Concerned Citizens

Here’s a list of articles or blog postings I have found interesting from my review of subscriptions today – 12/29/2011. The news covers most of the things I follow including politics, local events, media information, and general interest. While I try to follow a lot of things, I probably miss some things. If you have something interesting add it in the comments section of this posting. If you have comments on some of the items feel free to drop them in the comments section. Just remember to follow the Guidelines. Read more…

Here’s a list of articles or blog postings I have found interesting from my review of subscriptions today – 12/28/2011. The news covers most of the things I follow including politics, local events, media information, and general interest. While I try to follow a lot of things, I probably miss some things. If you have something interesting add it in the comments section of this posting. If you have comments on some of the items feel free to drop them in the comments section. Just remember to follow the Guidelines. Read more…

Here’s a list of articles or blog postings I have found interesting from my review of subscriptions today – 12/27/2011. The news covers most of the things I follow including politics, local events, media information, and general interest. While I try to follow a lot of things, I probably miss some things. If you have something interesting add it in the comments section of this posting. If you have comments on some of the items feel free to drop them in the comments section. Just remember to follow the Guidelines. Read more…

Here’s a list of articles or blog postings I have found interesting from my review of subscriptions today – 12/26/2011. The news covers most of the things I follow including politics, local events, media information, and general interest. While I try to follow a lot of things, I probably miss some things. If you have something interesting add it in the comments section of this posting. If you have comments on some of the items feel free to drop them in the comments section. Just remember to follow the Guidelines.
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Another poll was released yesterday from Public Policy Polling, a Democratic based polling firm that actually seems to bias towards Republican candidates according to Nate Silver. In the poll, Ron Paul took the lead from Newt Gingrich who actually slid pretty substantially from 27% on Dec. 5th to 14% in this latest poll. The poll was taken just after the last Republican debate in Sioux City and included Sunday after the release of the Des Moines Register endorsement of Mitt Romney. What’s interesting about the PPP poll is that it solidifies the pattern we’ve seen of lead change in the Republican primary in Iowa that has gone from Bachmman to Perry to Cain to Gingrich to possibly Paul, according to the Real Clear Politics tracking page. While Paul has not emerged as the latest leader, he’s only a point under Gingrich and has shown a steady climb to the top spot. So what does this latest poll really indicate going into Christmas week?

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Today Victor Landa wrote a good column in the Express-News as a follow-up to last Saturday’s presentation of a Citizen’s Bill of Rights and Responsibilities presented by graduate students at UTSA’s College of Public Policy. He picked up on a suggestion made by Phyllis Ingram, head of San Antonio’s League of Women Voters, that to increase voter turnout we should consolidate the elections to a single day. On the surface, that sounds like a good and rational idea. After all, if you just went in one time to take care of all civic business more people would turn out to vote. Kind of a one-stop shop for civic engagement. Sounds simple but in reality, it’s more complex than it might seem. More importantly, would it really increase civic engagement or just produce better numbers?

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Tonight is the final debate between the GOP presidential primary candidates before the Iowa Caucuses on Jan. 3rd. After that, there’s nothing between the candidates and the caucus other than a lot of open roads, corn fields and a bunch of towns full of Iowans. Just check out Gov. Perry’s 44-city, two week bus tour throughout Iowa. At least he’s taking some time off for Christmas. But he’s not alone as every single candidate will be criss-crossing the state, possibly passing each other on the roads or towns. December must be a strange time in Iowa if you’re really not interested in politics. With all the attention focused on the state and with a field of six candidates courting votes, you’re probably ready for caucus day to come and go so you can get back to normal life. So is Iowa really giving us that deeper glimpse into the candidates?

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Today Aaron Blake of the Washington Post posted an excellent article entitled “Texas redistricting case: Five things you need to know.” The article is a great read for everyone who may not have been keeping up with Texas redistricting. After all, it’s not the most interesting holiday party topic these days unless you’re a policy wonk or politician. Amazingly it does come up at most of the candidate parties I’ve been to so far. Yes, we do love our Texas politics. The article walks towards what might possibly happen with decisions from SCOTUS and the two district courts involved. More importantly, the article hints at something several who have been watching this process think might happen. That is that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act might possibly be invalidated and thrown out, allowing for all states under preclearance requirements today to avoid that step in the process. So how important is Section 5 and do we still need it after 3 decades?

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This past month has made me realize we may be turning the corner into the “Decade of Downtown,” as proclaimed by Mayor Julian Castro and described by Andi Rodriguez of the Downtown Alliance. Ever since I moved downtown over two years ago, I’ve never seen as much activity as I have during this past year. What’s even more encouraging is the level of conversation by people about downtown and what’s happening here. More of my friends are asking about living downtown and where are the places to live, work, play and eat. People are buzzing about the possibility of a grocery store and new transportation options. More and more people seem to be getting bitten by the “downtown bug.”

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Today Rasmussen released their latest poll showing Gingrich in the lead with 38% trailed by Romney at 17%, Paul and Cain tied at 8%, followed by the pack around the 4% mark. That’s an interesting spread with each segment half the distance of its leader. If we held an election today, Gingrich wins this race outright with no questions. But the first contest is not an election. In fact, it’s probably one of the most bizarre forms of democracy we have in our system – the caucus. So strange is this process that normal campaign tactics can’t be used. In fact, if you go into Iowa, the early state that uses the caucus system, with a normal game plan you’ll probably get your clock cleaned and come out whipped and drained. So, while Gingrich has the lead for now, two campaigns trailing in the back might actually make a good showing in IA.

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Texas is a big state and seems to boast about every big thing there is. We have the biggest chicken fried steaks (although everyone has their favorite place serving that slab of arterial blockage), one of the biggest Ferris wheels (the Texas Star), and the biggest bass drum (Big Bertha for you Longhorn fans). But when it comes to politics Texas has been wanting to make it big on the national stage with something to show we have big ideas. What better way to show those ideas than to grandstand them. Those big ideas, as seen by some of our state’s Republican leaders, focus on states rights. They are the core of Rick Perry’s campaign and the focus of his book, “Fed Up!” Now, Attorney General Greg Abbott seems to want to take those big ideas to the biggest court in the nation, the Supreme Court of the United States. But what’s really behind this move?

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Yesterday some more polls came out highlighting some of the changes that have happened in the Republican primary field after two weeks of fun. Those two weeks saw two debates, a campaign in denial, and another campaign trying to get some positive air-time. But looking at the polls and the shape of the field it’s becoming apparent Republican voters are falling into two clearly distinctive camps (well, three if you count the faithful) – those who support Romney and those who want anybody but Romney, usually conservative voters. Some have called the second camp the “flavor of the week” group but in reality I’m beginning to see it as a bunch of voters with a set of ideals for the nominee and are trying to fit candidates into that set but having a hard time fitting square pegs into round holes. Candidates look good on the surface but when you start to peel back the layers you start finding all kinds of stuff you weren’t expecting to find. Just like tossing bad fruit out looking for that perfect one, these voters are tossing aside candidates as fast as a bad apple.

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As you may know (if you’ve been following this blog) I’ve been blocked from commenting on articles and blog entries in MySA, the online website for the San Antonio Express-News. It came about after a couple of harsh exchanges with a few people on some issues. I let their attitudes get the better of me and pull me down to their level. The block has shocked a lot of my friends who feel I usually come across as more rational and well-researched on my comments. I think I do but in these cases I let the situation get the better of me and things got kind of ugly. So I’m taking a vacation from comments. Interestingly, I can still make comments in the Perry Presidential blog thanks to the fact the Houston Chronicle (sister site to the Express-News) is using Facebook Social so I’m using a different ID. While on “vacation” from commenting I’ve taken some time to read the comments of others and the state of affairs is not pretty at all, especially in the E-N comments boards. So have we lost the ability to converse?

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Rick Perry probably wishes he was just running around Texas right now. He probably wishes Texas was that “whole other country” our state’s Tourism likes to market. But it isn’t and now Perry’s on a much bigger stage in terms of campaigns. While he might want the rest of the nation to act and think like we Texans they don’t. The problem is he and his staff of cronies started his campaign out thinking that way but trying to act like the other candidates. It’s really been a campaign of trying to mimic the others, from the start. He’s tried to kiss every baby he could at the Iowa State Fair, hit every barbecue in South Carolina, and get gussied up for every debate in the long schedule of GOP primary debates up to now. The problem is that isn’t working for his campaign. So it looks like instead of trying to keep up with the other candidates, he’s going to circle back and campaign his way instead – fewer debates and less press. The big question is how well that’ll work on the national stage.

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Today Gov. Rick Perry announced a part of his economic plan in South Carolina focused on creating a new flat tax for individuals and corporations. I say a part because this particular plan is short on a lot of details and dealing with other parts of the economy. In fact, if this is where Perry leaves it a lot of people are going to be very disappointed and it will probably damage his already faltering campaign. Many have already started picking the plan apart so I’ll just catch the highlights of what I see with references to their positions. It’s very clear that Perry’s announcement of this plan is to try to gain some ground going into the next two months leading up to Iowa and the start of the primary/caucus season. As it stands now, Perry is at 6% and in fifth place in the latest CBS News/NY Times poll, sliding from 23% and leading the pack a little over a month ago. But I’m think his timing may be a little off.

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