Brazos Valley Stimulus: How much Bryan and College Station have requested in stimulus projects.
According to Stimulus Watch.org Bryan has requested $46.5 million, College Station has requested $36.2 million, Waco has requested $81.55 million and overall Texas has requested $10,775,423,039.
All of the projects that Bryan has requested funds for are for water improvements. Bryan has requested $13 million for improvements to the Burton Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, which was built in 2004 for $1.2 million dollars, and another $13 million to construct the Thompson's Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. Also $6.5 million has been requested for improvement to Still Creek sewer; $1.5 million for a Highway 47 waterline extension, $1.5 million for a Highway 21 waterline extension and $1.5 million for a Well 19 collection line.
Bryan also requested $4 million for 5 million and 1 million gallon ground storage tank, and another $5.5 million for a Westside Interceptor. Bryan did not include the number of estimate jobs created in the stimulus project request.
College Station has requested $9 million for "pedestrian improvements" to Northgate, which the city estimates will create twenty-five jobs; $4.2 million was requested for Northgate park improvements that the city estimates will create 31.5 jobs. Another $2 million was request for improvements to Tauber Street and Stasney Street off of University Drive, which the city estimates will create six jobs.
College Station also requested $4 million for mixed-use development and another $2 million for utility-line burying on Holleman Drive; the city estimates that these projects will create a total of 75 new jobs.
The project that is estimated to create the most amount of jobs is the Community Center project that College Station requested $7 million for; this project is estimated to create 120 jobs. The project that could possibly be most beneficial to the community is $8 million that was requested for affordable housing development that is estimated to create 40 jobs and help several people attain affordable housing.
How much and where the stimulus money is going in Texas under the cut...
A Gallup.com poll released today shows that there are only 5 states left with a statistically significant Republican majority. Texas is not among them. In fact, they said:
In contrast, only five states had solid or leaning Republican orientations in 2008, with Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska in the former group, and Nebraska in the latter.
The most balanced political states in 2008 were Texas (+2 Democratic), South Dakota (+1), Mississippi (+1), North Dakota (+1), South Carolina (even), Arizona (even), Alabama (+1 Republican), and Kansas (+2 Republican).
I can't read this with the eye of a statistician, but did find it cool that they sampled the cell-phone-only crowd.
How exciting for Texas! Now we get these folks out to vote.
This December, Wake Up Wal-Mart is going all out with our annual Holiday Campaign to awaken America's largest retailer to its responsibilities. Here is a peek at our second TV ad for 2008's holiday season:
Titled Wal-Mart: America Just Can't Afford It Any Longer, the ad focuses on the hidden costs of shopping at Wal-Mart:
There is little doubt that Howard Dean's Fifty State Strategy helped Democrats make gains across the nation this year.
Even Republicans agree and now one Republican may be ready to try to emulate the strategy that some once laughed at.
Chip Saltsman, who was Mike Huckabee's campaign manager, is now running for Chairman of the RNC and recently had this to say, from Politico:
If there is one area Democrats out-worked Republicans over the past four years, it is expanding their voting bloc. Many scoffed at Howard Dean’s “Fifty State Strategy,” including other Democrats. But the fact remains that his party became more competitive in more places over the past two election cycles. In 2006, Democrats won House and Senate seats in traditional Republican territory. Two years later, Obama won nine states President Bush carried in 2004, and, in almost half of those states, Obama ran ahead of the national vote. The Republican nominee did not win any state John Kerry won in 2004.
As Howard Dean prepares to leave the DNC, we should all remember the success of the Fifty State Strategy and the positive benefits we will see for years to come from this change of attitude at the DNC.
(Let the discussion begin... - promoted by Matt Glazer)
Today’s New York Times reported that life is not all peaches and cream for the Obama campaign after they opted out of the presidential public financing system. (See Article “Straining to Reach Goal, Obama Presses Donors“)
Pushing a fund-raiser later this month, a finance staff member sent a sharply worded note last week to Illinois members of its national finance committee, calling their recent efforts “extremely anemic.”
The signs of concern have become evident in recent weeks as early fund-raising totals have suggested that Mr. Obama’s decision to bypass public financing may not necessarily afford him the commanding financing advantage over Senator John McCain that many had originally predicted.
But the campaign is struggling to meet ambitious fund-raising goals it set for the campaign and the party. It collected in June and July far less from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s donors than originally projected. Moreover, Mr. McCain, unlike Mr. Obama, will have the luxury of concentrating almost entirely on campaigning instead of raising money, as Mr. Obama must do.
It is not yet clear whether the Obama campaign will be able to ratchet up its fund-raising enough in the final two months of the campaign to make up the difference.
Public financing is a boon to any politician who accepts it, as it allows her or him to run free from the strings attached to big-dollar-donations and to focus the campaign’s time on where it should be spent: connecting with voters. This is why when I explained Public Financing to Congressman Nick Lampson, currently running in the most competitive House race in the country, he was exuberant
The final address of an incumbent president to his party's national convention is supposed to be a moment of triumph--for the president and, indeed, for his home state.
For President George W. Bush and the state of Texas, however, his final GOP convention speech as a candidate or President was more of an anti-climax than a triumph--and that's not just because it was televised from the White House instead of delivered in person as a result of the weather crisis on the Gulf Coast.
Even if Bush had given a full-blown speech touting his record while in office, it would have been an anti-climax. And, for Texas, it would have simply shown the spotlight on the fact that we actually elected Bush twice as our state's chief executive.
According to a recent poll, by Belden, Russonello & Stewart, more Americans support investing in new energy technology rather than expanding oil exploration and drilling.
Back in Somerville, MA after an incredible 10-day trip to Austin. Man, I miss home. I made it through about 300 news stories I'd missed before I finally gave up. Here's the most interesting of what I did read:
Speaking of wars, the FISA votes are today. Obama, Clinton, and others voted to strip the immunity provisions -- but it failed miserably (37-61). It will pass by day's end. (Daily Kos).
Finally, I wish the best of luck to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporters that are being redirected, as their Capitol Bureau is now downsized to only John Moritz -- a great reporter who now has a whole lot of ground to cover. I look forward to reading Jay Root's AP stories, and wish him well in his new challenge.
This weekend, we interviewed Nate from his Virginia home about the book.
Burnt Orange Report: What inspired you to write the book?
Nate Wilcox: We had been talking to the 2006 campaigns on instant messenger and, after the campaigns were over, we had been watching the [Jim] Webb campaign with an eye to recruit talent, and had been impressed with Lowell's blogging. He was by far the best campaign blogger of 2006. There were a lot of liberal national bloggers that weren't comfortable with Webb. Matt Stoller was an early opponent, Blue America didn't think he was liberal enough but he [Lowell] managed to get DailyKos diaries recommended over and over.
I was talking to Lowell, and had some time on my hands, and he had some time on his hands and we talked a lot about campaigns and the way blogs and the internet as a whole had changed campaigns were going. So, Lowell ended up deciding he wanted to tell the story of the people of the Draft Jim Webb campaign, and he went to publishers. One was interested, but wanted to widen the scope. He invited me in to widen the scope of the history of the internet and campaigns from 2002 through 2006.
