(A few thoughts on the Republicans... many of which don't want to come to the Texas Republican Straw Poll. - promoted by Matt Glazer)
Things could not be shaping up more nicely for the Democrats in the 2008 Presidential race. The top tier candidates are all fatally flawed and the sole candidate who could actually cause us problems has failed to connect with anyone... beyond those few who have actually met him!
Judge Susan Criss, current judge of the 212th District Court in Galveston County and Democratic candidate for Texas Supreme Court, Place 8, will address the August 21, 2007 meeting of the Irving Democratic Club. This is the first appearance of a candidate for statewide office before the Irving Democratic Club since 1998.
The meeting will be held at Spring Creek Barbeque Restaurant, 3514 W. Airport Freeway in Irving. The business portion of the meeting will take part from 6:30 to 7:00; Judge Criss will speak from 7:00 until 8:00 and then take questions from the audience.
Email irvingdemocraticclub@yahoo.com for more information.
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Irving is really changing drastically. Our right wing zealot state legislator Linda Harper-Brown lost a full twenty percent of her own base in District 105 last Novemeber for her worst showing ever. Kirk England in District 106 barely scraped up a majority of votes.
In key precincts Democrats came closer to winning many county wide judicial elections in 2006 than they have in the last twenty years.
The Irving Democratic Club, which barely existed eighteen months ago, now has over 100 hundred dues paying members!
The Club has proven key to the advances Democrats have made in the GOP's Dallas County linchpin. From essentially staffing the Bob Romano for State Representative campaign in District 105 to mailing out thousands of pieces of straight ticket voting and candidate election materials to Irving Democrats who didn't vote early during the last hectic weekend before the November election, the Irving Democratic Club is ready willing and able to do everything it takes to Turn Irving Blue!
We are inviting all Democrats and like-minded independents to our August 21 meeting to greet Judge Criss. We can turn Irving blue in 2008!
It isn't a new dance, its what happens when you go from GOP presidential nomination front-runner to being unable to raise competitive money in the second quarter. MSNBC is reporting that McCain's campaign manager Terry Nelson and his chief strategist John Weaver have both stepped down. MSNBC has the AP wire report.
I have been frequently reading the Burnt Orange Report for going on about six months now. I have never felt the need to inject my opinion into the fray because A) I'm not as articulate as most, and B) Most of everything I would have said had already been said better than I would have said it. However, as we edge closer to 2008, I feel as though I finally have a point of view that isn't being adequately represented on this site. That point of view being the support of Mikal Watts in the upcoming Democratic Primary for the U.S. seat.
Longtime political columnist Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News has a long, interesting column on Mikal Watts' in today's paper. We're not going to reprint it fully, but here's the link to the column titled, "San Antonio plaintiffs' lawyer takes run at toppling Cornyn". Feel free to follow the link if you want to read more about the post -- as Colin points out in the comments, there are some excellent excerpts on immigration.
(Yesterday, Watts announced he will be loaning approximately $10 million of his own money to the TX-Sen race. - promoted by Burnt Orange Report)
Dear Mikal Watts,
Hi! We've never met, but I felt like I needed to talk to you about something. You see, I follow celebrities a lot -- I love reading celebrity gossip, reading celebrity blogs, etc. One thing that celebrities often need is an "intervention" to get them to calm down. So consider this my own attempt at an internvetion: I will give you $5 to calm down and stop throwing your money around.
Why $5? Well, yesterday I read (and even wrote a little) about all the Rick Noriega stuff going on. Pretty exciting -- seems a lot of the blogs are for him, and I got to admit, I like his pro-choice record. After reading so much on Noriega, I wanted to learn more about you. Here's what I found on Yahoo! News:
Watts has also filed a statement with the U.S. Senate indicating he intends to expend personal funds totaling $10 million. He listed $3,810,661.81 for the primary and $6,189,333.19 for the General Election, totaling $9,999,995.
Dang! $9,999,995!! That's a whole lot of money, man. I think you've got a spending problem -- and I guess I'm worried about what that spending problem could do both to you, and other Texas progressives like myself. So I'm offering $5 -- to bump you up to a clean $10 million -- if you just take a breath, slow down, and realize money isn't everything.
You see, we've been down this road before. It is called "Tony Sanchez Parkway" and it's a dead-end street. I found this cool piece from the Texas Observer that talked all about the failed campaign Sanchez ran in 2002. I'm worried you're heading down the same path, and you don't need to. From what I've read by Eddie at BOR and some other places, you seem like an all right guy (though I'd laugh in your face if you ever gave me that quasi-pro life explanation in person). So why all the money?
It seems to me -- and this is just little old $5 Sarah talking -- that a lot of folks aren't that impressed with your endless cash-flow. If those online folks are really serious about supporting Noriega, they could easily raise $2-3 million. And which is more impressive -- personally loaning $9,999,995 to yourself, or raising a lot of money independently from the grassroots? All we have to do is look at how successful Obama was this past quarter to know the answer to that question.
So here's what I'm offering: $5 to calm down. $5 to take a step back, develop your issues, rebuild that crappy website you have up right now, and rethink your approach to this campaign. Be cause the more it looks like you're just trying to buy a seat in the U.S. Senate, the more people like me are going to run away from your campaign.
(More on Noriega -- also, be sure to follow these links to see what the national netroots are saying about this story, which has already caught on at Swing State and Daily Kos. - promoted by Burnt Orange Report)
On his website, State Representative Pete Gallego (D-Alpine) posted a letter endorsing Rick Noriega. Here's an excerpt from the letter, which you can find on his website:
While certain politicians were talking about the “war on terror”, Lt. Col. Noriega was actually fighting it by serving a 14-month tour of duty in Afghanistan. While certain politicians were failing the test of leadership in response to Hurricane Katrina, Lt. Col. Noriega was brought in to serve as Incident Commander and direct logistics at the George Brown Convention Center, helping thousands of Katrina evacuees. While certain politicians were talking about the need for immigration reform and border security, Lt. Col. Noriega was actually securing the border as the Commander for the Laredo Border Sector. Texas needs leadership by example, the type of leadership Rick Noriega has given his state and country.
For more than a decade, Rick has also been on the front lines fighting for a better Texas. He and I have stood side by side to protect and defend our children by providing children’s health insurance. We have worked together to give teachers a necessary and needed pay raise, and put more resources into public education. We have worked together to protect our environment and clean up our air, especially in places like Houston.
Here at 21st Century Democrats, we think too many organizations endorse candidates based on a checklist of surveys of incremental policies that won't do much to fix what is wrong in this country. Checklist questionnaires tell you if a candidate supports your issue, but they don't tell you whether a candidate is actually going to do something about it if they get elected.
Hello, and welcome to the headquarters of Step It Up 2007!
This is our organizing hub for a National Day of Climate Action--April 14th, 2007. On this one spring day, there will be hundreds and hundreds of rallies all across the country. We hope to have gatherings in every state, and in many of America's most iconic places: on the levees in New Orleans, on top of the melting glaciers on Mt. Rainier, even underwater on the endangered coral reefs off Key West.
We also need rallies outside churches, along the tide lines in our coastal cities, in cornfields and forests and on statehouse steps. Every group will be saying the same thing: "Step it up, Congress! Cut Carbon 80% by 2050." As people gather, we'll link pictures of the protests together electronically via the web--before the weekend is out, we'll have the largest protest the country has ever seen, not in numbers but in extent. From every corner of the nation we'll start to shake things up.
Please feel free to contact us with questions, concerns or comments:
There is a growing trend in major news outlets focus on the one dimensional horse-race and disregard issues of substance. This was made evident in the reporting on the end of first quarter fundraising for the 2008 Presidential race. Many major news papers chose to report on this topic as if fundraising was the sole indicator of a candidate's ability to win an election or to serve as president. Although money and fundraising is playing an increasingly important role in politics, which is shameful, the media should not neglect to report on other important issues and provide more context.
While major newspapers focus on the money chase and polling, some smaller papers go one step further and add more context to their stories. In response to the end of the first quarter of fundraising the Tampa Tribune had an article titled What to Make of Mega-Campaign Dollars. The article published by the Tampa Tribune ends with the line:
"More than the quarterly totals, voters want to know the ideology and political influence of a candidate's supporters."
This sums up perfectly how smaller media sources do a better job at reporting on the whole story.
