Texas Round-Up

by: Karl-Thomas Musselman

Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 10:30 AM CST

• I've often wondered why most Musselmans in American tend to be more Republican than Democratic (measured by the political contributions and anecdotal primary voting history in Texas). I thought it might have something to do with heritage, as the Mussselman name is concentrated in Pennsylvania as it was tied to the immigration of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Turns out, that's exactly right as identification as ethnically Dutch is tied to voting behavior as revealed in this awesome OpenLeft article about ethnic European voting trends.


• Read about the new Capital Metro Board Appointments.


• Bike Boxes arrive on Austin streets. Neat.


• The Republican Tea Party folks really are uncontrollable. Anyone who thinks that GOP officially will be able to escape primaries without them, even if they are in conservative districts, is missing out. A half a dozen incumbent GOP Congessmen in Texas are facing Tea Party primary challengers. You know there is an intra-party battle going on when even Rep. Michael Conoway in TX-11, who represents the 3rd most Republican district in the entire country, has a Tea Party challenger. Read more here.


• Oh hi there sarcasm.


• Who are you calling a Democrat, Kinky Friedman?


• Luling and Friendswood voted last week to start allowing alcohol sales and do away with their "dry" status. Cheers.


• Greg made an awesome map with chart of how Proposition 4 voted by county across Texas last week. The urbans carried the day, especially Houston, with an interesting alliance of support among the Valley, Metros, and the Panhandle.

Houston

• There was a lot of great number crunching being done by Houston bloggers in the wake of last week's elections in Houston. Here is a listing of some of the best posts.

  Off the Kuff: Precinct analysis: The Mayorals by Council district
  Musings: Mayor's Race: 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th in Top 50 Precincts
  Off the Kuff: Six questions for the runoffs



• In addition, Greg has made some awesome precinct by precinct maps of the top races so you can visually see how people did across Houston.

  Mayors Race:
  Annise Parker
  Gene Locke
  Peter Brown
  Roy Morales

  City Controller Race:
  Ron Green
  MJ Kahn
  Pam Holm