EDIT (2/24/14) - this
WaPo piece says so much better what I try to say below. Definitely check out that LBJ ad for the lulz.
Elections are coming up, so I tried to spend some time today getting educated about my choices. I have to admit, it wouldn't have registered that early voting starts tomorrow (for the March 4 primary election, eek!) except that during my Olympics viewing last night I saw this ad at every commercial break:
Pretty sure I saw it 15 million times.
Then, on the way to school this morning, I saw Elisa Chan's road sign:
Chan is the City Council person for my district here in San Antonio. I was happy to vote for her. What's not to love? She's a strong female, an engineer who owns her own business, someone who ran on fighting government bureaucracy and reforms in education. Then
this happened.
Whatever. What caught me about her sign was the word "
conservative." It seems that this word is on every Republican candidate's signage materials or somewhere on their website, regardless of the office he's running for.* And get this, in the Texas US Senate race, alone (and I know it's the primary and so the candidates will be whittled down, but still...) THERE ARE EIGHT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES RUNNING AGAINST EACH OTHER, y'all! And seven are male.
Most importantly, though, THEY ARE CONSERVATIVE.
And for old time's sake since he's retiring this year, here's a Rick Perry favorite:
And here's our lone female Republican US Senate candidate, also conservative:
And here are some of the Republicans running for Attorney General:
And here are the guys running for Lt. Governor (all the Republican candidates are male and Anglo. There's one female running. She's Hispanic and a Democrat, Leticia Van De Putte). This position is, arguably, the most powerful post in Texas government because its occupant is President of the Texas Senate and controls the budgeting process as leader of the Legislative Budget Board.
As an aside (because she is a Democrat), here's Van de Putte's platform, it's the only one - of any of the candidates - that prioritizes "empowering women":
And then there's the race for Governor:
Abbott faces three interesting people in the Republican primary:
and
and Larry Kilgore, who legally changed his middle name to "SECEDE" and now goes by
Secede Kilgore.
The rest I'm going to post willy nilly because I'm tired:
There are sooooo many more candidates that I just
didn't want to couldn't get to. Click the link below for a very comprehensive directory of Texas candidates in this election cycle. Or if you're just jonesing for a conservative ideology fix.
On that note...what more can I say?
***
* I just did a quick Google search, landed
here, and started clicking links. Most are men. Anglo. And conservative. My head hurts now.
We have political idiots in Canada too (Rob Ford for example) but I don't know what to say about this except wow. Just wow.
ReplyDeleteHippie that I am, I always thought I might move to Austin if they ever legalized poker in Texas. Looking at the slate of candidates that you have presented, it would be a little harder to fit in than I thought.
ReplyDeleteWell I'm gonna vote, guys. My mom's going to cancel out my vote, but I'm still gonna vote. =)
ReplyDeleteps - I'm so glad y'all still read my blog! Thank you!