GregsOpinion.com

Obviously a tad envious of the California circus, Houston politics now has the following:

- Michael Berry drops out of the Mayor's race to run for an At-Large seat.
- Gabe Vasquez makes a last second filing for the race to be the next Controller.
- Hector Longoria, who just got edged out by Berry's filing for a new At-Large seat, opted instead for Vasquez's district seat.

John Williams reports that the primary victim in all of this is Sylvester Turner, in that a 3-way race for Mayor would make his road a little steeper. For the most part, I tend to agree. But I thought the last poll also showed the race to be a pretty fair 3 way race as it stood, with fairly little separating White (25%), Sanchez (20%), and Turner (19%). That's a statistical tie. White's money is having an effect, also ... that's new to the Greanias Line crowd in past elections and moves White a little closer to the Lanier Threshold. White not only leads in money, he dominates ... and even if he didn't, he could self-finance the campaign and still swamp the pack.

Another victim, not reported ... Bruce Tatro, the nominal GOP candidate for City Controller. Annise Parker is likely still the frontrunner, but to the extent Hispanic voters cast votes based on surnames, Vasquez and Sanchez could pull a dual win for the GOP in prying loose Hispanic votes - which is, after all, the goal here. Mark Lee is the lesser known Democratic candidate in the race. His status just got rather precarious as Dems such as myself start wanting to make sure our votes have the best bang for the buck.

Hector Longoria was slated to be the biggest loser. I spotted his volunteers handing out goodies along with other GOP candidates (as in "one volunteer, two candidate handouts") at the Mayoral Forum I attended. Not that it would be unlike Michael Berry to screw over a political ally (just ask Sylvester Turner!), but Longoria went from being in a good position for a wide open race to now settling for a district seat - albeit one that he's similarly in a good position for with Vasquez's last second filing for another race.

The interesting thing about all of this is that it virtually ensures a more conservative city council to one degree or another. Might not make a lot of difference with Bill White, and it could save Orlando Sanchez from himself to the extent that the council members exhibit competence that Sanchez never did. It would be REAL interesting if Turner landed in the Mayor's office, though. For what it's worth, I don't see that happening, though - regardless of whether Turner makes it into the runoff, he's not going to be mayor. This isn't 1991 and Sylvester is no longer the up-and-comer that he once was.

On a sidenote, Rick Casey's column about Berry getting an offer he couldn't refuse is suddenly looking less and less fictional with each reading.