Just got back from voting. Cast my ballot AGAINST Rick Perry (which means ‘for’ Tony Sanchez, sadly), for Ron Kirk, for John Sharp, and for the Libertarian in my congressional district. Man, the ballot was long. 18 pages, most judicial races where I just alternated Democrat and Republican. Balance is good. 
Kirk
So, are you guys saying that Perry is Presidential material?
I can’t vote, but I do have an opinion on this fiasco. I wouldn’t vote for either of these two candidates. IIRC, when the commercials started there were some “issue” based ads about TAAS and what not. Since the mud slinging began it hasn’t let up. Literally, three times an hour, when watching TV, their smear ads come on and I tune out.
Haven’t smear campaigns run their course yet? I know that they are both barely above pond scum on the ethics metre, but instead of telling us what the other guy did that was so bad, tell us what you are going to do that is so wonderful.
Keep both of these kids out of the sand-box until they learn to play nice.
BTW, there is one anti Ron Kirk ad that I just love. Laura Miller doesn’t like Ron Kirk - who on earth would have thunk it?
Until the nature of elections change away from money and ‘spin’ these are the kind of candidates and campaigns that we are going to have to put up with. Shame.
[tangent]
I can easily see Perry’s contributors making a nice return on their campaign contributions, but how much of a return can Sanchez (as a banker and oilman) see on his $60M investment? Can a regional bank and an oil company profit that well from having a boss that can veto legislation, or does he expect to get it back before the legislature convenes?
[/tangent]
I’m voting against Tony Sanchez.
I don’t like any of the negative ads, but at least where I’m at, the negative ones from Perry’s camp didn’t start until after Sanchez’s mudslinging got to be unbelievably heinous.
My sister, who tends to vote Democrat a lot more often than I do, was originally planning to vote for Sanchez. But his tactics have persuaded her to vote against him.
Remember Brewster’s Millions? Both candidates sucked, but they had a good way to deal with that:
VOTE NONE OF THE ABOVE!
Unfortunately, Texas doesn’t have that as an option. We should, we’re the state that needs it most :rolleyes:. So let’s just show support for the Libertarian candidate, kinda like not voting except that you are really voting. Yeah.
I’m not a Texan, so I won’t offer my opinion of whom to vote for in your election. Thing is, though, I’ve been following all the Senate races and some of the House and gubernatorial races this year, and I do know how I’d vote if I were a Texan.
But the reason I’m jumping in here is to say that I’m really impressed with minty green’s advocacy of judicial races in Texas—it’s tough enough to get some people to look into the Senate and House races, much less those for the governors and even president. All the “little races” appear on the ballot and we owe it to ourselves to have our minds made up about all of them (even if we hate all of them and plan not to vote for any of them.) It’s heartening to see this kind of civic interest on the part of minty green and anyone else.
Okay, I’ll go back to watching quietly from New Jersey now.
Hey, I’m a lawyer whose primary practice is in the Texas appellate courts. It’s an inherent part of my job to know who the candidates for judicial office are, particularly on the state supreme court. Most people don’t have the foggiest notion who the candidates are or even what the courts do. I do, out of necessity. That’s why I know that even people from New Jersey should vote for Tom Phillips and Margaret Mirabal (whose opponent really is completely unqualified for the position).
And if you vote in Dallas County, I’ll even tell you who the numbskulls are on the local district courts.
I don’t mean to cause a potential hijack of this thread, but I do have a question about the election this year. Is Texas the only state that has to have just about all of the judges elected? Or does every state do this?
This is my first time voting (yeah, shame on me), and the only person I’ve asked so far says that this is unique to Texas.
It is not unique to Texas. Few states rely entirely on appointed judges, although many use an “appoint and retain” system whereby judges are appointed by the governor/legislature, then periodically are given a thumbs up or down by the voters in an uncontested election. It’s primarily states in the deep South that elect all their judges–a sad relic of Reconstruction. Here is a state-by-state map.
Chief Justice Phillips, by the way, is a strong advocate of judicial electoral reform. Though his past races have cost millions of dollars, he announced this summer that he would not accept any campaign donations and was running on a grand total budget of $20,000 as a protest against Texas’ screwed up judicial selection system. See, doesn’t that make you want to vote for him even more?
Thanks for the info!
Brewster’s Millions! I saw that as…the “Midnight Movie” on a saturday night on UPN, or something a few months ago. Man, that was a good movie! The “none of the above” idea waas wonderful, too.
I’ll be watching Comedy Central election night. God knows I need something to laugh at.
I’m still up in the air on this. Both of these guys have some pretty good ideas. On the one hand I really like Sanchez’s campaign slogan: “We must move forward, not backward, upward, not forward, and always twirling twirling twirling towards freedom!” But then Perry promises abortions for some and miniature American flags for others!
I think I’ll just flip a coin.
I know! We could vote for a third party candidate!
Just doing my part to keep the gag running! 
I’m another one that doesn’t want to vote for either of them. Like others said above, Perry is incompetent. Sanchez a crook.
The clincher for me was Perry’s ad associating Sanchez with “Trial Lawyers!!”, said in the same tone of voice one would use to say “Baby Eaters!!”. I’m sick to high hell of both of them, but that one comment tipped the scale ever so minutely to Tony.
I can’t stand Sanchez. My main gripe with Sanchez is over the way he treated Dan Morales. Morales and Sanchez were to give a debate in Spanish. Morales opted to give his responses in both Spanish and English (which was somewhat awkward of course, but his right).
Sanchez’s response was “Dan Morales is ashamed of being Hispanic”.
No you pudgy idiot, he just wanted to use a language the majority of Texans understand. The next time George or Jeb Bush campaign in Spanish, we are not going to see Trent Lott say “the Bushes have betrayed our ‘folks’ there” are we? Dan Morales endorsed Perry, and I don’t blame him. Tony Sanchez is an old fashioned Lower Rio Grande patrón, and any Meskin’ who doesn’t kiss his blue-blood ass is bound to be put in his ‘place’.
Anyway in El Paso, I see a some people all excited that we may have a Hispanic governor. We’ll I am Mexican and wouldn’t vote for him for anything. My mom hates him with a passion. She throws stuff at the TV when he comes on.
Anyway, Perry strikes me as a man of little substance, even though I must say in 1998 - I believe most Texans then knew that G.W. Bush was seriously looking at the presidency and the Lt. Governor’s race could be tantamount to the gubernatorial election - and voted with that in mind. So we did elect him Tonito.
We shall see come Tuesday.
Man, why hasn’t my absentee ballot come in the mail?!?!?! Grrr.
This is shaping up to be one of the most interesting elections in a while…since that other one in 2000, that is.