Burnt Orange Report

he's a good guy, but doesn't really stand much of a chance in the general election. still, pursuant to dean's 50-state strategy, i'm glad he's in the race and running energetically.

John Courage can thumnp on his chest all he wants, he's still going to get beat by a huge margin.

Travis County? It's only 45% of the district and the section that it is CD 21 is pretty well balanced between the two parties. There's no huge growth spurt or ideological shift that is occurring here.

And what Courage and his pep squad always like to overlook is the fact that Smith won the balance of the district in 2004 by a margin of 71.0% to 26.8% - that's a whuppin' in anybody's book.

And Courage himself lost these same counties in his '02 run by 73.44% to 24.94% (I'll admit the lines were slightly different in hays and Bexar Counties, but not enough to matter).

What I'd really like to know is where people suggest sending their money in Texas and spending their time? There are not a whole lot of competitive areas and we have to work on making the ones that are on the edge of being so, fully competitive.

Why do you think HD 48 is so juicy this time around? Because Kelly White took what was supposed to be a 57-58% district in 2004 and made it 50-50.

Why are people not so excited to take the challenge in HD 47 which by the index numbers is not all too different? There was no one running against Keel last time. No ground laid, no challenge.

Courage would be in a lot stronger position today if we had someone better than Rhett Smith in 2004, and even if Courage loses you can bet that the district will be much better off, as well as all the underlying House seats (which by golly include HD 47 and 48 and Patrick Rose).

We cannot afford to not play. If both parties pick their 5 seats and target all their resources into them only, we lose. So we are playing offense and relief for our team by bringing out the fight.

You can pick apart numbers, but I have been getting generally irritated with the back and forth idiocy of the comments here on BOR and will start editing comments that do little more than bitch without providing solutions or reasons. In coming time I will flesh this out and make it an official policy. Time contraints have kept me from implementing a system that allows the community to moderate itself, until then, this goes.

Well, so much for Burnt Orange being an open forum for the expression of ideas about the direction of the Democratic Party.

To ignore losses of 85,000 and 100,000 votes in a district is ridiculous and assnine. That's not picking apart numbers as you say, that's acknowledging a political Hurricane that will hit any Democratic candidate in this congressional district.

No one, including myself, has said Mr. Courage should not run. But it is RIDICULOUS to pour limited money and resources into a district that cannot be won - especially when there are others who need money and help and who won't get it if time is spent on hopeless causes.

And how would you implent ANY "system" where the "community" would "moderate itself."

What does that mean?

Translation: On this website if we don't like our reader comments we'll just edit them or not print them.

You're obviously too young and too immature to know this, but sixteen years ago a Wall fell in Berlin so people could have freedom of expression and ideas.

Maybe theis shoudl be the Burnt "red" Report.

For one, the rest of your original comment had little to do expressing any contructive idea about the future of the party.

Also, being for someone running, but then starving them of any resources is just as ridiculous of a suggestion. What's the point of running then? Should we just field placeholder candidates? That a Run.Everywhere strategy does not make.

He's trying to run a capaign (and is the only one doing so), trying to gather his own resources, so what difference does it make to you? It's not as if I'm going to stop promoting it so then what? And I'd like to know where these mysterious resources that you are fearful of being wasted- where should they be going instead? Should we just funnel all our dollars into Chet Edwards race since that's the last "competitive" one left? That doesn't win us a majority; it doesn't increase our numbers in the House.

If you had posted the same original comment on Kos it would have been rated out of existance by your peers by now. I don't have time or the desire to act the comment police which is why I will try to move towards a more community based model at some point.

And you are totally right, not being alive or personal aware of current world events always means that you have no possibility of understanding them. Which is why pulling the Age card is always a winning commentary tactic.