Shorts
1. Wayne Slater chronicles the Strayhorn camp's difficulties of running without a supporting party apparatus.
2. AP's Kelley Shannon does Bell vs. Perry in the Valley.
3. Remember how I said The Silly often comes out at the end of campaigns?
"The revolution will come to Texas; it just won't be as dramatic here as in some other states," said Kelly Fero, an Austin-based Democratic strategist. "But it will still be a wave in Texas. And it could sweep some Democrats into office that wouldn't have been expected to win a year ago."Ah, the silly.
4. Mike Ward and Corrie MacLaggan have an article on the few people showing up at both the Bell and Strayhorn rallies. And then there's this nugget, which indicates why Bell was always going to come in second:
"Those politicians, they like to talk," said Sylvia Rodriguez, 77, noting that most of the faces in the Robstown senior center audience were seniors, union members and politicians. "I already voted. I think I voted for (Bell). I'm mostly just interested in what's going on here."
5. HD134:
To Gerald Birnberg, chairman of the Harris County Democratic Party, an analysis of early voting in Texas House District 134 shows that Democratic challenger Ellen Cohen is in command.Trying to figure things out from early voting is usually a mistake. There's too many variables at play to give you much useful information. But of course that doesn't stop the politicos! What would politics be without rumors?"He's dead wrong," said Birnberg's GOP counterpart, Harris County Republican Chairman Jared Woodfill: Early voting clearly shows that incumbent Republican Martha Wong is beating Cohen.
Birnberg and Woodfill use similar processes to reach their differing interpretations.
Each day they get a list of those who signed in at early voting locations and check each record to see if the voter has a history of voting in Democratic or Republican primaries — the only way to document party affiliation in a state without registration by party.
Voters identified that way as Democrats are put in Cohen's column, Republicans in Wong's.
The art is in determining how strongly partisan a voter's history is. That, combined with each party's tendency to accentuate the positive, may explain the differing conclusions.
6. Chuck Todd, one of the Beltway campaign pundits, writes about this race:
If there is a surprise on election night, I think it would come in Texas. The electorate is still so unstable in the state thanks to the quartet of serious candidates. Perry should win, but his margin will be less than five points. I think Bell's making a move, but Strayhorn and Friedman are still polling too high to put the Dem over the top.Is he reading the same polls I'm reading? Whoa, inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom.
Posted by Evan @ 11/05/06 05:47 PM
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Comments
HD 134 will be tight. The West U area seems less friendly to Republicans this year but I'm cautiously optimistic b/c of a good ground game.
Posted by V-dawg @ 11/06/06 05:58 AM
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