Archive for August, 2006
Continue Reading August 20th, 2006
WEDNESDAY NEWS UPDATE.
BY THE NUMBERS: LATEST INDEPENDENT NUMBERS.
ARKANSAS - GOVERNOR: Attorney General Mike Beebe (D) - 52%, former Congressman Asa Hutchinson (R) - 31%. (Arkansas News Bureau/Stephens Media).
CONNECTICUT - US SENATE: US Senate Joe Lieberman (Independent) - 44%, businessman Ned Lamont (D) - 42%, former State Representative Alan Schlesinger (R) - 3% . (American Research Group).
GEORGIA - GOVERNOR: Governor Sonny Perdue (R) - 54%, Lieutenant Governor Mark Taylor (D) - 41%. (Strategic Vision-R).
MAINE - GOVERNOR: Governor John Baldacci (D) - 43%, State Senator Chandler Woodcock (R) - 42%. (Rasmussen Reports).
MASSACHUSETTS - GOVERNOR - DEM PRIMARY: Former US Assistant Attorney General Deval Patrick (D) - 34%, venture capitalist Chris Gabrieli - 30%, Attorney General Tom Reilly (D) - 30%. (WBZ-TV/SurveyUSA).
MICHIGAN - GOVERNOR: Governor Jennifer Granholm (D) - 47%, businessman Dick DeVos (R) - 47%, engineer Doug Campbell (Green) - 1%, hospital worker Greg Creswell (Libertarian) - 1%, engineer Bhagwan Dashairya (US Taxpayers) - 1%. (WDIV-TV/SurveyUSA).
MICHIGAN - US SENATE: US Senator Debbie Stabenow (D) - 51%, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard (R) - 42%, retired auto engineer W. Dennis FitzSimons (US Taxpayers) - 2%, David Sole (Green) - 1%, attorney Leonard Schwartz (Libertarian) - 1%. (WDIV-TV/SurveyUSA).
MISSOUR - US SENATE: US Senator Jim Talent (R) - 46%, State Auditor Claire McCaskill (D) - 44%. (Rasmussen Reports).
OREGON - GOVERNOR: Governor Ted Kulongoski (D) - 49%, attorney Ron Saxton (R) - 35%. (Rasmussen Reports).
Posted by Ron Gunzburger - 08.23.06
ALASKA: PALIN OUSTS GOVERNOR MURKOWSKI, KNOWLES WINS BIG.
Tuesday was “comeback day” in the Alaska gubernatorial primary. Former Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin (R) — who lost the 2002 primary for Lieutenant Governor — easily defeated incumbent Governor Frank Murkowski. Palin captured 51%, former State Senator John Binkley was second with 30%, followed by Murkowski with 19%. On the Democratic side, former Governor Tony Knowles — who lost the 2004 US Senate race to Murkowski’s daughter — cruised to victory over State Representative Eric Croft by a vote of 73% to 26%. In a sign of party unity, Murkowski and Binkley endorsed Palin and Croft endorsed endorsed Knowles on Tuesday night. Former GOP State Representative Andrew Halcro (Independent) also filed his gubernatorial candidacy on Tuesday, stating he submitted more than enough signatures to ensure his place on the November ballot. The Palin-Knowles contest is currently a toss-up for November. Former State Senator Sean Parnell (R) and State House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz (D) won their respective Lieutenant Governor primaries, and each will run in November paired on tickets with the guv primary winners.
Posted by Ron Gunzburger - 08.23.06
WYOMING: CUBIN, UNEXPECTEDLY WEAK, SCORES TEPID PRIMARY WIN.
Six-term incumbent Congresswoman Barbara Cubin (R) posted a surprisingly weak victory in Tuesday’s primary. Retired Navy officer Bill Winney spent almost no money, yet he captured 39% of the primary vote, won Laramie County (Cheyenne) and evenly split Natrona County (Casper). Cubin won big in the less-populated rural counties, giving her the victory. Many Republicans — and even newspapers which endorsed her — have voiced concerns that, as the state’s lone House member, Cubin has largely proven herself ineffective in Washington. Cubin will face Teton County School Board Chair Gary Trauner (D) in November. Trauner has shown decent fundraising abilities, so he should be able to make this a competitive contest. House Race rating: Leans GOP. Governor Dave Freudenthal (D) and attorney Ray Hunkins (R) cruised to landslide gubernatorial primary victories. Freudenthal is a favorite to win a second term in November. There were no primaries in the US Senate race, although incumbent Craig Thomas (R) is a safe bet to defeat college professor Dale Groutage (D) in the general election.
Posted by Ron Gunzburger - 08.23.06
OKLAHOMA: FALLIN WINS BIG IN CD-5, HIETT & ASKINS WIN LT GOV RUN-OFFS.
Lieutenant Governor Mary Fallin (R) cruised to an easy run-off victory Tuesday In the open CD-5 race. Fallin defeated Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett by nearly a 2-to-1 margin. The CD-5 seat — currently held by GOP gubernatorial nominee Ernest Istook — is solidly Republican. Voters in both major parties also selected nominees for Lieutenant Governor. State House Speaker Todd Hiett won the GOP race by four points and State House Minority Leader Jari Askins won the Dem contest by eight points.
Posted by Ron Gunzburger - 08.23.06
FREE SPEECH ZONE.
The daily open thread.
Posted by Ron Gunzburger - 08.23.06
Continue Reading August 20th, 2006
From the Star-Telegram…
By dropping off the ballot, Republican Tom DeLay may have given a boost to a Libertarian candidate in the race for the former majority leader’s House seat.
Bob Smither said voters in the Houston-area district have been pledging support in phone calls. He also said he has seen a …
Continue Reading August 20th, 2006
From KGBT-TV…
Texas Republican precinct chairmen tonight selected a Houston city councilwoman as the write-in candidate to support in place of Tom DeLay.
Republican officials say Doctor Shelley Sekula-Gibbs was selected by a clear majority of the precinct chairmen who attended a gathering in Pearland.
The Texas Republican Party decided it should rally …
Continue Reading August 20th, 2006
A nonsense technicality is endangering the ballot status of Oregon’s Mary Starrett, the Constitution Party’s nominee for governor. It seems that the party failed to post a notice of their convention in a newspaper of general circulation.
Fearing that Starrett may play a “spoiler” role in November, a conservative activist …
Continue Reading August 19th, 2006
WEEKEND NEWS UPDATE.
NEBRASKA: GOP STATE AUDITOR SWITCHES PARTIES.
State Auditor Kate Witek switched parties Friday from the GOP to the Democrats, complaining to the Lincoln Star-Journal of a desire by the Republican leaders to have “total control of everything … [with] a good-old-boy handful of people making the decisions.” in the state to get elected rather than govern. Witek, a two-term State Auditor and former State Senator — was Congressman Tom Osborne’s runningmate for Lieutenant Governor in this year’s GOP primary. Witek, 51, is a lifelong Republican and staunch pro-life advocate. The conservative Witek was often at odds, however, with her statehouse GOP colleagues as she was unafraid to criticize Republicans and Democrats alike in her capacity as State Auditor. She was largely responsible for bringing down the GOP State Treasurer two years ago in an office funding scandal. Witek joined her new party at the Democratic State Convention on Saturday, where she was named as the Democratic nominee for State Auditor by a 171-106 vote — as no Democrat had filed for the office. The split at the convention came from Democrats concerned Witek was far too conservative to adequately represent her new party. While the State GOP Chair offered only a terse “no comment” on the defection, former runningmate Osborne wished her well: “We appreciate Kate’s experience and expertise and we respect her opinions and views.”
Writer: Barry Reutzel of VoxPopuli-NE.com - 08.19.06
TEXAS: GOP FACES OBSTACLES, UPHILL FIGHT WITH CD-22 WRITE-IN ELECTION.
The History of Successful Congressional Write-In Candidates.
The Republican efforts to keep the CD-22 seat, recently vacated by former US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, face long odds. In US history, only five times has a general election to Congress been won by a write-in candidate. US Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina won as a write-in in 1954, but was already widely known and popular figure, having previously served as Governor, as the Dixiecrat candidate for President in 1948, and was a leader of the South’s resistance to integration (Brown v. Board of Education having been decided earlier that year).
The four House election victories that went to write-ins include Charles Curry Jr. (R-CA) in 1930. Curry’s father had held the seat and was running unopposed when he died. Curry Junior had no opponent on the ballot — but subsequently lost his primary for renomination just two years later. Little Rock Boad of Education Member Dale Alford (D-AR) won in 1958 as a write-in segregationist candidate, after incumbent Congressman Brooks Hays (D) — running without Republican opposition — expressed support for the integration of Little Rock’s Central High School. Former State Senator Joe Skeen (R-NM) won in 1980 when the unopposed incumbent Harold Runnels (D) died and the Democratic Governor twisted enough arms to get his nephew David King appointed as the replacement nominee, despite having no recent ties to the district. In a three way race — between King, write-in Republican Skeen and Runnels’ widow running as a Democratic write-in, Skeen edged King a 38% to 35% vote with Runnels getting the remainder. Two years later, Carlsbad Mayor Ron Packard (R-CA) was elected to Congress — and is the only write-in candidate ever to defeat the nominees of both the Democratic and Republican parties. Packard jumped into the race when many district Republicans were unhappy with Johnny Crean, the wealthy, plurality winner of the GOP primary. The district was heavily Republican.
The Impact of Texas Laws and Voting Technology on the CD-22 Race
It takes extra effort to cast a write-in ballot. The harder it is to vote for a write-in, the lesser the tendency for voters to do so. Most forms of machine or electronic tabulation use or generate paper products on which a name can be written. In same cases candidates are permitted to hand out stickers to be affixed to the ballot, which makes “write-in” voting even easier. But in Texas — pursuant to Texas Election Code, § 65.008 — votes cast by stickers will not be counted.
The electronic voting machines now being used also present new problems. The electronic machines used in some Texas countries, including two of the three in CD 22, requires a voter to cast a ballot for a write-in and then — after a prompt — type the person’s name onto the machine. In CD-22, only Galveston County votes without electronic voting machines — and fewer than a fifth of the precincts in that county are in CD-22. In fact, Galveston seemingly provides less than 10% of the total population of CD-22. The other two countries, Fort Bend and Harris (Houston) both use eSlate machines (click for an online flash demo of the machines, including how to cast a write-in vote). And, with the eSlate machines, there is no independent paper verification trail. In the case of this specific race, those seeking to cast ballots for the officially supported GOP write-in nominee will need to type in the name of Shelley Sekula-Gibbs — which won’t be exactly easy. Adding to the complications are rumors the Democrats plan to field a write-in candidate with the last name of Gibbs, so that any voters who merely write-in “Gibbs” would be voting for someone other than the GOP candidate.
Given the historical lack of overall success in write-in campaigns and the new technical hurdles in the race in CD-22, it seems likely that — despite the strong and well-financed efforts we can expect from the GOP — their odds for victory remain a long shot.
Writer: Yehuda Cohen - 08.19.06
August 18th, 2006
Not long after PoliticWiki was launched last summer, I stumbled upon a paper by Kate Raynes-Goldie about another wiki being used for an online platform. The “Living Platform” was the first attempt to use a wiki to create a bona-fide party platform, for the Green Party of Canada. They represented a small percentage of the Canadian populous, but the project drew over 800 participants, about 50 of whom were considered active. Political issues, not technical or communal ones, eventually doomed the Living Platform. While that site still exists, version 2.0 has been taken to another place: Open Politics.
The mission of Open Politics is to support civic engagement through the Internet. Running off of a TikiWiki engine, this site aims at a more general approach to developing issues into positions. It’s Issue-Position-Argument (IPA) structure of political content is something we emulate, although they are trying to eliminate all rhetoric (the “A” in IPA) from the equation. OpenPolitics.ca is intended to make it easier to learn, deliberate and decide complex issues in public policy.
The project specifically aims to maintain an online environment where:
- anyone can participate
- people participate as equals
- all actions are transparent
- all contributions are recorded
- eliberation is rewarded and and rhetoric discouraged
- multiple points of view are conveyed quickly and fairly
- issues and positions are “living documents” that can reflect what the community thinks today
Something else our own PoliticWiki can emulate is a clear “get started” page. One of the comments I received early in our summer site upgrade was that our 3rdParty.org site fails to do this right now. We’ve got all of these possible channels of communication, but it isn’t clear what it is someone new can do to help out. Part of the next redesign (which should have mockups ready by the end of August) is going to be to attempt to add clarity to the presentation.
There are a number of political wiki projects starting to surface. None really do what 3rd Party is attempting. A few are close, and a few others do parts of our mission better. One thing we might consider is collaborating on content in those communities.
Continue Reading August 18th, 2006
Reform Party Congressional candidate Eric Eidsness is registering at 8% in the latest KUSA-TV/SurveyUSA poll. That is in the race to represent Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District.
Another KUSA-TV/SurveyUSA poll earlier this week showed Libertarian Bob Sargent with 4% of the vote in Colorado’s hotly contested Third District race.
Continue Reading August 18th, 2006
Interesting bit of news on the Tom DeLay Congressional seat race. It looks like Republicans will be meeting on Thursday to decide who they will back in this year’s race. Currently the front-runners seem to be Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace and Houston City Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs.
As …
Continue Reading August 18th, 2006
Former Congressman Bob Barr has released the following statement:
“With the departure of Tom DeLay, it is important to do everything we can to ensure the 22d District continues to be represented by a conservative. Bob Smither is that conservative. Bob is a genuine fiscal conservative with a firm desire to …
Continue Reading August 18th, 2006
As you might remember, Dean Zimmerman lost his Minneapolis city council re-election bid last year after his home was raided by Federal investigators in September. Now, the former Green Party officeholder has been found guilty of taking bribes from a developer. He faces up to 10 years …
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