With the November 4 election looming, candidates are kicking their advertising campaigns into high gear, and bloggers are tuned in. The bloggers also voting early, playing Nostradamus and policing the criminal justice system. And then there are a few items on political contests.
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Too Commercial
A "birds of a feather" mailer in House District 144 sparked allegations of racism throughout the blogosphere that were too numerous, obvious and homogeneous to merit links from here. Newsdesk, the Austin Chronicle's blog, says why worry about implicit racism, when the mailer is openly anti-homosexual? A Houston Chronicle's Texas Politics commenter says the mailer was racist when it ran the first time in 2003. And the county seat connects the dots, noticing that the same guy, consultant Allen Blakemore, is responsible for that earlier flier and controversial ads in Senate District 17. More here and here. (And follow these links for our takes on the allegedly racist HD-144 mailer and the SD-17 to do.)
A handful of Republican campaign websites went offline over the weekend, reports Newsdesk. The web designer responsible for them says that was due to a conflict with the host company. The temporary shutdown was unrelated to reports that Republicans have been lifting liberal bloggers' stuff off the Net and using it without permission, but that's interesting, too. The victims: Newsdesk , Capitol Annex and mean rachel .
In Congressional District 22, Annex relays a Democratic spot funded by national committees on GOP candidate Pete Olson, focusing on alleged voting fraud. Half Empty has a response by Democratic incumbent Nick Lampson's campaign to Olson's response. (We wrote about the voter fraud stuff here.)
In CD-10, GOP incumbent Michael McCaul's campaign has finally gotten around to using clips from Democratic opponent Larry Joe Doherty's old television show Texas Justice. The goal is to portray Doherty as "racially insensitive," Texas Politics says.
Out in CD-17, guerilla operatives mar Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards's campaign sign — attempting to link him to his own party, reports The Jackalope's Voice. And Panhandle's Perspective gives a report on yard signage from Florida to Victoria (the hometown of Out There's writer, hurrah!) [eds. note: We have not hired any writers from Florida, so far].
U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock, who's facing Democratic challenger Brian Ruiz, takes advantage of new media to write a post for Williamson Republic. Fellow incumbent U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, meanwhile, talks to Off the Kuff. And CD-4 Democrat Glenn Melancon produces an ad attacking incumbent Republican Ralph Hall and then posts it on Texas Kaos.
From Vaqueros & Wonkeros, the El Paso Times's blog: Republican House candidate Dee Margo sent out a mailer defending himself against attacks by Democrat Joe Moody — attacks that Moody had not yet launched. Moody, however, does have a large sign up in front of El Paso County GOP headquarters (on a property owned by GOP County Commissioner Dan Haggerty, whose brother Rep. Pat Haggerty lost to Margo in March). More Moody media here, including a robo call from Hillary Clinton . Meanwhile, Margo is bribing early voters with donuts.
U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess says he's not the man behind anti-Barack Obama robo calls in north Texas (though he admits the voiceover man does sound like him), says PoliTex, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's blog, while the Houston Chronicle's Texas on the Potomac posts 10 videos featuring CD-10 rivals John Culberson, GOP incumbent, and Michael Skelly, Democratic challenger.
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Early and Often
BurkaBlog has a University of Houston professor's observations on the early vote. Some highlights: The Anglo vote is up; the minority vote is way up; and, Democrats might have an edge in early voting thus far.
Burnt Orange Report is updating its Travis County voter turnout projecting model after each day of early voting -- one, two, three, four, five and six. (Their prediction on Sunday was that about 330,000 people in Travis County would vote early.)
Lone Star Times voted "against [Barack] Hussein Obama, Rick Noriega, and racism." Rhetoric & Rhythm's vote canceled out LST's. And Right Side of the Rainbow voted straight-ticket Republican, reluctantly, while Memoirs From a Young Conservative is glad she voted for incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn .
Newsdesk describes an election office mistake affecting 3,000 Williamson County voters, while the campaign manager for U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, says the numbers thus far are looking like "very bad news" for his boss, says Postcards, the Austin American-Statesman's blog.
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Shot Calling
Right Side predicts a 10-percentage-point Obama win over McCain nationally, a six-seat pickup by the Dems in the U.S. Senate (55-43-2) and a 26-seat gain by the Dems in the U.S. House (261-174), with Texas Reps picking up one Democratic incumbent's place. Meanwhile, Burka says Obama has checkmated McCain.
Joshua's Political Blog says it's game, set, match in favor of Sen. Cornyn. Pondering Penguin, too, says it looks like Cornyn will win. And Lonnie Walker's Blog says, "At this point, Noriega should understand he's not winning this election and should probably follow his party's defeatist attitude and just give up."
And Letters From Texas is putting his money where other people's mouths are with a guess-how-many-electoral-votes-Obama-gets challenge to determine the "Biggest Baddest Politically Savvy Mo-Fo In Texas." Vote by Halloween or just sit there.
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Crime and Punishment
Grits for Breakfast says the closing of the Texas Youth Commission's never-used facility in Eagle Pass is a blow to Senate Criminal Justice chair John Whitmire's plan to regionalize the agency. (Read the comments for an entertaining discussion of the agency's direction, or lack thereof, depending on your perspective.) On a related note, the houston conservative talks to Marc Levin about a report he wrote on "measuring performance in the juvenile justice system."
While he was making thousands of phone calls with a smuggled cell phone, death row inmate Richard Tabler did not bother to ring his attorney, says Tex Parte Blog. Grits answers the question, How do you sneak a cell phone into death row, anyway? (No, it's not the way we were thinking, either.) Regardless of how they got there, "Jam the damn things," Whitmire tells Texas Politics.
And Grits explains how "Counties can save big bucks by eliminating jail time for people who're never charged with a crime."
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Random Politickin'
A State Board of Education candidate says her incumbent Republican opponent should be declared ineligible because he hasn't lived in the district he represents "since at least 2000," according to Kaos. Meanwhile, Postcards looks at a couple of presidential primary bundlers who aren't making the effort for the general election.
Potomac has a "closing argument" from Skelly in CD-7, plus overviews of Houston-area congressional races: CD-7, CD-10 and CD-22. And this video via Trail Blazers is the closest you'll get to having BBQ with Gov. Rick Perry, unless you can write a fat check or are friends with someone who can.
This edition of Out There was compiled and written by Patrick Brendel, who hails from Victoria but is semi-settled in Austin. We cherry-pick the state's political blogs each week, looking for news, info, gossip, and new jokes. The opinions here belong (mostly) to the bloggers, and we're including their links so you can hunt them down if you wish. Our blogroll — the list of Texas blogs we watch — is on our links page, and if you know of a Texas political blog that ought to be on it, just shoot us a note. Please send comments, suggestions, gripes or retorts to Texas Weekly editor Ross Ramsey.