Burnt Orange Report

I bet Rick Perry is feeling pretty stupid right about now.

I think Rick Perry feels stupid most of the time.

Go Donna Go!!

I love it. She almost beat that Bent-son straight up! Even Rick Perry's endorsement couldn't save the boy blunder. There is no doubt that we can win Dist 48 back and this bodes very well for reuniting Travis once again.

Thank you Donna Howard!!

Sonia

Kathy Rider is in such deep shit right now. If she had pulled out and endorsed Donna Howard like everyone wanted her to do weeks ago, Ken Bentzin would be a political joke right now and Dems would have a landslide victory going into the fall. Rider has some serious fence mending to do with Austin Democrats (and Democrats across Texas) by immediately endorsing Howard and throwing herself into Howard's runoff race: fundraising campaigning, making lists available, the whole nine yards.

Oh gee...so close! Rider better be kicking herself in the butt!

Y'all don't be too mean to Kathy! No one expected the results to be this positive for the Democrats. Yes it would have been nice to save the money we now have to spend on a runoff BUT we'll still have Bitchboy Ben to make fun of for another few weeks!

I'm sure she'll be out in force going for Donna!

Huzzahs to Donna Howard! and don't overlook the good work her consultants and campaign manager did. This campaign really shows the power of cable TV advertising, something most consultants are too conservative (and greedy) to use.

Kathy Rider will forever be known as the Ralph Nader of HD 48. Congratulations to Donna Howard!

I do think this helps to indicate the problems throughout the democratic party. We are divided within ourselves and it shows in races like the HD 48 special. I don't want to be misrepresented as a republican, but maybe we should act as unified as they act. Just some food for thought.

Good point, Katie. Behind whom would you suggest:)?

Most of the divisiveness seems to be coming from one issue Democratic voters. It's the same problem the R's are going to start having with libertarians. The reason the R's have been able to keep things together is that they usually unite behind broad themes with which every R can agree, leaving the smaller issues out of the platform.

I don't see that happening in the Democratic Party anytime soon since everyone has become accustomed to having their pet issue, no matter how unimportant to the majority of voters (or worse, badly received by them), included. The R's will start having that problem as well which means that we might finally get back to debating issues. That would certainly be nice, especially since I'm a Democrat who's proud of Texas but ashamed of the failures of Rick Perry. How about you:)?

Sorry, just saw one of those crappo commercials.

Runoffs tend to have very different results, so Donna needs to get these voters back out again.

This is definitely great news for Democrats in Texas, and hopefully some more campaign donations will come in for Howard from all those folks that were holding back to see which candidate to back. I'd agree, though, that you can never be sure who will come back in the run-off -- and Bentzin will be sure to be running more ads and sending out more mailers to try and win the run-off.

Got to keep working for another month. Great job, though, to the Howard campaign!

Donna Howard and the Democrats obviously kicked some Republican butt today. The Democrat turnout machine was on its game today and it showed. However, it's "not over until it's over" and the Dems might be very sorry that they did not get the 50.1% needed today, but 4 weeks later is a very different day and things should be much tighter, with Bentzin having an outside chance of pulling out a victory.
Question for Dems: what were you thinking in the Rose Bowl when 2 UT secondary players knocked themselves out on the one yard line and the USC receiver stuck his arm (and football) across the goal line to put the Trojans up 38-26 with 6 minutes to go?
Anything can happen.

Bobbie! Good to see the lunatic fringe made it out for the day! Must have been tough for you to tear yourself away from hating homosexuals and worrying about the UN...

Do you really think, in the best of all possible worlds, that even if Bentzin does pull it out in the runoff, he'll be able to hold the seat in November? I'm thinking not so much.

By the way, LOVED your Prop 2 'rally' at the 360 and the 183. Sure did help a lot in Travis County, didn't it? Oh wait... you lost here, didn't you? Lost, as in the opposite of win. Which makes you a loser. L-O-S-E-R.

Go back to your paranoid delusions and repressed homoerotic fantasies.

Off Topic by a long shot. Don't feed the trolls. And soon you won't have to when BOR goes to version 3.0! -KT

sorry, couldn't resist when he of all people popped up.

Trey,

my assertion was merely had kathy rider agreed to not run previously then we wouldn't be in the situation of the county having to spend another 125,000 dollars and more time taken from the primary and mass confusion. Next time I suggest that we work to narrow the field to one candidate so we can unify. I think now we should work to Donna and I know U-Dems would love to volunteer for her on Saturday or Sunday.