EL RRUN RRUN
http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/
---------------------------------------------------------------
FOR OUR AVERAGE JOSE, A COMEDY OF ERRORS ON ELECTION DAY
---------------------------------------------------------------
By <b>Juan Montoya</b><br />When our friend Jose (not his real name) decided to get out of the house and vote in the Tuesday primary runoff elections, he showed up at Pct. 38 (Sharp Elementary) to cast his vote in the afternoon, walked in to the room, and sauntered over to the table with the precinct judge and the parties' poll watchers.<br />"Democrat or Republican?," asked the precinct judge.<br />"Independent," Jose answered.<br />"They just started laughing," he said later. "Are they supposed to make fun of you or what?"<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW7guaLCRz8J_MPH9eI78PnHI50ts1SO9qYzap_IU0HbnylCAzdXAxPs51zm6LIfwAlTBy6ePftxSTp3ob6hlBPzHhgOf6SIuGMC-B3gtJu8ktWttqoSP4NdoB4kJfgl6MI0f1dpwQAGQ/s1600/voter-confusion.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW7guaLCRz8J_MPH9eI78PnHI50ts1SO9qYzap_IU0HbnylCAzdXAxPs51zm6LIfwAlTBy6ePftxSTp3ob6hlBPzHhgOf6SIuGMC-B3gtJu8ktWttqoSP4NdoB4kJfgl6MI0f1dpwQAGQ/s400/voter-confusion.gif" width="400" /></a>After he was told that the runoff election was only for the Republican and Democrat candidates who hadn't won their elections outright in May, he opted to take the Democratic ballot, miffed at having those assembled in the room laugh at him.<br />On the first decision for the U.S. Senate runoff between Paul Sandler and Grady Yarborough, he stumbled.<br />"Is Grady a man or a woman?" he asked aloud.<br />This infuriated the Republican election judge who snapped at him with a churlish "You mean to tell me you haven't even done the research on the candidates before you vote for them?"<br />This stopped our hero dead in his tracks and he looked at the woman incredulously.<br />"I thought they were there to help you," he said. "I didn't expect to get scolded by some woman I didn't even know. The Democratic guy told me Grady was a he."<br />Things went from bad to worse for our hero.<br />"Then I got to the state school board of education and I saw Ruben Cortez's name," said Jose. "I had friends who went to school with him and they told me he had dropped out. How could he be running for the state school board? I was confused. Outside the school fence there were dozens of his lawn signs up and down the sidewalk. There were even some in front of the parking lot at Sharp. I didn't see any others. They were real busy."<br />To make matters worse, Jose said the Democratic Party poll watcher hovered over his shoulder urging him in a harsh whisper to "Vote Democrat. Vote Democrat."<br />"Is he supposed to do that?" asked out friend. "Is he supposed to tell me what party to vote for? Isn't that against the law?"<br />When we tried to explain that if he was voting for Sandler or Yarborough he was already voting in the Democratic runoff, he shrugged and said the experience at the polls had left him flustered.<br />"Here I make the time to go vote, they laugh at me when I ask about the Independents, I get scolded by a mean little old Republican woman who makes me feel bad because I didn't research the candidates and the Democratic party guy is trying to pressure me to vote for the Democrats," said Jose. "I was stressed by the time I got our of the room. When I left no one said a word. It was weird."<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-6631195734882432375?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2012/08/for-our-average-joe-comedy-of-errors-on.html
---------------------------------------------------------------
JESSICA BRADSHAW'S TEA-PARTY PYRRHIC "VICTORY"
---------------------------------------------------------------
Pyrrhic victory: <i>"A victory achieved at great or excessive cost; a ruinous victory..."</i><br /><div><i><br /></i></div><div>By <b>Juan Montoya</b></div><div>What on earth was the right-wing fringe of the Republican party in the Congressional District 34 runoff thinking when its adherents were persuaded to vote for Jessica Bradshaw from Austin over Texas Southmost College trustee Adela Garza?</div><div>Was it the fact that Bradshaw will never be able to raise enough funds to fight Filemon Vela, whose campaign fund grows even more now that he has clinched the Demo nod?</div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ih0N3RJ5aoxABZ8S_APUjO8hhnzmdV0y32yniBdV9ZAWIvfOwtROpPQ-Kchey1ZSPSweqeq5vzJcFOA_OuRCWuoU-64tTwTC5_Uh8333N_IvxFY2MwdhMu6Fe6l2BEHKWgTzBG_gDCU/s1600/shoot-foot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ih0N3RJ5aoxABZ8S_APUjO8hhnzmdV0y32yniBdV9ZAWIvfOwtROpPQ-Kchey1ZSPSweqeq5vzJcFOA_OuRCWuoU-64tTwTC5_Uh8333N_IvxFY2MwdhMu6Fe6l2BEHKWgTzBG_gDCU/s1600/shoot-foot.jpg" /></a>Or was it the fact that Bradshaw's community involvement in Cameron County boards and entities are nonexistent?</div><div>In her literature, her supporters blamed Adela for "losing" 600 jobs at UTB as a result of the separation between the UT System and the community college. The fact that it was the UT system which first voted to separate just got in the way of a good blame issue in her campaign, apparently.</div><div>As the man used to ask the dog who ran after car tires after he caught one: "Now aht are you going to do with it?"</div><div>The Tea Party candidate can count on the die-hard right fringe to return to the ballots on November and cast their votes on her behalf. As it stands now, she and her supporters only have to attract some of the 22,574 votes cast for the Democratic candidates in their runoff to try make up the nearly 13,000 difference between the 9,591 cast for both candidates in the Republican runoff.<br />For the most part, the only aggressive plank in the Demo runoff between Vela and Denise Blanchard was that Vela wasn't a "true" Democrat," benign fodder compared to the venom spewed by the Bradshaw campaign against Adela.<br />At a 53 to 47 percent split between them, it'll be difficult for Adela's supporters to reconcile themselves with their candidate and get themselves to vote for Jessica. Besides, remember that the mainstream GOP lined up behind Adela. Bradshaw must have those 4,248 votes cast against her to close ranks against Vela.<br />Therein lies the rub. Vela, before he saw the light on the road to Washington D.C., was a solid GOP contributor and supporters. In fact, Blanchard's supporters distributed flyers documenting this fact.<br />Her supporters are hoping that the hard-core right-wing national PACs who would like to nail this seat for the GOP will pump millions into her campaign to see Bradshaw win. To us, that's an unlikely scenarion given Vela's former GOP roots.<br />If Republican voters and moderate Democrats unite as they have in the past, the scorched-earth policy followed by the Bradshaw campaign will come back to haunt them in November.<br /><br /><br /> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-6524321767801447009?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2012/08/jessica-bradhsaws-tea-party-pyrrhic.html
---------------------------------------------------------------
MAJORITY OF RACES SEWN UP BEFORE ELECTION DAY, MAIL-IN AND VOTER ABUSE VOTES MADE CHEEZMEH IRRELEVANT
---------------------------------------------------------------
By <strong>Juan Montoya</strong><br />Even before day broke on Tuesday, Cameron County candidates Yolanda Teran Begum and Pete Avila had already lost the election.<br />A survey of the totals cast in the local races indicates that between the mail-in votes and the early voting, the fate of the Begum and Avila candidacy had already been decided. Both came out on the short end of the mail-in ballots. In the case of Begum, her 142 mail-ins did not equal the 319 ballots generated by the well-greased and practised political forces of the Ernie and Norma Hernandez on behalf of their daughter Erin Hernandez Garcia.<br /><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiLeVAYWiyNag2nHMmO2hYo-EB6baLBBn6WitET3Yr9YpOdo_kFiykQsZ4dVXv6m3hxErFkiQhAPZZE1q2DFa_26RdIQMJebE53RVwThEiTgBzbEc8_agltPrDZq7bqbUIKeGMRM5tX2w/s1600/NRelectcasey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eda="true" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiLeVAYWiyNag2nHMmO2hYo-EB6baLBBn6WitET3Yr9YpOdo_kFiykQsZ4dVXv6m3hxErFkiQhAPZZE1q2DFa_26RdIQMJebE53RVwThEiTgBzbEc8_agltPrDZq7bqbUIKeGMRM5tX2w/s400/NRelectcasey.jpg" width="363" /></a>That 177 deficit was one from which the Begum campaign could not recover. Even as Begum's supporters complained of the blatant voting abuses perpetrated in the open daylight in front of the Cameron County Courthouse, at the Crsito Rey Catholic Church site, and at the Centro Comunitario site at Cameron Park involving the coercion of votes on behalf of her opponent by her politiqueros, the early walk-in vote totals indicate that Begum matched Hernandez well by coming short by only 85 votes. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">That put her 262 votes behind when dawn broke on Tuesday morning. And even though she actually won the voting on election day by 110 votes, it still left her 152 votes short to cover the mail-in and walk-in totals. Erin's 177 mail-in advantage was the deciding factor.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The story was the same for Avila, who was 352 votes behind Gomez after the mail-in votes were counted. He also fell an additional 201 during the early voting period. And even though, like Begum, Pete actually beat Abel by 208 votes on election day, he could not make up the accumulated 553-vote difference he fell behind on the mail-in and walk-in votes. He behind 352 votes int he mail-in and lost by 351 votes. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Luis Saenz, in his battle with mail-in favored candidate Carlos Masso was the only candidate in these three local races who overcame the 198-vote deficit in mail-in votes. He had a 164-vote advantage in the early walk-in vote to neutralize Masso's mail-in edge and woke up on Tuesday only 34 votes behind. The turnout on his behalf on Tuesday favored Saenz and his election-day total of 3,570 not only made up those votes, but propelled him over the top by 351 votes, a slim victory for a countywide race.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Another candidate who won the election districtwide but lost at home despite huge mail-in ballots was Ruben Cortez, the victor in the Texas School Board of Education. He beat Sanchez with a huge turnout in Hidalgo County by more than 4,000 votes even though he lost by 2,000 in Nueces County, but lost in Cameron despite his 320-mail-in vote advantage here. <br />His opponent Celeste Zepeda-Sanchez beat Cortez in the walk-in early vote by 506, putting her ahead by 186 votes by election day. Combined with her 967 votes on election day, and Sanchez trounced Cortez in his home county by 1,053 votes only to lose to him big in Hidalgo (by 4,000 politiquero votes) and lose the district election.<br />Overall, Cortez edged out Sanchez by a mere 458 votes. (50%-49%)<br />Now, instead of South Texas having an educator and administrator with 45 years of classroom experience and curriculum expert, we will be represented by someone with a high school equivalency certificate and a penchant to hobnob with vendors and political favors. Lucky us. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Those, of course, are just the numbers. Hidden behind them looms a problematic future for the Cameron County Democratic Party. In the course of running their elections, they have allowed wide-scale voter abuse and fraud before the eyes of the county and the electorate of both parties.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The victories that can be ascribed to the abuse of the mail-in process and the ferrying of coerced votes before the very eyes of the officials responsible for maintaining the process fair and equitable will came back to haunt both the party and the county government charged with overseeing them to assure the process is kept clean and above reproach.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">In this, they have failed miserably and some might say, criminally. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">In allowing the Ernie Hernandez political machine to tighten its grip in local politics, the Democratic Party has shown that it is willing to turn a blind eye to the abuses described above. These "victories" could well come back to haunt the party and the Hernandezes as well as soon as this coming November.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The Begum supporters were not a known factor within the usual political equation in the Brownsville area. The core was a center of the longtime Brownsville-Matamoros commercial class which had taken in interest in local politics as many of them lost interest in either living or doing business in Matamoros. They lived with us, their kids went to school here and many of them work and do business here as well as across the river. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">They were tired of fixed elections, paid political operatives, ward heelers and the antics of the PRI in Mexico. They took a gamble and decided to enter the political fray here with one of their own.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">"And we thought Mexico was bad," is a phrase often heard in their ranks.<br />These innocents were not ready for the xenophobic, ethnocentric twist of local politics that emerged almost immediately as their candidate announced her intentions to run. And as they stood watching in amazement and anger as their votes were nullified by bought mail-in votes and paid politiqueros coercing the mentally-impaired and unwilling elderly to vote against them, many wondered whether there is really a home for them in the Democratic Party.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Belatedly, they realized that Begum was not only running against her opponent, but rather, against the entire machinery of the local Democrats. That Begum's gallant campaign was able to come within 152 votes of matching the machine's output is a testament that this group is a force that must either be reckoned with in the future, or the party risks quickly losing their support because of their disenchantment at the shabby treatment afforded them and their candidate.</div>"The new chairwoman for the Democratic Party made it known that she favored Erin over Yolanda," said one of her supporters. "She was not an honest broker to all Democrats. And after what the Hernandez camp did to our candidate, do they really expect us to embrace them come November? You know, 4,164 angry votes can change any election."<br />With the mail-in vote obviously determining the important local races, local cyberpolitiquero group Cheezmeh proved to be irrelevant. Their champion Masso was swamped not by the manufactured mail-in and hauled in vote, but rather by the turnout on election day. And in Erin's case, the 152 vote difference after Erin's 177 mail-in advantage indicates that even a nominal increase in the vote could have overturned the totals. Cheezmeh's influence? Whatever spin they want to put on it.<br />Otherwise, it appears to be negligible.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-8882470967246387548?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2012/08/majority-of-elections-sewn-up-before.html
RSS URL: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
This email sponsored by:
1&1 Internet - 6 Months Free on new Hosting packages
http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=7538907
This email is a service of QuickThreads.com.
To manage your subscriptions, login here:
http://www.quickthreads.com/myaccount.php
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment