stretch to think that Perry might have a shot. Unlike Palin, he’s actually finished a term in office. As to winning the election though, no, none of them really has a shot.
Dennis G.
@Bret:
But of course. I just find it funny that they use the placeholder “any reporter” for that space.
While this was written by Martin, almost any other Politico ‘reporter’ could have done (and has done) the same thing.
Cheers
A Mom Anon
I hope he runs,with Bunning or Palin. Let that freak flag fly. I’m sick of these fuckers,let the whole fucking world see who they are. I want them to go full metal asshole,let them hate everyone who isn’t rich, white,christian and heavily invested in hair mousse.
Dennis G.
@jeffreyw:
funny…
raptusregaliter
Nice to see Politico is embracing the Cavuto mark.
Zifnab
In all fairness, Perry’s been eyeing a run for President since 2008. The idea that he won’t throw his hat in by ’12 or ’16 is a bit naive. He’s a perfect Bush surrogate – heavy on the charm, light on the brains, and totally in the bag for the party apparatus.
That’s how we make’m down here in Texas. And the state is perpetually rolling in cash, so it’s not a surprise when you see a strong Presidential contender come out of here.
PaulW
@stevie314159:
Yeah, I thought that too. A guy running for President is gonna have a hard time convincing the 48 other states (i’ll grant him South Carolina) that his push to secede Texas was just a political stunt.
Jebus. This is really just the media (and the GOP) trying to game the 2012 election… simply because they have no real idea who they can run (Palin? Pawlenty? Romney? Jindal? Huckabee? Paul? All of them have issues).
One last thought: does the United States REALLY want a Texan in the White House EVER AGAIN?
Sam Wilkinson
Is Perry occasionally criticized for being secretly gay? Shouldn’t the teapartiers be head over heels about such accusations? I can’t keep anything straight anymore, pun entirely not intended.
dr. bloor
Be forewarned: From this day on, I’m going to drown a sack of kittens every time you guys link to Politico. JUST SAY NO!
Lolis
Last I saw, Perry barely made it over the mark required to avoid a run-off. I hardly call that finishing big. Especially when he ran a brutal campaign against KBH and her campaign seemed less competent than Martha Coakley’s.
The big news here in Texas is that the extremist school board leader was voted out and replaced by a moderate. Maybe Texas won’t fuck up textbooks for all of America after all.
Dennis G.
@PaulW:
Word.
From your mouth to the FSM’s ear.
harlana peppper
@A Mom Anon: you said it, A Mom, and I agree with you wholeheartedly!
burnspbesq
I’m sorry, but I don’t think you’ve carried your burden of proof on the issue of whether it is stupid to think that a Perry run is a plausible scenario. He is a highly popular (at least with the Republican base) governor of an electorally important state, a proven fund-raiser, and capable of pushing all the right buttons to get the Radical Right into a frenzy.
What am I missimg? And “but he’s bat- guano crazy” isn’t a winnimg answer. In contemporary Republican politics, bat-guano crazy is a feature, not a bug.
Michael
I’ve heard that Perry is a man munching homo.
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
PaulW
@Ash Can:
O.o Holy sh-t, GOP Texans actually voted for a moderate?!
Stop getting my hopes up, part of me is terrified this isn’t going to end well… :{
norbizness
@dr. bloor: I’m usually down with that sentiment, especially the National Review links, but I don’t think the Politico actually got linked in the article (it’s a Flickr picture).
JGabriel
Yeah, Perry’s a great choice for 2012 — because we did so well the last time we elected a Texas governor for president.
.
hal
Yeah. Perry is a huge challenge for Obama. Let’s see, a secessionist tenther, who I’m sure will have no problem talking about that fake ol’ Bama birth certificate, will run rampant over the competition and right into the Whitehouse.
MattF
But Perry would have unique executive experience as a former Texas governor, which is entirely different from… Oh, never mind.
thomas Levenson
@Lolis:
Unpossible. I volunteered for Coakley and I know that that was the singularity of bad campaigns.
dr. bloor
@norbizness:
You’re right. I saw the word “Politico” and my case of Post Politico Stress Disorder reared its ugly head.
Ash Can
— Molly Ivins
Boudica
I was the first Democrat to vote in my Tarrant Co. (Ft Worth) precinct at 9:30 am. The polls had been open for 2.5 hours and NO democrats had voted.
The repulsive thing to me were the 5 props on the Republican ballot calling for voter ID, the right to invoke God in public places and schools, controlling growth of federal government, cutting federal taxes (all passing with 92-95%), and forcing a woman to view a sonogram before having an abortion (that one only passed with 69%).
Scott
Damn, I miss Molly. :(
Punchy
Outside of Austin, isn’t the whole state pretty much wholy composed of nutters?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@burnspbesq: He only won his last election with 38% of the vote. He currently qualifies as the least hated Republican in the state.
Shalimar
Republicans will be running against an incumbent, so there will be anywhere from 5 to 12 contenders for the nomination. Which means yes, Perry will most likely be one of them assuming he beats White this year. OTOH, no, he doesn’t have a chance in hell of actually getting the nomination.
Fergus Wooster
@Punchy: Hey, Houston has an openly-lesbian Democrat mayor. Dallas has an openly-lesbian Democrat sheriff.
That said, we are chock full of wingnuts, but we’ve got some solid blue spots. And we don’t need another of our governors in the White House.
Incidentally, he’s only become popular with the base by doubling down on the crazy. This began as rumors swirled about his homosexuality and the majority of Republicans were disgusted with him.
There’s likely some Larry Craig material here. Running in 2012 could result in a lot of fun for us.
DanF
@JGabriel: That was my thought too. Oh yeah – we’re chomping at the bit to put another Texas governor in the White House…
BruceFromOhio
@Punchy:
There’s a fair bunch of Dems down Houston way. The Lone Star is a really, really big place, and painting it as a monolith is inaccurate, imo. It is bloody red, no doubt, but witness the schoolboard nutter getting shushed – even Texans have limits. Regrettably this will only steel the resolve of the nutters to out-freep everyone else.
I like to pretend that Molly Ivins showed the potential of the place, and was not an anamoly.
master c
Yes, this place is batshit.
Dallas is pretty much Oklahoma, and everything west is even worse, cuz you have to factor in Jesus x 10. Houston has some urban greatness and variety, but all around it is an enormous ring of suburbs
that makes a huge chunk of “operation-chaos”-type old white people. Very few vocal Dems around north Dallas,where jobs are coming back and homes never dropped. Would love to see Bill White get in….don’t see it though.
GregB
Politico, it’s wanktastic.
Eric U.
I’m old enough to remember when most of the South could occasionally produce a decent politician, especially Texas. I still have hope that it will happen again.
Punchy
This is stunning.
Let’s be honest about this — this is like being thankful you dont have terminal cancer, instead only a nasty Ebola infection with a side of syphylis (sp?). So, the school board’s WackFactor has been dialed back from 99.4 to “only” 92.3. Success?
Crashman
@thomas Levenson: I’d love to hear some war stories about that campaign.
Dave
So a secessionist asshat right-wing zealot wins a low-turnout Republican primary in Texas, and this is indicative of a powerful message being delivered to Washington?
So the press has pretty much given up actually working at this point? Between this and the Post letting Hatch lie on their op-ed page, the Fourth Estate seems to have signed off for good.
Ash Can
@Eric U.: De-batshitting the State Board of Education is certainly a step in the right direction. I hope this trend continues.
Ash Can
@Punchy:
When the alternative was worse, yes, it’s by definition success. Not complete success, but success nonetheless.
@Dave: I was never aware that Politico did any actual work.
Dennis G.
@burnspbesq:
If you look at the Republican results and the Democratic results from yesterday it is clear that Perry’s win was a narrow event. The turnout among Republican voters in Texas–in the biggest primary race ever–was tiny. Less than 1.5 million GOP voters and less than 750,000 of them voted for Perry (who just barely escaped a runoff).
The Democratic primary was not competitive and Bill White got over 76% of the vote. His vote total was only 165,000 votes behind Perry’s total. Many moderates in Texas will take White over Perry in November. White’s running mate for Lt. Governor (the real powerful office in Texas politics) is Linda Chavez-Thompson, a Hispanic and former labor leader at the AFL-CIO. These groups will be organizing in Texas like never before. Perry could win, but it will be a hard fought race–with many, many more voters coming to the polls in November.
Perry’s win yesterday was nothing special. To spin it within hours as a launching pad to a 2012 run for the WH is bone numbingly stupid and journalistic malpractice. Martin’s story ignores all facts that would contradict his spin.
Even though it is stupid there will be some folks who treat it as a serious story (because it was published somewhere). Of course they will–that is how spin works. If you’re one of those buying into Politico’s spin, I invite you to follow a trail of real facts back to reality. The Google can help you get there.
Cheers
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Texas wingers, like wingers from other states in the south, like to think that they are the true Super Patriotic Americans(R). Everyone else is a traitor or traitor enabler and that our country will be destroyed unless they are allowed to stop the evil plans of liberals and Democrats. They loudly proclaim that nobody can out-patriot them, that when it comes to being a Real American(R) there is no better place to see them than in the south.
If this is the case then why did these states secede and provoke a Civil War? Why is Perry being cheered on by these so-called America-loving patriots when he talks of secession? I don’t think the word “patriot” means the same thing to them as it does to people like me. In fact, over the years I have learned that many words the wingers use to describe things in their alternate reality world are in fact the exact opposite of what they really mean (to those of us in the real world).
Don’t mess with Texas? Who would want to? Hell, they can keep it for themselves. Better yet, let’s give it back to Mexico.
norbizness
@Punchy: Considering that Houston elected a lesbian mayor (to replace Democrat Bill White), and that Ron Kirk (a bona fide black man), before becoming Obama’s US Trade Representative, was Mayor of Dallas, you’re probably wrong. Pretty sure San Antonio isn’t all nutters.
Now, if you’re talking Texas rural areas/suburbia, then yes, nutters abound.
Violet
@Punchy:
So predictable. Eyeroll.
Texas has a lot of Democrat potential. Dismissing the whole state doesn’t help that grow into something real.
kay
@Ash Can:
The religious lunatics packed the school board here because no one was really paying attention. It was a sort of stealth campaign. It’s not a great job, serving on a local school board, and the religious faction simply ran a lot of candidates.
The louder and more extreme they got, the less popular they got. They’re were all gone by 2006. It’s back to Republican moderates and one Democrat. The Democrat ran on this platform “I am an engineer”. That’s all he had to do.
At the end of the day, a lot of conservative parents gave lip service to “values” but what they wanted were higher ACT scores.
The anti-science stuff scared them. They want their kids to 1. go to college, and 2. get a job. They ran the religious zealots out.
Fergus Wooster
@kay:
That makes me so happy. I was really worried for awhile, and was worried I’d have to get out of Dodge by the time my daughter was in 3rd grade.
@Punchy – Oh, and San Antonio is not really wingutty. Houston’s suburbs are (home of 2nd Baptist Church, oy), and Dallas’ suburbs definitely are. But the urban areas are becoming increasingly blue, and the Rio Grande Valley is a dependably Democratic block.
Ash Can
@kay: That’s a truly inspiring story. If the same thing could happen in Texas, I’ll sleep easier at night.
toujoursdan
@Sam Wilkinson:
Wingnuts don’t care if you’re gay. They just want gays to stay in the closet.
burnspbesq
@Dennis G.:
I wasn’t “buying into” anything. I merely said you hadn’t made your case. Because you hadn’t. That’s your responsibility, not mine or anyone else’s.
Now you have made your case, and I will evaluate it.
Spare me the condescension.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@A Mom Anon:
I’m tempted to ditto that, especially as it would be so satisfying to get a result similar to the 1964 election. But part of me whispers: “Germany, 1933” and thinks that maybe it isn’t such a good idea to call that evil jinn out of its magic lamp, even as a joke. I really don’t want to see how far down the road of “Evil in defense of insanity is no vice…” we can go.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
Lately I’ve been wondering why they went to all that trouble when they could’ve stayed put and destroyed the Lincoln admin. and the rest of the Union from within by using the Senate to bring the whole freaking govt. to a complete halt. It sure is working today, against a POTUS who won 53 % of the vote and had an electoral college landslide. Why couldn’t they stall, sabotage, and wait out Lincoln, who only won by a narrow plurality in 1860?
ricky
Saw a TV interview with a paunchy resident of Republican Williamason County (burbia north of Austin) chowing down at the Round Rock Donut Shop. He summed it up best.
“That lady Perry was runnin aginst is from Warshinton.”
Republican voters, always the deficit fearing, pay-as-you-go
crowd voted by over 90% to demand a cut in federal income taxes.
In addition, as my wife, age 60 noted of the aging former TV news eye candy- UT Cheerleader, “she is not the Meryl Streep of politics.” She couldn’t even carry the Mary Kay crowd. Boring Baggy Kay Barely got bagged by Bozo the Aggie Clown.
Perry is a real force in 2012. Moose is too exotic to erase
the quitter image. Huckabee eats squirrel. Perry ropes cows and kills deer when he wants his meat fresh (rumors aside).
Can I haz Politico job now?
Pasquinade
Tempted to sign up as a FReeper just to post articles like this one from Politico to drive the Palinbots crazy.
colby
Nah, if anything, the burden is on POLITICO. They’re advancing the claim, and it’s pretty obvious why that claim- that winning a statewide primary, as a incumbent, no less- is silly. The “extraordinary claims” rule applies here, and it’s not on Dennis.
ricky
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
They already took it themselves, they just haven’t announced it yet.
kay
@Fergus Wooster:
I think it’s a real miscalculation by people like Sarah Palin and William Kristol. Middle class people aspire. They want their kids to do well. They don’t hate elite schools. They want their kids to get into them.
Just like William Kristol wants his kids to get into them.
It’s a weird sort of reverse elitism, and it’s pervasive on the Right.
Rigorous schools for me, but not for thee. My kids need to load up on math and science, middle class kids need training in character. It’s flat-out insulting.
Tenzil Kem
“Is Perry occasionally criticized for being secretly gay?”
Well, he is now.
Demographically, isn’t Texas likely to be competitive for Dems once more in the next 10-15 years?
ricky
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Southerner’s know when it is the right time to die in defense of a tiny minority’s right to own people as property. Look around. Did they really lose, or just change owners?
gbear
@Ash Can:
Congrats!! That IS good news for everyone.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: “Why couldn’t they stall, sabotage, and wait out Lincoln, who only won by a narrow plurality in 1860?”
Guns, racism and stupid Southern Pride. They’ve ‘seen the light’ only after getting their asses kicked and are now working from within to bring the government down.
It’s the New Civil War.
On another point: How many countries like to reenact a war that divided and almost destroyed their country? I find that very disturbing since the last thing I would want to see is one of those reenactments. War is not something to glorify, especially one that turned family against family and divided a nation.
IMO, that shit isn’t patriotic, it’s sick. The day that the last Confederate flag that flies over a government building is finally taken down won’t come soon enough for me. When I see it all I see is a symbol of selfishness, slavery, traitors and death.
Da Bomb
@Punchy: No, there’s Houston, where I live which has a huge Democratic base. Obama took won Harris County. He didn’t win the county that Austin is located in. The major aren’t as red as people believe. @Fergus Wooster: THIS.
@Dennis G.: Pretty much what you said, sums it up. It was low voter turnout. Perry is not very popular. Hutchinson ran a shit campaign. I don’t remember seeing anying political ads on television. Perry was on my teevee all of the time.
Bill White is fairly popular and the candidate for Lt. Governor has big and powerful connections. She won by a landslide in the primaries.
So it’s too early to tell how the general election will turn out.
ricky
@Tenzil Kem:
As I said, earlier…..
@ricky:
Guess it depends on whether the Dem’s like voting for Santy Anny.
Billy K
Dallas is more blue than you think.
Tom Levenson
@Crashman: They’re not even funny. Coakley’s team failed from day zero. They didn’t even try to garner support from her primary opponents, they had not proper lists (we were calling years old Democratic registration lists for our GOTV stuff –not identified supporters! Elementary and Massive Fail!), slim to no presence in non-obvious Dem strongholds, no internet strategy and no communication from HQ to town-by-town Dem committees/activists. She really thought she could become senator by acclamation.
Da Bomb
@norbizness: Houston has had democratic mayors for 25-30 years now. Since Kathy Whitmire onward. Republican candidates don’t fare well in the mayoral races here.
@Fergus Wooster: Second Baptist Church is taking over that part of Voss, I forgot the name of that shitty neighborhood with the nice houses and crappy pseudo police officers. Ed Young can go kick rocks. It’s like my own personal hell, becuase I live like 5 minutes away from there.
ricky
@Da Bomb:
Perhaps you think Austin, Tx. is in Austin County and Paris,
Tx. is in France County?
Obama got a quarter of a million votes in Travis County, or 63.5%
http://www.co.travis.tx.us/county_clerk/election/20081104/files/cume1.pdf
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
@ricky
Points well taken. My question was really a facetious one, intended mainly to highlight the neo-Confederate nature of the current GOP opposition to the Obama admin. by drawing a comparison between the two periods.
And to give a more serious answer to my own question – in 1861 few southerners thought the CSA could or would lose the war. Hardly anybody realized that the war which was coming would become what Paul Kennedy later called “the first industrialized total war, along proto-20th Cen. lines“, with all of the obvious advantages which this gave to the Union side. Montgomery Meigs (who became the Union’s Quartermaster General and who was recently profiled to great effect in Simon Schama’s book The American Future: A History ) had an inkling of this near the start of the war, but very few others on either side could forsee what was coming.
Violet
@Da Bomb:
Really? In this election? I saw commercials for Perry, Hutchison and even some judges every single day for weeks. They ran a lot during the Olympics.
Admiral_Komack
stevie314159
And what platform will he run on? That America should secede from the United States?
-Sarah Palin can be his vice-president…also.
Molly
@Da Bomb: I live in one of those Houston outer suburbs. Obama won the election here with 66% of the vote. It completely depends on where you are in the city and outside of it. There are plenty of Democrats in the area.
Hutchinson ran an awful campaign. If she’d ran as a moderate instead of trying to out-conservative Perry, she’d have had a better chance.
Bill White has a real chance to win this. He’s a moderate, he’s well-liked, he’s been good to bidness in Houston without being a puppet. His actions after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Ike were spot-on and we were proud of the man. He’s got a reputation for working well with Republicans. And yes, the potential for Texas to go blue is here. We’ll never be a liberal bastion of the country, but there’s plenty of reasons we’d go Democrat. Still plenty of yellow dogs around, and never underestimate the influence of the unions here when they decide to get riled up.
Fergus Wooster
@Da Bomb:
Sincerest condolences. His crowd scares me (Lakewood just annoys me).
That’s why I likes me some Heights. Sometimes seedy, but never a hint of Taliban.
ricky
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
Do you get the feeling that if LeftTurnInABQ is a closet re-enacter he spends his time in the chow line or at the armory?
ricky
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Allow me to respond with a similar facetious question.
Instead of reacting to empty “secessionist” movement
threats from tub thumping Texans with anger, wouldn’t it be better to counter with a serious ‘expulsion’ movement?
Sentient Puddle
I like Nate’s map of Texas back when Perry was talking secession. So I’ma cite that for those of you who are too lazy to characterize Texas as anything more nuanced than blood red outside of Austin.
I think the governor race is quite winnable for White. Others have mentioned how likable he is, but I’d also mention that there’s something of a Perry fatigue here. Some of the more hardcore Republicans will cite the state’s economy as proof that he’s doing a good job, but beyond them, nobody’s really enthused about him these days. That feeling was what Hutchinson was trying to ride initially. But then Perry goaded her into tacking right, her support softened, then she made more unforced errors (going back on her promise to resign, mainly), and the final result for her was 30%.
(Point there being that we still can’t underestimate Perry as a politician)
As for McLeroy, I’m as bloody excited as anyone else, but I’d still urge a bit of caution. Last numbers I checked showed something like a 50.5-49.5 split, and the results weren’t certified.
Da Bomb
@ricky: No, I read it somewhere, when the prelimary numbers first came out.
I can’t recall.
So I stand corrected. I do know that Austin had a huge base of Ron Paul voters though.
Da Bomb
@Violet: Not really. I didn’t see alot of ads from Hutchinson. I mostly saw ads for Perry.
And none of the judges. I saw ads for Farouk Shami(sp?) for the democratic primary.
Maybe my wingnut detector shut-off when Kay’s commercials came on, or for any wingut for that matter. Who knows?
Mike in NC
“Confederates in the Attic” by Tony Horwitz is a fascinating and hilarious study of Civil War reenactors.
Violet
@Da Bomb:
I saw the Shami ads too – forgot about them. I got a phone call from Bill White (recorded) the day before the election asking me to vote. Wasn’t a good recorded ad – kind of a creepy-sounding voice. He’d do well to change it.
I fast forwarded through most ads (I’m usually watching TV tape-delayed or recorded) but plenty of them slipped through. I definitely saw ads for both of them.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@ricky:
Heh.
Amateurs do tactics, professionals do logistics, nicht wahr?
Da Bomb
@Molly: I live in the Galleria area. So yes it’s a mix. I agree. Like I stated earlier, Houston has had nothing but democratic mayors for the past 25-30 years. It’s not as conservative as people believe. Harris County in general went for Obama.
I am big fan of Bill White’s and I think he will do well in the general election also.
@Fergus Wooster: That Lakewood crowd can be a tad suspect. But Ed Young preaches and pushed politics in the same sermon. Osteen doesn’t take it that far. I know of some conservatives who don’t like him(Young) because of that.
The Heights, Montrose, Galleria, Inner Loop in general is pretty diverse in people in attitudes. I live the Galleria but hang out in the Inner loop area.
Sentient Puddle
@Da Bomb: I don’t watch a lot of TV, but what I saw looks more like what Violet saw. Plenty of Perry and Hutchinson ads (interestingly, all negative) and a good bit for the judges (hell if I can remember any of their names, though). I did see some Shami ads, but I don’t recall seeing any in the last few months. Sort of like he was trying to build his base well ahead of the primary, but sputtered out as he got closer to March.
Da Bomb
@Sentient Puddle: As I stated, maybe I shut them out or maybe my eyes glazed over. But honestly, I didn’t see alot at the times I watched television.
True about Farouk. He did pretty much sputter out and there was no way that he would have won the general election anyhow, concerning some of the yahoos that live here. He’s non-white and doesn’t believe in the death penalty. That’s a loss right there.
dj spellchecka
@ john cole
video of a politico editoral meeting [apologies if this is a duplicate]
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/03/a-politico-editorial-meeting.html
Common Sense
@Fergus Wooster:
5th and Harvard myself. Love, love, love the Heights.
Fergus Wooster
@Common Sense:
E 12th near Studewood. Moved in 6 years ago, and I think I’ll only leave in a box. Now if only I can seize a couple of those empty lots for community gardens. . .
AxelFoley
@Ash Can:
Politico can’t let silly things like facts get in the way of bullshit, Ash.
Nylund
I live in Texas and work at a conservative university where the news of the day is usually discussed. I had NO IDEA the primary had even happened yet. Besides one lonely sign for “Kay” down the street, I’ve seen zero evidence that this race ever existed. At least in my neck of the woods, “low turnout” doesn’t even begin to describe the complete lack of interest or attention this primary received.
liberal
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
Interestingly enough, Sam Houston was against succession. There’s a famous quote from him: “To secede from the Union and set up another government would cause war. If you go to war with the United States, you will never conquer her, as she has the money and the men. If she does not whip you by guns, powder, and steel, she will starve you to death. It will take the flower of the country-the young men.”
ricky
@Da Bomb:
What you “do know” must be the result of your self described living hell caused by being within “like five minutes” of a Baptist Church.
Ron Paul got less than 7,000 votes in a county with over 555,000 registered voters.
ricky
@liberal:
Sam Houston was not against succession or he would never have been Governor of two states and President of a nation he led to independence. He was against secession.
What is more interesting, given how quickly he had to resign after Texans ignored him and voted themselves out of the union, was that they didn’t change the name of the city of Houston to Jeff Davisville, and even went on to name a state college in his honor after he died.
Not as interesting, there is a Jeff Davis County. Ft. Davis is named for him to, but he built it as Secy. of the Yankee damn army and after the war it housed a regiment of Buffalo solidiers. Kareem Abdul Jabbar narrates the video at the restored Fort’s auditorium. I kid you not.
Common Sense
@Fergus Wooster:
Are you referring to the rash of new vacant lots ’round here? I always blamed the hippies for the fires myself. Or perhaps God was responsible. The Heights never should have converted that church into the Aurora theater.
I loved my community garden. I used one when I lived off of Richmond and Dunlavy. I even grew my own arugula (before it was cool).
@ricky:
I don’t know where you got that 7,000 number. Assuming that those were Presidential votes, Paul got those votes despite the somewhat significant handicap of not appearing on the ballot. I’m also curious how many votes Paul got in Harris or Victoria counties in that same race.
We do know that Paul got 21% of the Republican vote in the Travis County 2008 primary, which is a higher percentage than Paul received from any county in Texas, including those in his own congressional district. As a point of reference, 5% of Harris county Republicans voted for Paul, while 4% of Dallas and Bexar county Republicans did so.
Fergus Wooster
@Common Sense:
No, actually a few tear-downs on 12th and 12 1/2 streets. One of them has been vacant for years, I think because the buyer intended to split it and put up two of those 3-story “Victorian” townhomes. But the block got a deed restriction passed preventing subdivision to keep the bungalow effect. (Bwahahahahahahahaha.)
Buyer must have overpaid, because it sits empty 4 years later.
Common Sense
@Fergus Wooster:
There’s been more than one bad investment in my neighborhood. I just about tore a guy a new one yesterday. He was talking about how his credit got shot because he bought a condo in SW Houston and all those Katrina victims moved in (touchy subject ’round here). The value of his condo fell and he was forced to move. At the very end he mentions as a little aside that he had an adjustable rate mortgage and that the note had more than tripled in this time frame. Apparently those New Orleans darkies forced him to sign an ARM and get raped. The most galling part was that the thread was about states that are banning credit checks by employers and the guy was preaching the virtues of personal responsibility and self control. How’s about you don’t sign the first thing a mortgage broker throws at you?
Oh well, at least there’s more space on the jogging trail. Keep an eye out for me on Heights Boulevard — I’m the guy with the manic, deaf, and unbelievably sweet boxer mix.
JMC in the ATL
I’m very happy to see folks coming to the defense of Texas. Even at its low points, the state has been at least 40% Dem.
I’m (obviously) in Georgia now, but I was in San Antonio from 2002 – 2007. It has its share of megachurches, but overall it is a very live-and-let-live sort of place. I personally never felt directly oppressed being gay (legally, yes, but not day-to-day). San Antonio is dominated by the Democratic Party, but mostly in a traditional Latino culture sort of way (pro-union, pro-social justice, pro-education, but culturally conservative). Overall, it is a great place to live, so long as you can deal with urban sprawl. Which can be said for Austin, DFW, Houston, etc.
Fergus Wooster
@Common Sense: A beautiful illustration of Taibbi’s “peasant mentality” in a nutshell. Get conned and reamed by the banks; blame the darkies; preach against regulation of banks in the name of “personal responsibility”.
I’ll be the guy with the Rottie mix.
BruceFromOhio
@Punchy:
Compared to the whack gutting the textbooks forever and ever more, so help me, Gaia? Fucken-aye, success. To use your analogy, you’re still retching up your breakfast, no doubt, but you’re still alive to do the retching.
We got to do the same thing awhile back in my current neck of the woods. Local nutters take over small suburban school board, drive it into the wall with Christianist hooliganism. Town finally wakes up, kicks their asses to the curb. Head nutter manages to sleaze his way to the state level school curriculum committee, where he is entirely by himself on his end of the spectrum. I’m still retching, you bet, but alive and kicking. No one said it would be easy, or perfect, and you got to fight the bastards tooth and nail every single step the whole Gaia-damned way. Celebrate when you win one, however small.
Da Bomb
@ricky: Voter turnout for him and self-proclaimed support are two different things. And there were plenty of Ron Paul supporters who happen to live in Austin.
As for living near a baptist church, It’s living hell to live near that one. Not all baptist churches.
Is there anything within my comments that you want to tear apart, since you seem to be obssessed with everything I am saying?
Da Bomb
@Common Sense: I knew I heard or read somewhere that the highest concentration of Ron Paul supporters were in or around Austin. I just couldn’t remember where.
It was 2008 primary, thanks for the clarification.
JoeTX
I’m from Texas and even I couldn’t stand seeing another president from Texas….
asiangrrlMN
@Sentient Puddle: Thanks for the sobriety check on McLeroy, but I am heartened that he was at least nominally voted out. There’s hope for the textbooks yet!
Fergus Wooster
@JoeTX:
I’d make an exception for Willie Nelson.
Sentient Puddle
@ricky: But how’s that relative to his performance elsewhere? It might be a bit of a misnomer to say Ron Paul’s support is “huge” in Austin, but speaking in my capacity as an Austinite, it seems plausible to me that he would resonate here more than anywhere else in the state.
Don McLeroy update: It appears to be certified, he’s done. The Republican who primaried him looks unopposed for the general election, but he did run on a platform of de-politicizing the school board, and part of his platform did specifically call out creationism (keep it separate from science, he says). So as far as I’m concerned, this is a win for us.
Further reading on the state of the entire board here. Summary is that along with McLeroy, another conservadem who occasionally provided the fundie-block cover for a majority is out. But there is one other incumbent who was defeated by…well, someone who we have no idea where the fuck he stands. It appears that the worst case scenario is that the fundie-block doesn’t have the votes to ram crazy shit through anymore, but it still is pretty ambiguous.
Tax Analyst
@Ash Can:
This is absolutely honest-to-goodness real good news. The Texas School Board of Education has a huge amount of sway over what gets published in educational textbooks and even what textbooks get published for public schools over the entire nation. Pushing Texas a little closer to reality is a good first step. Still, it’s not a good time to get complacent about this because it was still a very close margin to barely edge a certifiable outer-edge wingnut.
Tax Analyst
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Media fluffing much less immediate and viral in 1860.
Tax Analyst
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
The last several weeks I have been watching a repeat of Ken Burn’s Civil War series on Public Television. The same thought occurred to me at some point during each of the various segments.
Of course, not everyone in the South falls into this category, but in a reasonable society their numbers would be tiny enough as to be virtually unmeasurable. This does not appear to be the case today.
EDIT: Hmmm…probably talking to myself in a dead thread here.
Oh, well…