Note: This post was part of BOR's April Fool's Day series of joke posts. Its contents are not true.
Yesterday afternoon BOR was leaked early poll numbers being conducted by WOAI San Antonio set to complete their last day of field calls today for the Senate Run-Off.
So far there are 268 respondents with a margin of error around 4.5%. But being a run-off, take it with a grain of salt as devining voters is difficult.
51%- Gene Kelly
43%- Barbara Radnofsky
8%- Don't Know/Don't Care
Let's hope those mailers do the job as early voting starts next Monday.
Barbara Radnofsky is spending six figures on a three piece mailer to statewide triple Ds. Normally, I wouldn't advocate announcing the details of your campaign tactics in an campaign e-mail, but when you are campaigning against Gene Kelly, I think we can understand this is a special case.
In fact, you can see her mailers online! (all in pdf format)
My favorite part is the smell 'negative' part. But when you are talking about Gene Kelly, it's more amusing than anything else (in the sense 36% of Democrats voted for him...)
1) He's not George Bush
2) He's alive... or at least we think he is since no one to my knowledge has ever seen him, you know, campaign
3) He won't disturb us too much with nonsense like mailers, ads and press releases
4) He makes a very good dirty martini (unconfirmed)
5) HE'S A NICE GUY AND PEOPLE SEEM TO LIKE HIM
If you have not seen this, its a questionaire from the Free Market
Foundation, which is right wing. Gene Kelly chose to respond to its
questions. Note the items he is undecided on and actually favors. Just
more reasons to vote for Radnofsky if you were somehow on the fance.
First off, check out Sonia's extensive roundup of voting problems written about by state and local newspapers.
The inspired me to hunt down a story that I thought was a fluke at the time, because it was a vote count issue with Duval county, which is pretty much the norm there.
Local races in Duval County generated 55% turnout (Corpus Christi Caller Times), compared to the statewide turnout of 10%. My favorite part is when & how those votes were cast.
In local Duval County races, turnout was more than five times the state average, with 5,533, or 55 percent, of the county's 9,839 registered voters turning in the county judge's race and 5,317, or 54 percent, voting in the treasurer's election, according to election returns. All who voted in Duval County are registered Democrats.
...
Some of the callers to the state from Duval County asked why 4,098 of the 5,445 primary ballots were early voters and why 2,800 of those were by mail. Mail-in ballots are limited by law to registered voters 65 or older, the disabled, people who will be out of the county on Election Day and during early voting, and eligible voters confined in jail.
For comparison's sake, Haywood said, of 5,600 early votes in Galveston County, 488 were by mail. In Nueces County, of 9,616 early votes, 225 were by mail, said Nueces County elections manager Lisa Garza.
If true, it just goes to show you that you don't need electronic voting machines to get you concerned about the integrity of the vote; it can be done the old fashioned way and it's much of an issue of election officials as it is the machines.
Speaking of vote counts, Anthony Gutierrez our Regional Field Director for the DNC contacted me concerning my post yesterday on Gillespie County voting for Gene "Can't Dance" Kelly for some reason. Apparently the Sec. of State election returns online are wrong. Radnofsky took 70% of the county vote according to the official canvas and the SOS got it reversed. That eases my mind about voters in Frederickburg, but it makes me wonder just how many other errors there are in the SOS results.
Needless to say, Barbara Radnofsky has the full support and endorsement of every writer here at BOR. But I think the best reason that has been written as to why it is critical that each of take the run-off seriously and drag our friends out to vote for her was written here by Bride of Archeron.
The Democratic candidates for Judge and other county-wide offices in Dallas County may all be doomed this fall. It won't be their own fault, but that won't save them. Their fate is now in the hands of voters in Democratic Runoff on April 11. If the wrong person wins that election, then no Democrat is likely to win county-wide in Dallas.
...
The problem for those lower on the ballot is if the Democratic candidate actually loses a lot of Democratic base votes, who either crossover in the first race listed, or just refuse to vote a straight party ticket, because they won't support that Democrat for Senator. Could this happen? Yes, it did happen six years ago -- with a candidate who is running again in this year's runoff.
...
This had a terrible effect in local races. In Dallas County, the only Democratic candidate for Judge, Mary Ann Huey, lost by just 0.74%, while actually winning at the polls on election day by 23,000 votes. The Democratic candidate for Sheriff (an office the party went on to win just four years later) was just behind, again winning at the polls on election day by 5,000 votes. The difference was the drop-off in straight party voting because of Gene Kelly.
Democrats have been gaining ground in Dallas County. Encouraged by changing demographics, a win in 2002, and several in 2004, there are forty-seven local Democrats running county-wide this year. All of them will suffer a serious loss of the straight ticket voters that are vital to down-ballot races if Gene Kelly is once again the Democratic nominee for Senator. The effect is likely to be even worse this time than in 2000, because Kelly's name would be the very first one voters would see on the ballot. Instead of electing several more Judges and other local Democrats, the growth of the party would be set back by years.
The Dancer is Dead folks. And I'm sad that even in places where Barbara campaigned (like hometown Gillespie County) Gene Kelly won a stunning 70% of the vote because of clueless election day voters. (To her credit, BAR won 66% of the early voters there).
This is the very reason why the TDP should have bothered to at least try to encourage as many credible candidates to file for all statewide offices, even if it was never going to fund or coordinate with them in the end. When voters see joke Democrats at the top of the ticket or unknowns, it hurts ever great candidate down the ballot, be they John Courage's or Shane Sklar's or the Juan Garcia's and Ellen Cohen's or any county level candidate.
If Radnofsky loses the run-off and/or Maria Alvarado, a great woman but totally unqualified to go toe to toe experience-wise with Dewhurst, loses to Ben Z. Grant (at least a previously elected, tested, and credible candidate to average voters) Chris Bell's already challenging task to lead the ticket will become more and more difficult, hurting every campaign we care about down ballot.
This is what the TDP's "Run Somewhere, Just Not There" strategy has left us. We cannot afford it ever again. How future chairs will address this should be a voting issue for Democratic delegates in June for anyone running to be party chair.
SHAME on Texas Democrats for allowing Gene Kelly -- a perennial joke on Texas politics -- to challenge Barbara Radnofsky in a runoff for the U.S. Senate. Texas Democrats MUST get the word out regarding the importance of the upcoming runoff election on Tuesday April 11, 2006; a strong, viable candidate Barbara Radnofsky needs a decisive victory over a clown like Gene Kelly.
Barbara Radnofsky is a strong contender for the Senate seat currently occupied by Kay Bailey Hutchison. Barbara is campaigning throughout Texas with her well-considered positions on immigration, the Iraq war, veterans' affairs, health care, and other vital issues facing Texans and the nation as a whole. Barbara Radnofsky deserves your vote -- and she needs your efforts.
I personally have had the honor of working with Ms. Radnofsky for the last 20 years at the law firm of Vinson & Elkins. Barbara is earnest, hard-working, articulate, ethical and SMART. As a candidate, she would attract contributions, independent and crossover Republican votes, and dedicated volunteers. As our U.S. Senator, I know that she would make all Texans proud of her leadership.
Barbara Ann won the primary, garnering 43.5% of the vote versus Kelly's 37.4%. Hunter scored a distant third. Barbara Ann faces Kelly in a runoff election on April 11.
A reclusive candidate who doesn't talk to the media and who avoids voters, Kelly has massive name recognition after ten failed attempts in fourteen years, and runs solely off his name similarity with deceased Hollywood dancer Gene Kelly, whose moniker pulls up 19 million hits on Google.
Barbara decisively beat Kelly in the primary, despite the fact that he was the party nominee against Hutchison in 2000. Running as a first time candidate without primary polling, without direct mail, and without paid media, Barbara still took first place by a clear margin against a hunter in Texas and a Hollywood icon.
She has carefully managed money, staff, and a statewide grass-roots volunteer effort, and is well positioned to use her resources to win the runoff--with your help.
Karl Rove of course would love to clone Eugene Kelly. He has run numerous races against Democrats, and his name recognition is high enough to cause multiple run-offs and to even win the Senate nomination in 2000.
Once he makes the final cut, however, Kelly keeps playing dead--to the glory and glee of the people he supposedly runs against. Against Republicans, he does no campaigning, avoids the media and Democratic events, and gives up without so much as a whimper. In his race against Hutchison he made no appearances, received no endorsements and only granted one interview. "I'm not doing anything different, to be honest with you," Kelly said in the runup to this year's primary, indicating that he plans to keep losing even as he tries to keep others from making a positive difference.
Texas Democrats need a fighter to take our state back and to keep fakers like Kelly from ruining our party. Barbara Ann Radnofsky has made 328 campaign appearances and received the endorsement of every major newspaper in Texas. And Kelly? Commentators describe him as a clown, a perennial joke, and an embarrassment to the party.
Barbara Ann fights for veterans' rights, for education, for better healthcare, and for Texans.
The dancer is dead, folks...please don't let him kill the Party.
The inspired me to hunt down a story that I thought was a fluke at the time, because it was a vote count issue with Duval county, which is pretty much the norm there.