Concerned Citizens

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White was in San Antonio today, stopping by the Fourth of July celebration at Woodlawn Lake. White had hoped to speak but the Parks Foundation apparently was unable to accommodate the request. Regardless, White spent time meeting with supporters and enjoying the family atmosphere at the park. White has been crossing the state, taking every opportunity he can to meet voters and get his message out before the November election. White is in a tie with Governor Rick Perry at 43% a piece according to a recent poll by Public Policy Polling. With the race so tight you would expect White and Perry to be squaring off mano a mano. But apparently Perry continues to be a no show. Read more…

This was my first Texas Democratic Party State Convention since I started blogging over a year ago. I wasn’t sure what to expect but knew it would be a different world. I was ready to go with a netbook and a convention center covered with wifi access. I had my blog, Twitter, and Facebook accounts at the ready for posting the latest information. What I found at the convention was even better than I expected. I wasn’t the only one. In fact, the convention had a new army of people just like me hitting the convention – the New Media folks. Read more…

At this year’s Texas Democratic Party State Convention the only excitement should have been Mayor Bill White’s keynote address and the election of the party chair. That’s the way it’s been every non-presidential year for several decades. That was until 2008 when Texas was thrust into the presidential nomination spotlight with it’s hybrid delegate selection process known as a prima-caucus or the Texas Two-step as everyone likes to call it. After all the excitement and confusion of that year a move began by some to work to abolish the caucuses as a part of delegate allocation, using only the popular vote in the primary as the source of allocation. On Saturday Texas Democrats settled the argument, at least for two years, by rejecting that position and retaining the Two-step. Read more…

Looking back on the Texas Democratic Party’s State Convention it turned out to be a pretty decent convention, even with the battle over the Two-Step. The mood of Democrats at the convention was optimistic with Mayor Bill White and buoyed by the recent PPP poll showing the governor’s race in a dead heat at 43% a piece. The highlight had to be how the party has embraced the new media folks at the convention. In fact, the party to be at turned out to be the Bloggers Party that went on until 2 a.m. But there are also some subtle things I saw and didn’t see at the convention. Read more…

All the issue caucuses have been held and the Senatorial District delegations have supposedly seated their committee members and elected their SDEC members. Bill White has spoken to the convention and gave a good rousing speech outlining some of his positions in preparation for the campaign season. Now all that’s left for Friday are the various parties. All in all it was a pretty decent start to the Texas Democratic Party’s biennial convention. But tomorrow may get interesting regarding the rules of the party. Read more…

Today is the beginning of the biennial convention for Texas Democrats. We’re all gathered here in Corpus Christi for what should be a less contentious convention compared with the one two years ago in Austin. That year Obama and Clinton were battling for the treasure trove of delegates sent from Texas to the national convention. As many of you know Clinton won the primary in Texas but ended up with less delegates than Obama thanks to Texas’ bizarre prima-caucus process. This year probably the biggest discussion expected at the convention will be over immigration reform. Read more…

Yesterday the Express-News ran an article about some of the issues facing the Bexar County Democratic Party and its new chairman, Dan Ramos. The story yesterday focused on Ramos’ hiring of a political consultant, Gina Casteñada, to help run the Coordinated Campaign for the county. For those who might be wondering  a coordinated campaign is “an effort by the party to pool its resources to ensure a strong voter turnout” according to the article. In reality, it’s where Democrats in the county donate money and time focused strictly in the county. Sounds harmless, right? Read more…

Yesterday the Texas State Board of Education voted in new social studies and history standards for textbooks that we’ll have to live with for a decade starting in 2012-13. According to an article in the Express-News the vote of 9-5 was along party lines with the Republican majority approving of the standards, led by a coalition of five conservative members including Ken Mercer (R-San Antonio). Over the course of the last several months over 400 amendments have beeen proposed to the first draft of standards presented by board-appointed writing groups.
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Today on a day when normally I’d be watching college basketball I’m spending my time as Democrats across the state are in county and senatorial district conventions. This is a part of the process in Texas for selecting delegates to the state and eventually the national convention. Compared to the chaos we enjoyed two years ago today’s convention had a lot less confusion. In fact we dropped back into the way we had been doing it for years where there were more delegates than attendees. Read more…

Last night Texas finished the first part of its primary process and answered the question of whether Gov. Rick Perry would be facing Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in a run-off. The biggest factor in that equation was how much effect Debra Medina would have on the race. Well, Texas Republicans (and a few Democrats) answered that question for us. With 51% of the vote Perry dodged a run-off and now matches up with former Houston Mayor Bill White in November. Personally I have to feel a little pride in that I predicted 53%. 2 points off is not bad in my book. So did we learn a little more about Texas politics after the votes were counted? Read more…

Tomorrow is the election day for the Texas primaries with polling places open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. across San Antonio. If you haven’t already voted during Early Voting it is important you take the time to vote at your polling place in your respective primary. If you’re not sure of your polling place you can look it up at the Bexar County Elections website. The San Antonio Express-News usually prints a list of polling places to help out also. However, you’ll need to know your precinct but you can find that out also using the same website. Remember, you don’t need your voter registration card to vote in Texas. You can show up with your TX drivers license to vote. But it’s important you exercise your right to vote so you have a voice in Texas. Read more…

On Tuesday we come into the home stretch of what has been an interesting primary season in Texas. What typically is a sort of anointing of a chosen candidate at least turned into a horse race on the Republican side between Gov. Rick Perry, Sen. Kay Baily Hutchison, and Debra Medina. Hutchison made it competitive when she hinted at running as far back as mid 2009 that she was serious about running for governor. Starting with a strong war chest and leading in the polls, it seemed like hers to lose. Those turned out to be famous last words. Now with only two days until the primary election she appears to have done a good job of losing it. Read more…

Sunday I examined the Texas governor’s primaries on both the Republican and Democratic side. Based on the latest polls and some very bizarre episodes about 9/11 it is becoming pretty apparent we will have a Rick Perry/Bill White showdown for the general election in November. While Perry is not completely out of the woods just yet and could face a run-off against Kay Bailey Hutchison I really don’t see that happening based on Debra Medina’s meltdown on the Glenn Beck show this past week. But what will happen after the primaries? Who will prevail in November? Read more…

Early voting for the 2010 primaries starts Tuesday, February 16th and runs through Friday, February 26th with the general election Tuesday, March 2nd. While some like to wait to vote on the general election day I always encourage people to take advantage of early voting. First of all, you never know what might happen on election day that would prevent you from voting. By voting during the early voting period you can vote at any of the early voting locations on any day during the period including Saturdays and Sundays. Read more…

We’ve all heard the phrase about Texas weather, “if you don’t like it now, just wait a little bit and it’ll change.” This primary season the same can be said about Texas politics. What usually is a pretty bland part of the Texas election cycle has been anything but this year. Starting with the governor’s race on the Republican side and continuing into the same race on the Democratic side we’ve had nothing but fun during the period leading up to early voting starting this Tuesday, Feb. 16th. So with all the fun how is this primary really shaping out?

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