Category Archives: political news

national news, political news

GOP scores sweep; now let's govern … actually

The deed is done.

Republicans got their “wave” to sweep them into control of the Senate, with an eight-, maybe nine-seat pickup in the U.S. Senate. What’s more, they picked up a dozen more seats in the House to cement control of that body.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-control-at-stake-in-todays-midterm-elections/2014/11/04/e882353e-642c-11e4-bb14-4cfea1e742d5_story.html

The only undecided race will be in Louisiana, which is going to a runoff. Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu appears to be in trouble there. Big surprise, huh?

What happens now?

Despite all the good economic news, there appears to be rampant discontent out there with a Democratic administration and its friends in Congress. So the voters spoke, tossing out Democratic incumbents and turning seats over where Democrats had retired.

Republicans say they want to work with the president where possible. I’m not yet ready to swill that drink.

Senate Majority Leader-in-waiting Mitch McConnell had declared his primary goal in 2009 was to make Barack Obama a one-term president. It didn’t work out that way. So now he wants to actually govern — he says.

We’ve got this immigration thing hanging over the Congress; that oil pipeline known as “Keystone” needs to be decided; the president has an attorney general appointment to make; and, oh yeah, the Affordable Care Act still is on the table, even though it’s working and insuring Americans.

How is Congress going to get past all those differences? And how is the White House going to reconcile itself with the change in power in the upper legislative chamber?

My friends on the right are crowing this morning that Democrat Harry Reid no longer will run the Senate. They now believe Hillary Clinton’s presidential “inevitability” in 2016 has been damaged by this shifting power base. They think the president has been made irrelevant as he finishes out his tenure in the White House.

I shall now remind my right-leaning friends of something critical.

The 2016 political roadmap looks a bit different than the 2014 map. Democrats will be positioned to take over some key Republican Senate seats in a presidential election year, which historically bodes quite well for Democrats.

This was the Republicans’ year and their time. Nice going, folks.

It’s time now to actually govern and to show that we can actually keep moving this country forward — which it has been doing for the past six years.

 

 

local news, political news

Chaos will reign supreme in 2016 election, if …

Randall County is going to need a serious reworking of how it conducts its elections in 2016, based on what I witnessed all day today in this mid-term, supposedly “low-turnout” election.

The county established “voting centers,” which effectively eliminated many traditional polling places around the county.

One of those centers happened to be at the County Courthouse Annex on Georgia and the Canyon E-Way in south Amarillo. I worked all day there conducting exit polling for a public opinion research company.

I witnessed considerable chaos, some chagrin from disheartened voters and some angst among county election officials seeking to manage the mayhem.

The voting center system allows voters who live anywhere in the county to vote at whatever polling site they wish. It turned out today that nearly 2,000 of them decided to vote at the courthouse annex. It started off fast when the polls opened at 7 a.m., slacked off just a bit right after noon, then it got seriously busy and crowded from about 2 p.m. until the polls closed at 7.

I was camped just outside the west entrance and I watched voter after voter walk in, look at the crowd, then walk out proclaiming they’re “coming back later,” or “I’ll go vote somewhere else. I ain’t waiting in that line to vote.”

It was an impressive display of voter interest in an election that pundits said would produce a tepid turnout. I don’t know what the final numbers are just yet and I don’t think they’ll really rival presidential election-year vote totals. The pandemonium at the annex, though, needs to be examined.

We’ll be electing a new president in 2016. The turnout for those elections always is greater than these mid-term elections.

What’s the county to do? Elections officials told me tonight they’re going to need to reconfigure the ballot box setup, the course of the lines that will be sure to form and look for better ways to manage the crowd packed into the area in front of the tax office.

Good luck with all of it.

 

political news, State news

Texas Democrats take it on the chin

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The Texas Democratic Party has just been knocked out … cold.

All that brave talk about upsets in the making, about how the state was on the verge of returning to its Democratic roots, of Texas becoming a “battleground” upon which Democrats would wage combat with Republicans … well, you can toss it into the trash can.

Greg Abbott is going to be the next governor and, worse still, Dan Patrick is going to become the next lieutenant governor.

If I were Abbott, I’d start plotting my renomination strategy — let alone my re-election plans — right now.

The fight is going to commence probably quite soon for the seat Abbott is about to assume. It well could be between the new governor and the new guy who’ll be lieutenant governor.

Abbott vs. Patrick. Sounds appealing, doesn’t it?

As for the Democratic Party, well, back to the drawing boards, folks.

Battleground Texas, the phony political action group that crowed about pumping juice into the Democratic Party, has been shown to be bogus. It didn’t do nearly the job it claimed to have done in registering voters.

See you around, hucksters.

Meanwhile, the GOP stranglehold on every statewide office continues.

As for the Texas Senate, let’s just say it’s going to be a good bit crazier than it’s been. Patrick is likely to toss aside all the bipartisan niceties shown by predecessors of both parties. He isn’t likely to appoint any Democratic Senate chairmen or women, which David Dewhurst and Rick Perry did when they held the office. Indeed, the late Democrat Bob Bullock selected Republican allies to chair committees when he ran the Senate prior to Perry taking over in 1999.

I’ll say this, though. Watching the Texas Senate will provide plenty of grist for folks like me.

As for the rest of the state’s political lineup, they’re all likely to march to the cadence that Dan Patrick is going to call once he takes office.

Get ready, Texas.

 

 

local news, political news

Here's what I am doing on Election Day

My granddaughter likely never will ask me this question: Grandpa, what did you do on Election Day 2014?

But if she did, I would have something rather interesting to tell her.

I would tell little Emma I worked all day, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. as an exit pollster.

My job, which I’m doing for a public opinion research firm, is to interview voters as they exit the polling place at Randall County’s Courthouse Annex. Well, I don’t “interview” them per se. I will ask them if they would mind filling out a short questionnaire telling who they voted for, what are the key issues of the day and then a little bit about themselves.

I’ve got to log every person who takes part, everyone who refuses and everyone I “miss,” those who walk by without being asked if they’ll participate. I have to be sure to make a record of it.

Three times during the day I’ll call in voting results; I’ll report the total number of people voting, total “misses” and “refusals.” The polling firm is interested in the races for Texas governor, lieutenant governor and U.S. Senate.

The polling is being done on behalf of all the major media outlets in the country: CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, The Associated Press.

They gather this data from all across the country during the day, compile and then report their findings nationally to an audience awaiting the election returns when the polls start closing around 7 or 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

It’s going to be a challenge to make sure I get all the data collected that’s required.

My adviser at the polling firm assures me it will be fun. She also believes I’ll find my rhythm once I get going. I’m going to take here word for it.

So, with that I’m off to my polling station for what I believe will be a most interesting day watching democracy at work.

Oh, by the way: Be sure to vote.

 

political news, State news

Battleground Texas left for dead

Battleground Texas is phony.

You might remember this pseudo-organization. It came into being around 2012 intending to turn Texas from Republican Red to Democratic Blue.

Turns out it failed. In so doing, it bruised the credibility of what used to be a great political party.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/losing-battleground

As Texas Monthly blogger/editor Paul Burka notes, Battleground Texas put out phony numbers on the voters it supposedly was registering. The organization proclaimed great success where none existed. It was, as Burka notes, a “mirage.”

So what happens now? Immediately, we’re going to see Texas Republicans tighten their grip on the levers of government after the Tuesday election.

How does the once-great Texas Democratic Party get back into the game? Well, it might start by fielding candidates up and down the ballot who’ve got more than a prayer of winning.

There are some good candidates on the ballot. Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte head the state ballot for the party. They’re both solid public servants. They’re both going to lose Tuesday — maybe by big margins.

As for Battleground Texas, my guess is that the organization needs to disband, pack it in and let someone else do some actual work to make Texas a legitimate two-party state.

 

political news, State news

Will Patrick be the tail that wags the dog?

Let’s go just a bit out on a limb and presume that Republicans Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick will be elected Texas governor and lieutenant governor, respectively, on Tuesday.

This sets up an interesting and provocative relationship for the next four years.

Abbott has campaigned to the far right in his bid to succeed Rick Perry as governor. He’s out there on the fringe with Patrick, who’s made no effort to disguise his brand of “conservatism.”

As some Austin commentators have noted, Abbott has raised a mountain of money and has a lot of it left over from the campaign that’s about to conclude. The theory is that Abbott is preparing for a possible challenge from within his party in 2018 — from none other than Dan Patrick.

Here’s where it get provocative.

Abbott has a chance to govern more from the center-right than from the far right. Will he do so? Or will he be concerned about that potential challenge from Patrick that he’ll govern from the far right, which likely is how Patrick likely will do his own job as presiding officer of the Texas Senate?

I’ll be brutally candid. I don’t want either man to win the office they are seeking. I support strongly Democrats Wendy Davis for governor and Leticia Van de Putte for lieutenant governor. But this is Texas, one of the most Republican Red states in the U.S. of A.

Abbott has done nothing to defeat himself. Patrick’s shrill rhetoric endears him to the GOP majority that runs everything in Texas.

My hope is that for Texas’s sake that Abbott veers more toward the center and works constructively with the relatively few Democrats who remain in the Legislature. If he does that, then he’s likely to anger the lieutenant governor enough to challenge him in four years.

So we’ll find out just how much of his own man a Gov. Abbott turns out to be.

 

 

local news, political news

'Reading between the lines'

A column in today’s Amarillo Globe-News encourages folks to “read between the lines of newspaper endorsements.”

OK. I usually do that. I also read between the lines of this particular essay, which contained a couple of points worth noting.

One is the timing of a particular endorsement mentioned by the author of the essay, Globe-News director of commentary David Henry. He writes about the paper’s impending endorsement in the Leticia Van de Putte-Dan Patrick race for Texas lieutenant governor. More on that in a moment.

Second is this: “The reason Patrick isn’t piling up newspaper endorsement is — let’s face it — his habit of saying politically incorrect things, and some editorial boards consider themselves above such behavior.”

I am almost ready to lay down some real American money and suggest that the Globe-News endorsement, when it comes, will back Patrick in the race to become the state’s next lieutenant governor. Columnists and editorialists usually don’t refer to political correctness unless they intend to make light of it, denigrate it, or say they outright they oppose it. The tone of the statement quoted on this blog suggests one or both of the first two points.

That’s fine. Any newspaper is surely entitled to endorse whomever they wish.

However, the timing is a bit troublesome.

The election occurs on Tuesday. The endorsement will come out on Election Eve or on Election Day. Either way, the response time from readers either endorsing or opposing the newspaper endorsement — whichever way it goes — is extremely limited. Readers likely will have little or zero time to write something, submit it and then get it published prior to the time voters go to the polls.

Oh yeah. They’ve got the digital edition. Readers can post comments online. Good luck getting to them if you don’t pay to read the digital version of the newspaper.

Back in the old days, when I ran editorial pages in Amarillo, in Beaumont, or back in Oregon, we had a policy that cut off campaign-related letters to the editor one week before election day. We sought to avoid what a former editor of mine would call a “last-minute dump” by foes of a candidate who would disparage a candidate without giving the other side enough time to respond.

Accordingly, we usually managed to get our editorial recommendations on races published well before Election Day. With the advent of early voting, indeed, it became imperative that we get our endorsements on the record prior to the start of the early-voting period.

I guess that’s changed these days. The timing of the newspaper’s endorsement in this highly important race amounts, in my mind, to a last-minute dump.

That’s their call. I’m still looking forward to reading what my former newspaper has to say regarding this important statewide race.

I might be surprised. Then again, probably not, if what I read between those lines is accurate.

 

political news, State news

'Knucklehead' not too strong a term

What follows here is the partial text from an email I received from a member of my family who’s planning a visit to Texas, probably in the spring.

“Maybe my ‘knucklehead’ comment came across wrong. Sorry. I don’t think Texas necessarily has proportionately more knuckleheads than anywhere else. They seem to be louder than others though, and they seem to have much more fragile egos. I use as evidence of the latter their excessive vocalizations about how great their state is and how noisily critical they are of those who find Texas’s special wonderfulness, um, dubious. I would like to see whether Austin, the original weird city, is really as nice as people say.”

He had used the term “knucklehead” in an earlier message and he thought I might have been offended by it.

Au contraire. Not at all.

You see, he is right. We do have a lot of them in Texas, although not any more per capita than anywhere else. The difference, the way I see it, is that so many of them occupy high public office and are able to demonstrate their knuckleheadedness to wide audiences. They use those offices with great effectiveness.

Take our governor, who I shall refer to as our knucklehead in chief. Rick Perry has taken his knucklehead notions to a new level. Remember when he kinda/sorta almost endorsed the idea that Texas should secede from the Union, or the time he accused then-Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke of committing treason because he allowed the printing of money?

No need to mention the “oops” moment. Oh, my. I just did.

He’s likely to be replaced by another knucklehead. Attorney General Greg Abbott is the favorite to become the state’s next governor. I never thought him as a knucklehead, but he’s become one because the state’s GOP-heavy body politic demands it of him. And what about the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick? He’s a hoot — but I ain’t laughin’.

Nope. “Knucklehead” isn’t too strong a word at all.

 

 

 

 

political news, State news

Houston backs away from needless fight

I’m a bit late getting into this tussle, but Houston city officials did the right thing in backing away from an effort to get some local pastors to turn over their sermon notes regarding their opposition to some gay-rights matters.

What we had going, of course, was a serious infringement on some First Amendment guarantees of free speech, freedom of religion and the right to practice both without government interference.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/10/29/mayor-parker-says-houston-will-drop-subpoenas/

The city and its openly gay mayor, Annise Parker, had subpoenaed the pastors, who had expressed opposition to a law that banned discrimination against gays and lesbians. Conservatives got riled over the demand. Indeed, the fight seemed unnecessary.

According to the Texas Tribune: The subpoenas, sent to some outspoken pastors and religious leaders who had opposed the ordinance, had asked for ‘all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to HERO, the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession.’”

That looks for all the world to me like a dose of City Hall bullying of pastors who were speaking from their heart about a critical public issue.

HERO is an acronym that Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, which expanded rights for gays and lesbians. I would support such an ordinance if I lived in Houston. However, I honor the Constitution of the United States enough to know that it grants equal rights to those who oppose such an ordinance.

Parker has backed off. Good for her. As President Gerald Ford said at the end of a grave political crisis in August 1974, “The Constitution works.”

 

 

national news, political news

What's in store on Election Day?

Who knows what the future holds in the next four days?

Americans are going to elect a new Congress, several governors and thousands of county commissioners, sheriffs, constables (in Texas at least — ugh!) and assorted lower-level government officials.

Everyone who follows this stuff, though, has their eyes on the U.S. Senate. Will it swing from Democratic control to Republican? Virtually everyone who isn’t a dedicated Democratic Party operative thinks it’s a done deal.

Here’s what we ought to look for on election night to determine how strong the tide will be.

The earliest poll closings will be back east. In New Hampshire, Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is being challenged strongly by carpetbagger Republican Scott Brown, who lost his Senate seat in Massachusetts and then moved to New Hampshire because he wants to serve in the Senate from another state. If the race is too close to call when the polls close — or if Brown is declared the winner — in the Granite State, Democrats are going to lose big.

Look for something similar to happen in North Carolina, where Democratic Sen. Kay Hagen is being challenged by tea party Republican Thom Tillis. If Tillis is declared the winner outright when the polls close, turn out the lights — as Dandy Don Meredith used to say — the party’s over.

OK, one more key race to ponder. Down yonder in Georgia could tell us something. If Democratic challenger Michelle Nunn defeats Republican foe David Perdue for that state’s Senate seat, then we’ve got something quite different going on. The seat has been in GOP hands. Both of these candidates are kin to political giants in Georgia: Michelle’s dad is former Sen. Sam Nunn; David’s cousin is former Gov. Sonny Perdue. Talk about dynasty politics, right?

These early races could determine how much of the rest of the country will go.

Texas’s Senate race between GOP incumbent John Cornyn and Democrat David Alameel? That one’s over.

The GOP tide has yet to build in the eyes of many observers. We’ll know in due course whether the swells are growing across the country or whether the Senate flips with a slim majority turning up on the Republican side of the chamber.

If the Senate turns Republican Red when all the ballots are counted, then the game changes. We’ll have to see how these folks intend to actually govern and whether they can rise beyond the role of obstructionists.

I’m waiting anxiously.