[lbo-talk] turnout

joseph noonan joseph at noonan.ws
Wed Nov 5 10:13:32 PST 2008


On Wed, 5 Nov 2008, Michael Pollak wrote:


>
> In New York at least, this turnout tsunami is causing changes we never even
> thought about. We all thought it wouldn't change anything if we voted since
> we were never in question. We all just made enormous lines because people
> wanted to be part of it. But now that they've added up the votes it turns
> out that there were so many Democratic voters that suddenly, without
> expecting it, the Democrats now control both houses of the state legislature
> for the first time since the depression. Plus the governorship, so they've
> got all three. And if I heard the TV right, the entire state congressional
> delegation is now Democratic -- there isn't a single Republican, not upstate,
> not in Staten Island, not in Buffalo, nowhere.
>
> Lord only knows what's going on elsewhere.

Same thing happened here in Harris County (Houston). Yesterday there was not a single Democrat in any county-wide office, but last night they won 30 of the 35 races up for election. One of the 5 that kept his job was Ed Emmet, the county judge, that did a really good job during Ike. I know a lot of people who did not straight ticket vote Demo just so they could pull the lever for Emmet. I had thought unless he got caught fucking a goat, he was gonna get re-elected, but it was really close.

There had not been a Democrat judge in the county for 15 years, now there are only three Republicans. Oh, and they waged a very vigorous campaign too. One that studiously avoided mentioning McCain or Bush positively or Obama negatively.

One of the R's that did get elected was Pat Lykos, a former cop turned judge, now DA, won by 1/2%. The former DA Chuck Rosenthal was forced to resign after a series of racist and sexually explicit e-mails were discovered on his county computer, then he tried to cover them up, violating record retention policies, then the mails to his concubine/secretary came out, etc, etc, etc. Did I mention he was a big Christian Family values type?

Anyway, I can't stand Lykos, thought she was a nasty judge, but considering the slime that ran against her in the primary, at least she probably will not be corrupt.

Sherif Tommy Thompson, that corrupt piece of shit that was like a pea in a pod with Rosenthal, is gone and not just by a little bit. He has also had problems with records destruction(email), has had jail inmates dropping like flies, but what has probably got him most in trouble was the stable of scumbags he's had as deputies that keep getting him and the county sued. The biggest recent settlement against him (they settled after the trial began, but before it went to the jury) was two Mexican-AMerican brothers that videotaped a police raid going on next door to their house from their own property. The sheriff illegally entered their house, took the camera, and arrested the guys. During the trial, the deputies parked cars in front of their house and tailed them in a effort to intimidate them. Didn't work and the county payed out $1.4M. Now Tommy go bye-bye.

This is mostly Obama coat tails (except the sherif -- he got stomped out of proportion with the rest of them), there is no other reason the county should have done an about face like this. It will be interesting to see what happens next November in the Houston city elections (they are in the odd years), which are nominally non-partisan, but the particants are usually members of one or the other party.

Not too bad a day in a seriously red state.



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