In case you missed it Friday night and can't wait for Sunday night's replay, here's the Mayoral "Debate" on PBS's "Red White & Blue" show. Turns out Gene didn't show up, even though he was invited and had agreed to show up. Maybe he was resting up, because the next [...]
Hell hath no fury like a fourth-place-finishing Mayoral candidate scorned!
[...]This weekend's football fare ...
REGION I AREA
Odessa (9-2) - 42; Arlington (9-2) - 70
Coppell (10-1) - 14; Plano East (7-3) - 0
Odessa Permian (8-3) - 15; Arl. Martin (7-4) - 25
Euless Trinity (9-2) - 41; Plano (5-6) - 38
NOTES: I'm not sure which [...]
A bit too little of time to blog today, but two "compare & contrast" arguments on health care reform that I'll suggest reading over the weekend:
» WaPo: Obamacare: Buy now, pay later (Robert Samuelson)
» WaPo: Health-care reform's grand bargain (Ezra Klein)
I can certainly appreciate Ezra's point about the' [...]
» TX Monthly: The Great White Hope (S.C. Gwynne)
Read it while it's available. If I might highlight one element that has made me appreciate hizzoner's ability as Mayor, it would be this:
Though White prefers to govern by a sort of gentle consensus, he is fully capable of reverting to [...]
» NYT: Cellphone Apps Challenge the Rise of E-Readers
I can relate to this ...
With Amazon's Kindle, readers can squeeze hundreds of books into a device that is smaller than most hardcovers. For some, that's not small enough.Many people who want to read electronic books are discovering that they can [...]
A smattering of Thursday reports to feed into the weekend frenzy that is Texas high school playoffs.
» Two big games on the schedule for Dallas-area 5A competition, and with enough navigation skills and good fortune of the earlier game wrapping up early, you might be able to catch both [...]
Expanding out the D1 bracket to cover the full slate of remaining games. It seems that there's an odd mix of really easy games and a few really great games. But going through this game-by-game, it really does strike me as even truer now than I thought earlier in the [...]
» NYT: Those Soccer Plays, in Context (Jere Longman)
I'd been wondering when one of the MSM outlets would get ahold of Elizabeth Lambert for an interview. Now we have it. What I like most about the effort is that it doesn't show Lambert trotting out a blanket apology for [...]
Well, we gots us a new poll to play with. This one has Parker's team showing her up by 13. And once more, the methodology being used seems very plausible for the nature of this election.
Worth highlighting that the polling memo characterizes the voter screen thusly:
... [...]
Random lunch-time thought ...
I finally got around to seeing "Death Wish" with Charles Bronson the other night. I may have seen one of the 80s spinoffs back in the day, but those are clearly parodies of the original. What's interesting about the movie is that, as well as it [...]
Light blogging today due to some heavy research-type stuff at the day job. In leiu of that, here's some mind-blowing video of Sammy Hagar in the period between Montrose and "I Can't Drive 55."
Why? Because understanding your basic principles of rock & roll history should be required knowledge.
' [...]» LA Times: After decades of waiting, their trains have arrived
The East LA line of light rail opened up recently. It's still too early to see if it gets taken to as favorably as the new line in Phoenix. But there's one notable and similar feature tucked into [...]
» Dawn: The 'It-is-not-us' syndrome (Hajrah Mumtaz)
After watching this video report on Pakistani pop singers tuning out references to Taliban in their music, I managed to stumble onto this report in my daily Pakistani newspaper of choice (which, I assume we all have?) with great interest. The nickel [...]
A quick catchup on the big local race going on here in H-town.
- Does it count as "releasing" a poll when all you've done is given Bill King talking points to distribute? For what it's worth, Locke's internal shows him down by four, as of 11/9-10.
- Perhaps part' [...]
» WaPo: Globalization brings a world of hurt to one corner of North Carolina
» WaPo: A rising China is changing the way Americans live overseas and at home
I may be a small minority here, but I think it would have been even better if the Post had [...]
» Chron: Cougars' 37-32 loss to UCF may derail C-USA title hopes (Steve Campbell)
» Chron: UH drops down to No. 24 in AP poll
Jackson Jeffcoat, your father needs you!
As things stand right now, SMU has control over their own destiny for the CUSA title game out' [...]
» WaPo: A Republican on every ballot (Eli Saslow)
At least in South Bend ...
For more than a year, [St. Joseph County GOP Chair, Chris Riley] has worked 30 hours a week to recruit local Republicans for this moment. A flyer on the door welcomes all comers to Candidates [...]
The brackets are here. I'll be updating as I get around to it late Friday and various points during Saturday.
REGION I
Haltom (5-5) - 6; Arl. Martin (6-4) - 50
Duncanville (4-4) - 17; Plano (4-6) - 28
EP Franklin (7-3) - 23; Odessa (8-2) - 37
Burleson (7-3) -' [...]
A brief note about District F results below.
Mathematically, District F has two basic halves to it: Sharpstown and Alief. Yes, I know there exist neighborhoods beyond the scope of those two (ie - Gulfton, Fort Bend). But I'll save the ubermicro-analysis for much, much later. Here, I've just divided [...]
Just a moment of high school bracketology for the upcoming playoffs. My primary interest is in 5A Division 1. so I start off with a look at the first two regions, covering the DFW metroplex, West Texas, and much of the I-45/I-35 triangle down to Spring/Cypress & Austin areas.
I doubt [...]
Two things I did not know before reading this article on UH's kicker, Matt Hogan
1. Dude graduated from Keller High School ... that'd be a District 5-5A rival of my alma mater. I forgive him.
2. The game-winner last week was the first in UH history to be won on [...]
One fairly broad point to add to the maps below - particularly why I think they bode well for Annise.(*) For starters, the results on November 3rd stand in rather stark contrast to the winning scenarios that Team Locke has been known to push both in the early stages of [...]
Two more maps for the truly addicted. Before, I broke out the city precincts with the shading of the candidate percentages (0-20,20-30,30-40,40-50,50-75,75-100). Here, what I've done is take each precinct and shade them based on the place each candidate performed: first, second, third, and last.
It's this view of the city' [...]
Should the nation's best offensive weapon win the Heisman? Yes. Can Keenum win it? No way in hell and that sucks.
In case you don't know him, and you probably don't, Keenum is the 6-2 aw-shucks automaton who has been the most lethal, consistent, productive quarterback in the [...]
A couple of nifty Coog-gone-pro football updates:
» DelCo Times: Reid should end the Don's QB filibuster (Jack McCaffery)
Not that one sport necessarily translates clearly to any other, but the Phillies just made a satisfying run to a second consecutive World Series in large measure because their manager had one [...]
» NYT: Democrats Raise Alarms Over Costs of Health Bills (Sheryl Gay Stolberg)
As they well should!
Mr. Obama has made cost containment a centerpiece of his health reform agenda, and in May he stood up at the White House with industry groups who pledged voluntary efforts to trim the growth [...]
Kuff has the District breakdown, here's the neighborhood math.
At Large #1
Anglo Dem Neighborhoods
Litt Costello Derr Rodriguez Heights 14% 15% 52% 8% Meyerland 50% 23% 11% 6% Montrose 33% 20% 30% 6% Rice U 42% 27% 17% 4%
African-American Neighborhoods
What a way to win a game. I suspect that Tulsa was out to avenge a loss from last season. They at least have the benefit of knowing that they gave a few Coogs a heart attack.
I'm not entirely sure which part of this I'm struggling with the [...]
Get yer red hot playoff brackets!
Sketching out the path for Trinity, it looks like the combined effect of Region One not being as strong as years past, combined with the better schools being dealt to Division Two, make a deep playoff run very possible this season.
The first matchup will [...]
Yesterday was the day to view the maps & numbers for the Mayorals. Today, it's the Controller-wannabes.
Anglo Dem Neighborhoods
Khan Green Holm Heights 37% 34% 29% Meyerland 40% 29% 32% Montrose 30% 43% 27% Rice U 32% 35% 34%
African-American Neighborhoods
Yeah, he got the areas he should have gotten, and at a better clip than Gene Locke did. But he also got between 20-25% in GOP-friendly areas, where Locke got a more meager single digit showing. His weakness is in Anglo Dem and Hispanic boxes. Those are fixable, but they'll' [...]
MJ did reasonably well in his own district: 49%. But he also did well in Kingwood & Clear Lake. And he didn't do too badly in the Anglo Dem stretch of the city, either. Mathematically, he's in a strong position. I underestimated his ceiling in the first round, but I' [...]
She killed in her own district. Why she didn't capitalize from being the only female in the race AND having a huge warchest to communicate with? Feel free to speculate. Mine is that it's inside baseball, but she was not very well served by her political consultant. Once we saw' [...]
Lull ... final week ... lots of playoff positioning in order tonight. Enjoy!
# Team Rec W/L Week Nine Week Eight Pvs 1. Cedar Hill 10-0 W @ Grand Prairie, 55-7 Irving Nimitz, 52-7 1 2. Dallas Skyline 10-0 W Dallas White, 62-3 @ Sunset, 56-0 2 3. The Woodlands 10-0 W @ Lufkin, 31-21 New Caney, 45-8 3 4. FB Hightower 10-0 W [...]
1/29/09
State Representative Chuck Hopson today joined other lawmakers in endorsing John Sharp's U.S. Senate bid, making it unanimous among East and Southeast Texas Democratic legislators.
"John Sharp reflects East Texas values and will make a great U.S. Senator," Hopson said. "From the economy to energy to education to health care," [...]
Now THIS is entertainment ...
[...]Neighborhood-by-neighborhood. I know that Keir Murray has done his own analysis, with a few tweaks of this. Ironically, this was my effort to harken back to the more classical Dr. Murray approach to viewing the vote patterns around town.
I'll drop this in the 'pedia later today and show some [...]
As far as maps go in indicating where a candidate has performed well for Houston mayor, there's a lot to like about Annise's map. She killed where she needed to kill. And she either led, had a nice second-place showing, or ran well ahead of Locke in the areas she's' [...]
Not a lot of surprises for the African-American candidate pulling down 25-27% of the vote. He got about 65-70% of the A-A vote, which was respectable considering how late Gene was in getting on the air and radio waves. Where he adds to that core of support, however, is a [...]
I ended up doing the GIS work the old fashioned way ... by entering data in by hand. The benefit of doing that is that you get a very intuitive feel for what the results will show. In Peter's case, it was as if he had 20-25% across the board,' [...]
For now, the map. Coming later in the day, I'll have some neighborhood data to add to this. But a quick aside on Roy's performance is that there was definitely a 25-35% slice of the Hispanic precincts that Roy took. That's on par with what I think is available for' [...]
» FWST: Overwhelming offense propels Trinity to win over L.D. Bell
8-2, 6-0 is the finish of the regular season for Trinity High. Playoffs start next week and after looking over the R1/R2 cutoffs, it's hard to see anyone other than Flower Mound as our opponent. We should be favored, [...]
From Sue Lovell's post-election email (emphasis mine) ...
I love elections, but sometimes you can get too much of a good thing. As you may have heard by now, out of the 125,000 votes cast Tuesday we were only 1,100 from getting over 50% in a four-way race.
Thank you for your [...]
Richard Haass, on the CEO as diplomat ...
He'll be speaking Wednesday to the World Affairs Council, though I suspect that discussion will hew more closely to the material of his book.
Traffic patterns for the past year ...
That peak in the middle was for some national blog love for my thoughts (and more importantly, maps) on redistricting in Texas. I thought it was a fluke that I wouldn't see repeated. Turns out, I was wrong on that prediction, too.
These' [...]
» McClatchy: Congress often blocks Medicare changes that would cut costs
About those pilot projects .... McClatchy offers up a sampling of high-profile projects that were piloted, and then blocked from being expanded despite evidence of being successful in cutting costs.
In 1997, Congress instructed Medicare to test a plan [...]
New York's mayoral election results, mapped out by precinct.
Makes me wish I had the dough for a custom flash programmer. My much-clunkier maps will hopefully get done today, provided I get data.
[...]Stryper may be cancelled for tonight (flu bug ... coming back on 12/21), but this movie is still on the agenda for tomorrow evening.
[...]Gene Locke and Annise Parker swing by the KPRC studios for a small segment of time.
If there's a crack in Annise's strength, it's that she doesn't exactly come across strong and decisive in comparative settings such as this. Not sure if it's a factor in a runoff election' [...]
In other election upsets and attention-getters ...
In Westchester County, where Democrats have had nearly a 2-to-1 advantage in voter registration, a Republican challenger, Rob Astorino, upset the Democratic county executive, Andrew J. Spano, who was seeking his fourth term.
In Nassau County, Republicans recaptured the county legislature, and the Democratic [...]
From my number-crunching post on 9/7 ...
In short, open seat Mayoral contests flatten the playing field. The three strongest GOP seats (A, E, & G) will garner a collective 39-40% in both November and December. The two African-American districts will represent about 24-25% in both elections. The two Hispanic [...]
First map I'm cranking out for the season: Prop 4, county by county. Who knew the panhandle was such an ally on this one?
' [...]Obama campaign manager, David Plouffe, plugging his book with Jon Stewart. I opted to download the book on the new company Kindle here at the office ... only to have the boss smuggle the thing home and leave it there yesterday. Just as well, I've got another book to pick' [...]
This is taken from the Washington Post's mapping of shifts in county.city voting percentages from one election to the next.
Perhaps not surprising that Deeds performed better than the curve in his State Senate area. But the shift in Fairfax (61% Kaine/49% Deeds) and Loudon (53% Kaine/39% Deeds) has to [...]
Coupla tidbits of import from the latest Cougar updater. One is that Case Keenum plans on staying for his senior year of eligibility. Good news and wise move, I say. Given another year, the NFL just might be a step closer to meeting the bubble spread even closer to [...]
Ah, the intellectual consistencies of our puritanical friends on the far right ;-) ...
The Rule:
Bramanti:
The Exception:
I guess it only really counts as vulgar when you disagree with someone's voting preference. Not that they're partisan or anything. *eyeroll*
' [...]An interesting slate of runoff races for December 12th. Interesting because it features more At Large races than district races ... not the least of which are the top two offices in the city.
UPDATE: Worth filling in some numbers now since the counts are final for the night. All three [...]
Here's the races you care the most about if you're in Houston ...
UPDATE: Just an added note, the shading you see here is to denote front-runners and incumbents. Intended to merely highlight the folks likelier than not to win and help any reader wade through the list of names a [...]
UPDATE (11:56pm): Whole lotta runoffs even in the smaller races. Two HISD and two Cy-Fair districts will have a bloodbath. The Chron's election page actually has the leading vote-getter checked as if they're the winner. I know HISD has runoffs, so unless there's something odd about Cy Fair, I'm assuming [...]
Election contests on the national radar go here. Important Virginia Assembly races here and Houston/Texas elections coming soon.
UPDATE: Virginia exit polling trickling in.
UPDATE 2.0: Wythe County Virginia ... 73% for McDonnell. Only went 60% for Kilgore vs Kain in 2005
Placeholder for the numbers about to trickle in. I'll have one post each for Virginia Assembly, National races (incl VA statewides), and another for Houston & Texas elections.
In this case, the incumbents are noted by italics and any relevant 2007 or 2005 contest information is noted below. As you can' [...]
Well, well, well ... the latest 5A rankings are out. And sure enough, there's some new entrants and Stony Point returns to the Top 10. 21 teams in all represents the high-water mark for teams voted on. That undoubtedly skews the bottom half a great deal. It sure would be [...]
Started spinning the new Carrie Underwood release on the way into the office. The Chron and others give some so-so-to-bad reviews. It sounds like the crux of their complaint is that a 26-yr old isn't believable singing ballads. There's not a great deal separating what Underwood sings' [...]
Today, I share a birthday with the Texas Tribune. It must be some sort of weird astrological thing that makes us both political junkies, because they kick things off with a statewide poll. Here's the findings:
GOP Guv:
Perry - 42%
KBH - 30%
DK - 18%
Dem Guv:
Friedman [...]
Another year ... another click on the ageometer. Here's what I want:
This is not a joke. It's real. Very real. And it's my birthday. And there's still time for someone to procure one of these in order to make me a happy camper.
Hey, it's easier to find than a [...]
The dropoff counts for Mayoral elections below. The average says ~5%, but the recent trend is really along the lines of 1-2%. I guess in this context, it wouldn't be a shock to see dropoff in the nature of 5-6% this go-round if there's really some absent enthusiasm for the [...]
Spreadsheet here ... map below:
View 2009-Dist G Polling Places in a larger map
Again, there's some Fort Bend locations on the spreadsheet that aren't mapped out. And again, this probably impacts a handful of voters, total.
' [...]Spreadsheet here ... map below:
View 2009-Dist A Polling Places in a larger map
In true District A form, there's probably a dozen or two votes among the zillion polling places along 1960.
[...]Polling places for tomorrow in two formats: spreadsheet, and map:
View 2009-Dist F Polling Places in a larger map
Fort Bend locations aren't mapped, but are included in the spreadsheet. I'm sure the handful of voters affected by that are really going to appreciate that!
Well, I had a few pithy thoughts in a draft post yesterday, but work intervened and even though I thought I saved it as a draft ... no dice. So here's the shortened take:
Election Turnout: I think the logical math for a prediction is a fairly mandatory to place it [...]
More elaboration coming late Saturday. For now, I'll humbly note that I called the John Tyler v Lee upset. I think I was overdue for a prediction of that magnitude. Tyler Lee may very well be the most feared team in the playoffs with a 4-5 record in a long' [...]
I'll pass on one reference in regard to the passing of Houston attorney John O'Quinn and add on the suggested further reading of Rick Casey's column in regard to same.
This one comes from University of Houston President, Renu Khator. As most Coogs may recognize, O'Quinn's namesake from the' [...]
1. Feibel covers the two most contested At Large members of council, Jolanda Jones and Sue Lovell. With the exception of Jack Christie pouring in some late cash into his race against Jones, I'm not sure whether "contested" really applies. Sue's opponents are effectively napping this race and Sue' [...]
» NYT: Tight Race for Houston Mayor, With History on Line (James McKinley, Jr)
It's an overview for the foreign folk, so there's nothing terribly new here. But still, the article has a way of capturing two different aspects in a perhaps unintended funny way.
1. Peter's age ...
Mr. Brown, a' [...]
» Slate: Why running the White House Web site on Drupal is a political disaster waiting to happen. (Chris Wilson)
I wish Drupal and the White House nothing but happiness. But I have a feeling this story ends badly. If the administration had conducted a few polls among the swing [...]
» WaPo: Health reform's Chevy tax (Harold Meyerson)
Meyerson suggests the "Cadillac tax" on rich health care policies may fall on a few Chevys, as well. But a more compelling argument is made in his conclusion - that lowering the costs of employer-paid health care policies may not face the [...]
Never underestimate the blogosphere's capacity for navel-gazing. Mike McGuff goes so far as to offer some hot, steamy navel-on-navel action by doing some extensive Q&A with hateHouston proprietor, Kevin Whited.
To which, I can only add the corollary: never underestimate Whited's ability to mis-represent himself ...
I know some of the [...]
» WaPo: Path to health reform paved with trade-offs (Steve Pearlstein)
His conclusion ...
For two years, the health insurance industry has generally made good on its promise to be a supporter of health reform rather than an obstacle. Not surprisingly, there are still aspects of the House and Senate bills [...]
» Chron: Experience with Bosox is a winning attribute (David Barron)
Gotta admit, I wasn't familiar with him when his name was first dropped. But the more I read, the more I like. At least with regard to the tactical aspects, his style appears worth watching for. How well he' [...]
How much money would you spend airing campaign ads to about 200 city voters? Click here to see how much Peter Brown and MJ Khan spent to advertise to them.
[...]Kuff covers the Controller's 8-day reports and highlights where they're spending money on communicating with voters (novel idea, that!). One thing he doesn't find ... Pam Holm's ad buy. Turns out she spent $27,000 on advertising her spot, which is really odd since she spent $10,000 on a [...]
» Chron: Sharpstown saga continues (Nancy Sarnoff)
An updater on the TIRZ/Ownership jostling over who gets how many tax dollars to build a new retail center ...
The group that asked for $20 million of public money to redevelop Sharpstown mall and later sued the authority that rejected its request is [...]
Via Jon Chait, I see that OMB Director, Peter Orszag, addresses the Hiatt column on health care legislation:
Fred Hiatt in today's Washington Post is the latest of these naysayers, writing in his column that the two biggest steps that can be taken to reduce the rate of [...]
The latest and greatest, listed below. It definitely looks like there's more local writers penciling in their locals at #10. Part of that appears to be due to Stony Point's loss creating some valuable space in the Top 10. But another part of the problem in listing this poll beyond [...]
» Chron: Sports Authority may need taxpayer rescue (Bradley Olson)
Looks like someone needs a lifeline ...
Authority officials are pinning their hopes on a pair of potential deals. The first would be a line of credit with JPMorgan to cover the $117 million. The second is another line of credit [...]
» Chron: Katy ISD settles with two ex-Morton Ranch coaches (Jenny Dial, Helen Eriksen)
Morton Ranch High's football assistant coaching trio of Scott Svendsen, Jeremy Orsagh and Cody Haug settle up on their termination suit. I wonder what the kids of that 0-8 football team get for closure. Remember, the [...]
Two items to pick up from where we left off yesterday:
- Olson does the newsie thing from yesterday's finance filings, essentially asking every unaffiliated campaign flack in town what they think ... including my boss ... who's name is misspelled. Sheesh, we live right next door to the Chronicle. [...]
Via da inbox ...
In part, the release is surely to cover for another finance filing sure to raise some questions. Annise Parker raised $335k for the period, but only has $83k on hand for the final week. That makes covering turf on Election Day pretty tough. [...]
E&P put out the latest newspaper circulation numbers. In case it's news to anyone, newspapers are in a bit of a tough patch these day.
Still, it's amusing to read the wannabe media critics' take on such matters. Here's Whited for instance ...
... it's more bad news for' [...]Friday is upon us and that can mean only one thing ... High School Football. I didn't notice a rundown of the AP votes for 5A teams. I did see that the Top 10 were unchanged, so I decided to just drop the one team that lost a game from' [...]
On the agenda for tonight ...
(and word of warning to the easily offended: this is the song with the dirty word)
[...]» DMN: Development planned for Lewisville commuter-train station (Wendy Hundley)
This ought to make anyone drool over the prospects of adding commuter rail to the Houston area ...
The A-train commuter railway is more than a year away from rolling into Lewisville, but plans are already in the works for the [...]
New Majority's Kenneth Silber blogs about the final "Augustine Report" that's just been put out. Turns out, he's somewhat sympatico with the concept of privatizing outer space ...
The committee pushes, rightly, for making Earth orbit travel into a commercial service (though fueled by government contracts) rather than the [...]
