Campaign Blog: News & Updates

Via Sirota ...

Clinton: Global warming an opportunity

"You can't win an election in this country unless you talk to people who you think aren't for you,"

-- Bill Clinton

We're a bit past Sunday here, but what the heck ... Amen!

HoustonChronicle.com - Cycling Notebook: From France to Austin?

In an interview in Outside magazine's July issue, Armstrong says he might run for governor of Texas. He's even driven his girlfriend, rocker Sheryl Crow, by the governor's mansion.

But not in 2006, he told the magazine.

"I drove Sheryl by the governor's mansion last night on the way home from dinner. It's a nice mansion. Nice place, nice house - I hate the word mansion - but it's a nice house."

Whether he's serious remains to be seen, but we have come to expect the unexpected from a man who fought back from the brink of death to dominate cycling like no other racer in history.

Besides, Governor Armstrong does have a certain ring to it.

After two terms of Chris Bell, of course.

Still tweaking some code on the voting data, but a few items of some interest to add:

Starting to get some of the vote data into a mySQL database. The results so far are a still-buggy and slow-loading list of votes by State Rep district, with the unlabelled, far right column being the Pres. vote.

A few things to note in this beta version ...

Kerry allows Navy release of military, medical records

Senator John F. Kerry, ending at least two years of refusal, has waived privacy restrictions and authorized the release of his full military and medical records.

The records, which the Navy Personnel Command provided to the Globe, are mostly a duplication of what Kerry released during his 2004 campaign for president, including numerous commendations from commanding officers who later criticized Kerry's Vietnam service.

In short, there's no there there. But don't let that stop Swiftboat Apologists for Power from suggesting otherwise. No, to some, the absence of facts that prove their point only deepen the belief that they must be correct. Alas, John Podheretz seems to be imploring his side to just let it go. No mention, however, of the crass, unpatriotic actions and commentary of his side over the past year, though. Yeah, I went there. Deal with it.

By request, commentor "RN" asked for some info on his voting precinct in Guadalupe County, precinct 304 to be precise. The map is included below for the area surrounding the precinct. Many of the Bexar county precincts are in the 121st State Rep District that saw an active special election by both parties. Obviously, though ... this is the deep red part of the San Antonio area. The precinct in question was reliably 25% Dem for most candidates. Only Henry Cuellar got more (30%) among any Democrats in the database provided (sorry, I didn't go digging through State District judges ... not enough time in the day, though I need to convert the data to a mySQL database at some point in time).

The full statewide precinct-by-precinct data is now available via FTP. One quick scan that bears some attention ...

• In Harris County, those precincts where Democratic candidates for State Rep were fielded saw an average of 5% more votes than Kerry.

• Roughly 75% of the precincts saw a net gain for the Dem at that level, 25% saw a dropoff.

• If Joe Nixon's 133rd State Rep district saw a 56%-44% Bush win in 2004 while the district is increasingly gaining Democratic-leaning voters, what does one think might happen when there's an actual, living, breathing candidate there in 2006?

Oh, and whenever time permits, I'm doing a red-blue map of Southeast Texas ... maybe more of the state, but we'll see. Any requests for detailed maps, put em in the comments or email me.

Interesting excerpt of Matt Taibbi's new book "Spanking the Donkey: Dispatches from the Dumb Season" which covers a the Presidential campaign from the press pool view. The excerpt includes a mention of Kerry's pre-convention stop in Houston. Unlike myself, the author didn't sit through the too-long discourse on health care and veteran's benefits, but rather bolted the scene to talk to some "real folk" ... as in, a few miles from my digs:

A wrong turn in Houston the next morning forced me to accelerate this increasingly ridiculous routine. At the Houston Community College in the well-heeled Bellaire suburb, I took off due north the instant the bus arrived, but quickly found the way blocked by that great nemesis of campaign journalism: train tracks. I doubled back and ran full-speed back to the event, where I found a Dennis Kucinich supporter named Gary Hardy standing and vainly trying to hold up a giant "Peace" banner in the wind. (It kept blowing down, despite three people trying to hold it up.) I explained my situation to him and he immediately packed me into his car and drove me a half-mile in the opposite direction, to a Central American barrio called the Southwest district. This time, there was practically another country sitting right in the shadow of Kerry's Town Hall event.

At an open-air flea market we jumped out of the car, and with Hardy's help -- I don't speak Spanish -- I quickly practiced what journalism I could. A nineteen-year-old named Eleu Aguirre was wandering out of the car parts stand where he worked.

"Do you know who's running for president?" I asked. He nodded.

"Boosh," he said. "And -- Kennedy."

Hardy prompted him. "You sure about the Kennedy thing?"

He snapped his fingers. "Oh, Kerry!"

"What are your concerns this election season?" I asked. Hardy translated. The answer came back: "The security is good."

"The security is good in this country?" I said.

"No," Hardy said. "The security is good at this flea market."

First off, there is no "Southwest District" in Houston ... this was in Gulfton, about as high a per-capita ratio of gang members as there is in town. Knowing the flea market in question, security at the market is, indeed, a critical question that seems to trump a host of other issues. Regardless, it sounds like Taibbi had a more eventful day for this than I did.

Taibbi also reviews his own book. Yeah, you read that part right.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: Lending the Good Loan

Former Clinton Asst. Secretart of State, Jamie Rubin on Wolfowitz's nomination ...

But there is an important difference between Mr. Wolfowitz and Mr. Bolton. While Mr. Bolton appears to reject the very purpose of the United Nations, Mr. Wolfowitz has supported the idea that the advanced countries should use their resources to promote democracy and prosperity around the world. Indeed, at the core of the neoconservative mission is the expenditure of American resources in support of democratic values.

Mr. Wolfowitz himself has called the World Bank's mission of reducing poverty "one of the greatest moral challenges of our time." He is just the right person to build support for this crucial task during the Bush administration.

...

Some critics oppose Mr. Wolfowitz on the grounds that he was responsible for so many military and political failures in Iraq. It is true that the civilians in the Pentagon were negligent in planning for the aftermath of war in Iraq; there weren't enough American troops and there were few contingency plans to secure the country against a potential insurgency. It is also true that Mr. Wolfowitz was na?ve in predicting that American forces would be seen as liberators instead of occupiers by many Iraqis, and that reconstruction could be financed largely through Iraqi oil revenues.

But these were questions of means, not motive. His motives were laudable and in line with a tradition of foreign policy idealism that both parties have supported at different times: the use of American power to fight tyranny and support democratic values. Mr. Wolfowitz was one of the few Republicans who supported President Clinton's interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Again ... dead on. For my own accounting, there's a fault line somewhere between Wolfowitz and Rice in terms of how I see the means and the motive getting muddied. I'm no fan of Rice's work and tend to see her as more of a yes-woman at precisely one of those positions where such a feature is far from being an attribute. Wolfowitz has been more principled, well-intentioned, and reasoned. Not perfect by any means, nor my own choice were I the one appointing, but given the playing field, there's not a lot better you'd get in this role.