Weekend Drive-By: 7/22/07 Edition

One of the downsides of being on a massive writing project is that the blogging that normally allows me to get a few thoughts released into pixelated form tends to wane. It's time to make up for that ...

» Back on the 16th, the Noriega Draftnicks pitched their latest claim to internet fame: the ability to drum up the mass internet brigade for Rick Noriega in his run for Senate. They pushed for 800 donors, focusing (wisely) on the number of donors rather than the dollar amount raised. It's only been a week, but the number stands at 59. Five nine. Just a hair over three weeks left for the kids to make their run at 800.

Together with the ActBlue Senate Nominee fund, there's been a grand sum of about $15k raised (or, if you prefer, an additional 34 donors to the cause). That may not be nothing, but it's pretty close.

One blogger went so far as to post the following when John Kerry lent his name to the effort: "Some of you laughed when we started raising money for the anti-Cornyn nominee. Well keep laughing chumps, we're going to see that fund break six figures soon." Apparently, not soon enough. Kerry's efforts did manage to raise just over $6600 for the Nominee Fund. Again, not nothing ... but not enough to ward off those laughing chumps as they note that the overall sum has yet to break six figures. I'm sure it will some day, so maybe it just depends on your definition of "soon." Mine is as follows: before the end of the year.

On another note, it's frustrating that NEITHER Democratic campaign has sent one fundraising email concerning the fact that Karl Rove was helping his onetime client John Cornyn raise money in Harlingen this week. NOT ONE. Not one by the designated "netroots candidate," not one by the candidate with more money than China. My email address is on both lists and I've yet to see any email, period, from either campaign. Congratulations guys, you just gave Karl Rove a free pass. Wanna bet Cornyn had more than 59 (or 93) donors over the course of his Weekend with Karl? I'm not sure about that one, but it's a good bet that he got more than $15k for his efforts. Add in the fact that he didn't suffer a single public relations hit for the fundraising and you get the picture of how this campaign is going to go.

R.G. Ratcliffe notes that Mikal Watts at least sent out a "news release" to the media. That's gets a nice blog post on the Chron/SAEN blog, but little more. And TDP sent out an announcement. Again, that may get you a nice blogpost on the Chron/SAEN blog, but little more.

I'll sum up my angst as follows: For a campaign field as highly touted as we now have in Watts & Noriega, it sure would be nice if either of them started campaigning in earnest. I'm tempted to say I'll put in some small change to the first Democratic Senate campaign that puts together something as basic and fundamental as a mass email, but I'm somewhat afraid that the quality of that product might suffer. We'll see. It'd be nice, again, if ONE campaign were to begin that line of communication before the end of the year.

» Miya Shay makes note of a new phenomenon in covering City Hall: The Peter Brown Drinking Game. She doesn't go so far as to admit that it's a drinking game, but I think we can all read between the lines.

» Steve Benen over at TPM notes Rudy Giuliani's plan for getting elected President. Just a hint, it relies somewhat heavily on mentioning "terrorism" a lot. Even when discussing his fiscal policy and health care.

» A Daily Funny: anonymous bloggers griping about transparency.

» Leroy Hermes, President of the Univ. of Houston System, offers a few positives out of the university's dropping enrollment. Hermes' reasons for optimism are fine so far as they go. If they get UH bumped up to flagship status anytime soon, that's all for the better. But I still have to think there's a story out there for a reporter willing to do some homework on how UH stacks up against other peer universities. The location for UH has always been a declining selling point. Factor in that HISD will see declining enrollment over the coming decade. A more accurate view of UH's status might be seen in comparison to colleges in similar situations.

» Tammie Faye Bakker Messner, RIP. As comical as she often came across in appearance, she always seemed to have a good sense of humor to take it all with. Given the fallen state of the old PTL Club, she managed to be a great messenger of God despite a lot of things that should have kept her from being such.

» Great story in the DMN about church groups combatting abortion ... through adoption.

"For the past 80 years, the church has really abrogated its responsibility to government, adoption agencies and others," said Christopher Padbury, executive director of Project 1.27, a Colorado-based group that has placed 60 foster children for adoption in Christian homes since 2005. "God has really taken a sledgehammer and started pounding on his churches."

Mr. Padbury's group is named after James 1:27, which says: "Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (New International Version Bible).

"We haven't done an effective job of treasuring the lives we say are so valuable," said Staci Taylor, a member of Memorial Baptist Church in Grapevine. "I think that's a big point of the church's involvement. If we're going to talk about pro-life, we equally need to discuss pro-adoption."

Sounds like a smarter approach to me.