Burnt Orange Report

Hmm. Not to throw a spanner in the works, but Houston Sierra Club just endorsed Sylvester Turner today. I was part of the committee that evaluated all the candidates for HSC, and while I am still personally undecided who gets my vote for Houston mayor, I believe Houston Sierra Club did the right thing. Believe me, it was no easy decision. Both men, not surprisingly, interviewed very well. But Turner's environmental record in the Lege has been really solid for many years: right up until his Craddick encounter, and even still to some extent, he has been the go-to guy, or at least a go-to guy, for environmental matters in the legislature.

As you can tell from my blog, I'm rather a (Democratic) Party animal, and I am troubled both by Turner's recent actions and his manifest lack of support from some of the grassroots Dem organizations here. And White is impressive in his own way, though I have some reservations, mostly regarding his well-known connections to some groups that are not as environmentally friendly as I might like. But I am, while by no means a one-issue voter, a person strongly involved in environmental matters. Hey, if you had to breathe the air here, you would be, too!
:-)

I have a hard choice to make in the regular election. (In a runoff, I could vote for either of these gentlemen without hesitation.) And I'm not saying Kuff and Greg are wrong; I may vote their way in the end. I'm only saying it's not as cut and dried as you depict it.

Steve's right, it's actually a tough choice. I still harbor some ill will towards Turner, more for his support of Michael Berry's City Council candidacy in 2001 than his role in the Lege this year (if Garnet Coleman is willing to endorse him, that's good enough for me to forgive and forget), but I think he'd make a fine mayor. I just think White will make a better mayor, and I think he'd have a better shot at winning the runoff with Orlando Sanchez. YMMV, and I have no quarrel with anyone who supports Turner.

For what it's worth, from a conservative source:

I know Bill White from law school -- he was a year ahead of me, and I worked for him when he was editor-in-chief of the Texas Law Review. My reservations about voting for him are almost certainly ones you wouldn't share -- he's far enough left of center to have been comfortable and effective as the Dem state party chair and a Clinton Administration cabinet undersecretary. But from my personal exposure to him, I believe him to be honest and ethical and hard-working; and politics aside, he is without any doubt one of the smartest people I've ever met anywhere. He is not charismatic, but he is dynamic, if that's a distinction that makes sense. I don't think he's a natural politician, but I think he's capable of deep political thought and shrewdness. Because of his overall liberal tilt, I probably wouldn't vote for him for any state or national office, but I wouldn't be upset if he won one. And I may end up voting for him for mayor, despite my skepticism about the Metro issues he supports. I keep hoping for Sanchez to do or say something to make me think otherwise, but he hasn't yet. And Turner, from my perspective, has all the liberal disadvantages with none of the indicia of competency and judgment; Turner's not just interested in politics, he's a career politician, and I don't use that term in a flattering way.

Never would have thought I'd stop by here to be keenly interested in a Beldar comment, but I guess it just goes to show that anything's possible. The refrain that Bill is likely to be the smartest person anyone's met has been mentioned by more than a few insider-types that I occassionally run across. I've not met him, so I only add that to the extent that it seems to come from a rather diverse group, and that's not the typical "first thing" you hear about many politicians. For myself, part of the initial appeal is the seeming earnestness in returning city politics back to the non/bi-partisan way after the breakdown of that concept.

It also helps that I used to live in Turner's district and have seen the Before vs After transformation. His "Vote for me because I'm a success story" pitch was a bit better in 91 than it is now, to say the least. I'm not entirely shocked at the Sierra Club endorsement as Turner does carry a fair amount of water for the cause and to that end, I tend to applaud those efforts. I can forgive the Wilson/Turner alliance with Craddick a bit more than I can the fact that he aided and abetted the rise of Michael Berry. There's a difference between being bipartisan and just plain nuts about who you endorse, IMHO.

The current Texas Monthly has a good article on the Houston mayor's race. The main idea I gleaned from the article was that this election is about personalities (or lack thereof) and coalition-building, with little in the way of policy proposals to help Houston fulfill its aspirations of becoming a world-class city.

Greg, you're from Acres Home?
Byron votes did Turner sell out to Craddick on?
Btw, if I still lived in Houston I would be working hard for Bill White. He's a good man.

Not quite from Acres Homes ... my parents had a home in Inwood Forest, which was adjacent to AH and thus, was part of Turner's district.

Is this like a guestbook?