Free Republic

The landmark election Saturday of America's first big-city lesbian mayor in Houston represents more than just a milestone in identity politics. It also signals an unmistakable evolutionary step in national politics, one that provides further evidence of a trend that helped make Barack Obama president: growth-oriented communities like the Texas metropolis, rather than aging big cities or nostalgia-inducing small towns, are setting the course of the country's political direction. Houston is one of a set of fast-growing cities and expanding suburbs whose changing face and increasingly post-racial politics helped make Barack Obama president. Their politics are defined by some of...

It’s final. Republican Ron Villanueva is the winner of the 21st House District seat after a recount Monday. Villanueva, a city councilman, increased his margin of victory over incumbent Democrat Bobby Mathieson by two votes after all the ballots were rechecked. In the end, Villanueva received 7,674 votes, and Mathieson got 7,658. “I feel elated,” Villanueva said Monday night. “It was exciting to see the process in action.” Mathieson, who asked for the recount, said his camp was aware going in that a different outcome was unlikely with so many ballots cast electronically and the chances of finding mistakes minimal....

There are new suspicions about the veracity of the election results in NY's 23rd Congressional District. After the election, a re-canvassing of the 11-county district had Owens’ lead narrowing to 3,026 votes over Hoffman, 66,698 to 63,672, with about 10,000 absentee ballots to be counted according to the latest unofficial results from the state Board of Elections. In Hoffman's stronghold, Oswego County, where the conservative was reported to lead by only 500 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted election night, inspectors found Hoffman actually won by 1,748 votes -- 12,748 to 11,000. There is new bad news for...

Yes, socially conservative Republican candidates prevailed last night in the big races—the gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey—but it was the special election for New York's 23rd Congressional District that had become a national symbol for the battle between religious conservatives and the GOP establishment. In recent days, it was the race that the big Christian right groups like the Family Research Council and Susan B. Anthony List and the movement's favored politician, Sarah Palin, had become most outspoken about. But after forcing the socially liberal Republican out of the race, the right's candidate, Doug Hoffman of the Conservative...

David Harmer, the Republican candidate for Congress in California's special election in their 10th congressional election, does have a chance of winning this election today. While running in a district which has not elected a Republican in decades, their last Congresswoman easily claimed victory with near 70% of the vote, and it is rated D+11, does not seem possible. Then again, 2009 has not been a normal election year...

WASHINGTON – For Republicans, an election win of any size Tuesday would be a blessing. But victories in Virginia, New Jersey or elsewhere won't erase enormous obstacles the party faces heading into a 2010 midterm election year when control of Congress and statehouses from coast to coast will be up for grabs. It's been a tough few years for the GOP. The party lost control of Congress in 2006 and then lost the White House in 2008 with three traditional Republican states — Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia — abandoning the party.

Democratic enthusiasm for President Barack Obama's liberal domestic agenda—particularly for a government-run health insurance program—could wane after the results of the gubernatorial elections next Tuesday in Virginia and New Jersey. GOP victories in either state will tell Democrats in red states and districts that support for Obama's policies is risky to their political health. The more significant is the open race for governor in Virginia, a purple state. The Washington Post poll released Monday showed 55% support for Republican Attorney General Bob McDonnell and 44% for Democratic State Senator Creigh Deeds. The president is trying to reverse these numbers by...

What was a nine-point advantage for Bob McDonnell in the Virginia governor’s race two weeks ago is now down to two, according to a new poll by Rasmussen Reports released Thursday afternoon. The poll has McDonnell’s lead at 48 percent to 46 percent for Creigh Deeds. McDonnell led two weeks ago by a 51 percent-to-42 percent margin. The shift seems to be the result of voter reaction to the thesis that McDonnell wrote in 1989 as a 34-year-old graduate student at the conservative Regent University that laid out a blueprint for social-conservative action in the political arena that also spelled...

Someone sent me the link and it seemed to be relevant for a Texas politics thread. DU content is unwelcome at FR, but there is DUFunnies so maybe this thread will survive. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6563121

NEW Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine has been running TV ads that make liberal use of President Obama's mid-July visit to buoy Corzine's faltering re-election bid. But Corzine's support continues to slip, with just 36 percent in the latest polls saying that they'd vote for him. National pundits and GOP leaders see Corzine's woes as a sign that voters are growing discontented with Obama's policies. But the a real message in the Jersey election isn't about ObamaCare or Obamanomics, but about the larger issue of whether big government can deliver on its promises.

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. - As a former CEO of Goldman Sachs Inc., one of the most important firms in the investment world, Jon Corzine has unique financial expertise among the nation's 50 governors. But after four years in office, the Democrat has not managed to get the state out of deep debt, deliver wholly on his campaign promise to boost property tax relief or stem the state's rising unemployment rate. Now, as he trails a Republican former federal prosecutor in the polls, his re-election bid is looking increasingly like a referendum on his financial acumen. And whether voters decide to...

Even before all the votes have been tallied, we saw two more spins courtesy of Kadima's publicists. Firstly, Netanyahu is seemingly trying to "steal" the elections; secondly, should Netanyahu form a narrow rightist government, it would upset Barack Obama and disconnect us from Western Europe and from the civilized world. The new spins may be used as a pretext by President Shimon Peres, the master of political tricks and creative shticks, for tasking Tzipi Livni with forming the next government or promoting a coalition comprising Likud, Kadima, and the Labor party. However, even if fairness and commonsense will prevail, and...

Proposed Law: An act to repeal Section 7.5 of Article I of the California Constitution; therefore provisions to be repealed are in strike-through text. Section 1. Title. This measure shall be known, and may be cited, as the "California Marriage Equality Act." Section 2. Section 7.5 of Article 1 of the California Constitution shall be repealed, stricken, and removed as such:

Sen. Chris Dodd said Tuesday he plans to have "a conversation with the mirror" over the Christmas holidays to decide whether he'll join a growing field of Democratic presidential contenders. But Dodd, a 25-year Senate veteran, added, "If I had to make a decision in the next thirty seconds, I'd say, 'Let's go.'"

Pierce Flanigan, Jr. died this week, aged 93. But this is about his hat, not his death. And it is about the absurd series of questions asked of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice by Tim Russert on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Russert’s effort to pin her down on whether she is running for President in 2008 spanned five straight questions. Pierce, III has been my good friend since we went to school together, and later were college roommates. Along the way, Dr. Carl Zapfee of Troop 35 made us both Senior Patrol leaders in the troop. He assumed, correctly, that...