It's been more than a year since John Courage announced his bid to run for Congress in Congressional District 21. It was September 17, 2005 on the Texas State Capitol grounds that John started this political journey. A bus full of supporters came along on that announcement tour. Change was in the air.
(This is pretty cool. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
The PBS program NOW, recently came to Central Texas looking for election stories where the war in Iraq might impact Congressional races. They interviewed John last week, as well as Democrat Mary Beth Harrell. Mary Beth is running in Congressional District 31, against Republican incumbent John Carter. That district includes Fort Hood and the District 31 race, was the focus of the PBS TV program that aired Friday Nov. 3rd, entitled "Sway the Course".
The Austin American Statesman published an article today on Lamar Smith's chances of becoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, should the Republican Party remain in control of the U.S. House. Similar to the fawning editorial piece that Arnold Garcia wrote a couple of weeks ago, the Statesman seems to be shoring up their support for Lamar Smith's entrenched 20 year career. No secret that they delivered their endorsement to Smith, but this article timed to hit undecided voters before the November 7th election, seems to be another attempt to prop up Smith. While their headline on the article reads "Smith in line to take over House Judiciary Committee" the link to the story on the AAS website actually read "Smith's star is rising" this morning. Tell me that's not editorial promotion.
Smith has contributed more than $400,000 this year to the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Since Oct. 1, he's given another $66,000 to fellow House Republicans who find themselves in tighter-than-expected races, such as Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., and Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.
Smith also has given last-minute pushes to Texas newcomers Van Taylor and Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. Taylor is challenging Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, and Sekula-Gibbs is trying to win former Majority Leader Tom DeLay's seat.
(You have voted 4 times on-line, have you voted yet in real life? - promoted by Matt Glazer)
On behalf of Team Courage, and from the bottom of my own heart, I want to say THANK YOU to the blogosphere, the Netroots, and all of the voters who helped me win another online victory yesterday. At 7:01 p.m. EST, we learned that we were one of the three winners in John Kerry's PAC's "3 at the Buzzer" poll. Along with my fine Democratic colleagues, Senate candidate Jim Webb and congressional candidate Dan Seals, we are honored to have garnered the most online votes in the field of 17 Netroots candidates, terrific challengers all.
The prize is to be featured in Sen. Kerry's final fundraising email of this election season. With more than 3 million email recipients in his list, Sen. Kerry can give us a major boost at this critical point in the campaign.
We're pleased to report that the following candidates won our "3 at the buzzer" contest to help take back Congress. Senate candidate Jim Webb (VA), House candidate Dan Seals (IL-10), and House candidate John Courage (TX-21). They were the netroots candidates to receive the most votes on JohnKerry.com, and they will be the beneficiaries of the final JohnKerry.com fundraising email of the cycle. Many thanks to all of you who participated. We now challenge our 3 million person online community to get these fighters over the top in the last few days!
While I'm not a huge fan of another Kerry run in 2008, the man has done a lot of work in 2006 helping Democrats across the country and I appreciate him having this contest for the national Netroots endorsed candidates.
Today, between 7am and 7pm EST, John Kerry is opening up the polls on his website for a public vote on which Netroots endorsed Senate and House contenders will be the lucky recipient of his last fundraising e-mail of the cycle.
Seriously, it's about the easiest set up possible. No user accounts or anything. Kerry will be e-mailing his 3 million person list to announce the poll soon enough, but in this first hour of voting, John Courage is actually leading the House candidates with a full 25% out of over a dozen options.
For some background, there is a great story put out today by the Center for Media and Democracy that gives background to Lamar Smith's rise on the Ethics Committee.
On February 3, 2005, at the start of the 109th Congress, Hastert replaced Hefley with Rep. Doc Hastings, a Washington Republican seen as more loyal to the Republican leadership. Hastert also ousted two other Republican panel members, Reps. Kenny Hulshof and Steve LaTourette, who had voted with Hefley to admonish DeLay and voted against an internal Republican rule change meant to protect DeLay as majority leader in the case of his indictment in a Texas investigation into his behavior. In the place of the removed lawmakers, Hastert appointed Reps. Melissa Hart (R-Pa.), Lamar Smith (R-Texas), and Tom Cole (R-Okla.). According to Common Cause, all three voted for the caucus rule change. Even more notably, Smith and Cole donated thousands of dollars ($10,000 and $5,000 respectively) to DeLay’s legal defense fund.
As you know, the Ethics Committee is not going to release a report on the Mark Foley scandal until after the election. But remember, that would be right in the middle of a potential runoff in TX-21 if we keep Lamar Smith under 50% a week from today.
Yes, believe your eyes. It's an Open Thread and a Texas Round-Up in one. Mindblowing.
I've created 2 new BlogAd strips here on BOR. One is a premium strip to run above the standard one at the left. The other is an exclusive strip for one ad to run just to the right. As you've noticed, there are a lot of ads right now so I'm creating some new options.
Will you help John Courage get over $40,000 mark on the combined Netroots ActBlue page? The campaign is doing the last of its TV buys. They will be releasing an Ethics commercial on Monday.
Barak Obama was in Austin today for a book signing. Now that Mark Warner is supposedly out of the 2008 Presidential race, I have to say that I'm attracted to Obama. Of course, I'd more attracted if while he was in town, he'd lend aid to Texas Democrats. This is like the 3rd time he's been in Austin and done nothing publicly to help Texas Democrats while here.
You can now sound off about Texas' 35-31 win over Tech.
(This ad was originally over a minute long and the struggle was to get at least one ad on the air before the election. Now the Courage Campaign has raised over $325,000 and the question is how long can this new 30 second ad stay on the air. Check it out and keep it on air! - promoted by Matt Glazer)
As you probably know, I already can't stand Kinky Friedman. But add his vote yesterday as the final straw.
Kinky Friedman went home to Kerr County to vote (the place where he once ran and lost as a Republican for Justice of the Peace). Whlie there, he said...
“It was a time for change,” he said, as he exited the courthouse. “I’m very excited.”
But then did the following.
Friedman said he cast ballots for Congressman Lamar Smith and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, whom he said he met Sunday at a Dallas airport.
You just don't get it do you. I hope your supporters are smart enough to vote for people like John Courage down the ballot unlike you Kinky Friedman.
Change, my ass. Get out there and cancel Kinky's vote ye residents of TX-21.
