Burnt Orange Report

Earle Website Launch & Primary Thoughts

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

Jason Earle, candidate for the Democratic nomination for HD 47 in Southwest Travis County (Keel's open seat), has launched his new website.

Over in the photos section you'll find one of Jason and I, interestingly, with Andy Brown in the background, taken at a recent UDems meeting. Though I would suggest having some way to get back to the home page after you click to other parts of the site, that's always annoying on campaign sites, so any campaign staffers reading this think about having that main image up top or such link home.

I like the Andy Brown campaign site, though the top banner is far too wide for 800x600 computer screen users, a big no-no that someone would be advised to fix soon. I enjoy reading the Brown Blog, though I wish there were comments so I could say how hot that picture is with Dusty Mangum.

This race is a contested primary, something I'll have more to post on in a bit. The dynamics of this race and the HD 48 race are enough to make my head spin as a blogger whose friends with people in all camps as well as with consultants who are on various sides. So let me make it clear...

I am officially neutral, not just by policy, but because I honest to god don't have a preference in these races yet. I don't live in either district and won't have time this fall to make it out to campaign for anyone yet, though I may try to make it out to some events to help gauge what's going on the ground. Campaigns and candidates are encouraged to keep sending me anything and everything, positive or negative. Though I would like to thank John Courage and Donna Howard for sending me personal happy birthday wishes last week! Stroking my ego is always appreciated, though I make no guarantee it will get you my vote!

This goes for the Governor's race as well (which I'm hearing is going to become a more contested primary once again soon enough). In that race, I'm equally dissatisfied with the options all around. Perry obviously doesn't interest me, One Tough Granny doesn't seem so tough anymore, my Kinky feelings have been dwindling since the revelation that DeLay's attorney was and still is one of his campaign advisors, and Bell, well, is there having just finished his $29k in 2 months fundraiser. Now, maybe if there was a kinky bell-ringing grandma with good hair running, we might have something. Of course, if you are Kirk Watson or John Courage, it's easy to get positive coverage here on BOR since you don't have primary challenges, aren't expecting any, and are generally awesome on top of that.

So in short, if you work for a campaign in Texas, read BOR, and I'm not reporting on it, e-mail me. I love hearing from campaign managers, hard working volunteers, tipsters, and actual candidates. In certain cases I'll take stances early in the primary (i.e. people running against Al Edwards or Frank Madla) but remember that our job here is reporting on, not reporting for campaigns in most cases, so if I'm neutral or cautious, it's because I have little interest in burning local bridges or have consultants stop having conversations I can overhear. And without that, BOR would be far less interesting.