Election Day
It’s election day in Texas and all I get to vote on are some propositions and bonds.
Fuzzy picture – clear minds
My family and friends in Houston are voting for mayor. My family and friends, of course, support the re-election of Mayor Annise Parker. So do I. So, if you live in Houston, get your patootie to the polls.
Here’s where I need your help. If you have an interesting race in your area – yeah, I’m talking about you Virginia, let us know about it.
You might even have an interesting school board or mayor’s race. Let us know about it and then come back tonight and give us the results.
I’ll keep y’all updated about Houston’s mayors race. We’re hoping Annise wins without a run-off.
Minneapolis. Ranked choice voting. 35 candidates for mayor. ‘Nuff said.
I researched most of them, even the ones with an ice cube’s chance in even-Momma-knows-where. The weirdest and by far the creepiest is the Lauraist Communist candidate. And that’s saying a lot.
1My wife just voted me out of the house.
2I’ve got my own campaign going. I’m asking folks to talk more slowly. Young people in particular are trained to talk really fast because everyone knows that if you work at McDonald’s the faster you get folks through the line you get a raise. Not really. So now when folks say Canihelpyouwhatdoyouwant? I say honey, please talk slower; I can’t understand you. Some do. Some really cannot talk more slowly. Talk about genetic defects.
3And yes, I voted the other day. I’ll report as things move along.
I voted early on Thursday for Celia Israel in a special election to replace Mark Strama in house district 50. This afternoon, I’ll be working the phone bank for Celia.
4Hobbled to the polls this AM after spending too damn much time yesterday laying bales of pine straw mulch. I limped in via the back door of a new polling place, the choice of which by the Election Board mystifies everyone a great deal. Its a K of C Hall located on a highway that is life-threatening for left turns. Cars in the parking lot. People in voting. Not great huge history making lines like in 2012 but it was tolerable. The big push usually comes in the rush hour at 5 PM. Lots of McAuliffe people our in the middle of the parking lot with campaign lit. Law won’t let them come any closer. Very few Cooch people. However, this is Northern Virginia after all. The money is on McAuliffe.
5Went and voted in greater Jarrell and had to initial that Ellen Miles McLean was the same person as Ellen McLean of the same address. Nothing but amendments and two county props for roads and parks. Seventy first voter.
6Our bedroom community, Coralville, Iowa, attracted the attention of the Koch brothers. Which in turn caught the eye of the NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/04/us/politics/koch-group-has-ambitions-in-small-races.html?_r=0
Coralville, a town of 19,000 has run up $280 million in debt in the last decade. Moodys has downgraded their bond status four times with only two steps remaining above junk bond status. Coralville has a “history of issuing debt of non-essential government purposes, including the construction of a hotel, golf course, performing arts center and brewery, all of which are city owned.”
7TexasEllen, they made me do the same thing. I cannot imagine why I registered to vote without my middle name. I always use my middle name. All it amounted to was putting my initials in a small box above where I sign.
8Where I am in S. CO, it’s all about raising taxes for this, that and the other thing … schools, mostly!! I dropped my mail-in ballot in the ballot box at the County offices last week. I always hand carry my ballots to the box so I know it’s there and not relying on the P.O. to get it there.
9For the past two elections, I have staunchly refused to show picture ID. We have a great PA judge, Bernard L. McGinley, who has stayed the voter ID law pushed by the Republican governor and state congress.
10They can ask for the ID at the polls, but you do NOT have to show it. The area where I live is predominantly Repug, so I get a lot of looks for doing this. Thanks, Judge McGinley.
My driver’s license has my whole middle name and I’m registered to vote with just the middle initial, but my last name is so unusual that I was just waved through. Everyone in the US with the same last name is in my family.
I hope to see that damn water proposition fail, but with everyone and his mother pimping for it, I’m doubtful.
11Sheesh. All I got to vote on was whether to spend over $800,000 to put AstroTurf on our high school playing fields. Really, that was it! Waiting with bated breath for the results from Virginia (and Houston! thank you very much).
12Here in New York City, we are hoping to elect our first Democratic Mayor in 20 years. NYC is overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic, but Wall St. and the VERY rich have had a stranglehold on the mayoralty for two decades. The current mayor, billionaire Mike Bloomberg, is the *13th richest person on the planet*, and he BOUGHT three terms, even though we had a two-term limit in place. He has killed the working class in this city. Now, we are hoping our current City Advocate, Bill de Blasio, will win tonight and put progressive policies into place. Here is an article about de Blasio from today’s Washington Post:
Bill de Blasio poised to usher in new era of liberal governance in New York
http://tinyurl.com/l6pg38l
I voted for de Blasio and other Dems this afternoon. The polls are still open, so I’ll come back here late tonight with the results.
13Still too close in VA, but will update. We’re in a small liberal enclave in southwestern Virginia–think college & university. We voted around 9:15 am, and were #279 & 280 in our precinct, with just under 2000 total for 4 precincts.
The Tea county next (and probably the same for the rest of far southwest who donated to the Texas gene pool) 13 of 13 reporting, 58.33% for Cooch, 32.65% for McAuliffe, and Libertarian Sarvis 9.02%.
What’s most significant is the decent showing for the Libertarian who looked like a greasy little kid. Had next to NO $$ either. Advocated the best positions of both D & R candidates. Was shut out of all the guv debates, too.
Worst fear is that Batshit Crazy EW Jackson coattails on the Cooch. Never saw a single promo for him, and the only joint appearance was this past Monday night. So if folks vote FOR him, it’s because they don’t know him, or their just voting a straight ticket.
14Early voting shows Annise Parker with 57% of the vote against 8 opponents.
15Nonpartisan (mostly) mayor/city council races here. As I was casting my ballot, guys walks in to vote, asks, “Do I have to show photo ID?” Upon being informed by a poll worker that he did not, he responded, “That’s a damn shame.” “Because what fun is an election if you can’t screw people out of voting?” I said from across the parish hall, but, despite my years in radio, I guess he didn’t hear me. Chickenshit.
16Annise’s opponent, also a Democrat, just conceded. He spent $3 million of his own money not even to get 30% of the vote. It is interesting that in Houston, Texas, Democrats took almost 70% of the vote in the mayor’s race.
17New York City Mayor’s Race: Our polls closed just about an hour ago. Local and national news outlets are already calling the race for Democrat Bill de Blasio, but we don’t have any significant numbers yet. Here’s Politico’s front page:
http://www.politico.com/
If you click the “New York” tab near the top, you’ll get the latest numbers that have come in for the mayor’s race.
18Politico just called VA for McAulliffe. Quite a squeaker! He won by just over *one* point!
http://www.politico.com/
19Woohoo – Anise you rock – you won, now all you obnoxious men, we don’t want to play your games, take your balls and go home (tee hee)
20McAuliffe has it–the Cooch is giving his concession speech right now. EW has also gone down in defeat. The AG race between the two Marks is still too close to call. The R-Mark didn’t mention his party once in his ads, so I actually had to look him up to see which side he was on. Good news is that even if he wins, he’s going to be hamstrung by a Dem governor.
The red & blue map of Virginia for the guv race shakes out exactly as I had predicted–couple of blue oasis in a sea of red in ALL of southeastern VA (basically everything that touches WV.
Going to bed–a girl can only take so much excitement in one night.
21The Koch-funded candidates in Coralville, Iowa were soundly defeated. The winners got a congratulatory call from Joe Biden. They still have $280 million in debt.
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