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Not all the delegates at the Libertarian Party's Presidential Nominating Convention, held in Orlando FL this weekend, are head-over-heels in love with Gary Johnson and William Weld. However, enough delegates have agreed that these two former governors should represent their party in this November's general election.
As the story notes, neither Johnson nor Weld received a majority of delegate votes in the first round of voting for presidential and vice-presidential nominee. A second round pushed each of them just over the 50% mark. Now that the Texas Primary is, at long last, over and done, and the results are not horrible, let's look at some really scary numbers. At least, they're scary if you look at participation by voters as an indicator of a healthy democracy. I hate to break the news to you, but...our democracy is on life support at best—or long dead or never existed, depending on whom you ask.
The percentages below are percentages of all registered voters in Harris County and Texas, not of the respective parties. The number of registered voters in Harris County increased by nearly 34,000 between Super Tuesday and the 24 May runoff, from 2,081,781 to 2,115,482. Update, 13:15 CDT: The runoff rundown from PDiddie.
Here are the results for the Democratic and Republican Primary runoffs elections in Harris County. Henry Cooper should be happy that Ed Gonzalez won his race for Harris County sheriff. Gonzalez now moves on to challenge incumbent Ron Hickman, who by some fluke was selected to replace Adrian Garcia when Garcia resigned to run for mayor in 2015. Angie (Hippolyta) Hayes, Amazon Warrior for All That's Good, made an impassioned plea to her Facebook community to vote for Dakota Carter in the runoff for State Board of Education, District 6. Carter will face incumbent Donna Bahorich, who was unopposed in March's Republican Primary. Several of my friends and comrades here in Greater Houston who have long considered themselves Greens have been participating in the Democratic Primary process this year. This is only partly driven by the potential success of the Sanders campaign; the other reason is the importance of several local races. Some of these folks will continue their involvement today and vote in the local primary runoff. It's not the first time a few Harris County Greens have temporarily abrogated their Greenness to vote in a Democratic primary. In 2008, for example, we had several long-standing Party members who bypassed signing the Green ballot access petition and voted for Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich. Some comrades and allies voted for this young upstart named Obama. In both cases, the motivation was similar to voting for Sen. Bernard Sanders this year: as much to prevent the Clintons from re-occupying the White House as to express support for a more progressive candidate. Henry Cooper has been on the local Green Party's steering committee at least once, and in 2012 he ran for State Representative in his northwest Houston district. This year he not only voted in the primary, but actively campaigned for Sanders. Today he took the time to send out a mass email, which appears below in edited form, regarding the runoffs. Today is the runoff voting on the primaries. Here's a reminder of the text that appears near the top of the primary ballot: "I am a Democrat and understand that I am ineligible to vote or participate in another political party's primary election or convention during this voting year." Because I wanted to participate in the Green conventions this year, I steadfastly refused to get swept up in the Primary madness. In fact, I don't remember the last time I voted in a primary—1994, I believe, although it could have been 1998. Anyone out there remember Garry Mauro, former state land commissioner, Friend of Bill, and 1998's Democratic sacrificial lamb?
Speaking of conventions, if I haven't already linked this page, I'm doing so now. Volunteers are needed to help make this a convention for the ages. In particular, we need a few folks with high-mileage or high-capacity vehicles to shuttle delegates et al between the airports and UH.  Some time in the past week, the first anniversary of the publication of The Earthworm That Blows No Trumpet happened. Just the other day, I got the call from yet another Author Services Representative at iUniverse asking how my book promo is going. (I get a new ASR about every three months.) I had to tell her that I have a job and a life, and I don't have much time to promote the book.
This is a strange thing for a perennially broke dude like me to say: It matters more to me that I have books in print than that I make money off what I write. In order to break even on the cost of publication, I would have to sell a few hundred copies of Earthworm; as of this writing, I have sold just north of a dozen. I still haven't broken even on Small Town after 16 years. No worries. After I die, someone is going to discover my writings, herald them as great examples of Gen X lit from the early 21st century, and my legacy will be assured. (Or, at least, moderately great examples.) Friends, relatives, neighbors, comrades, and casual acquaintances: I'd appreciate it greatly if you would think about the readers in your life who are have birthdays (happens to the best of us) and purchase them copies of Earthworm or Small Town. If you're not sure about my Madd Novel-Writin' Skillz, take a peek at my free online novel Eastern Daylight. I'll be posting the fifth chapter of seven, "August," this weekend. Already? Early voting seems to have come early.
To borrow a quote from Chuck: “Aside from knowing where to vote, there are important guidelines voters should be aware of before voting in a Primary Runoff,” added Stanart. “March 1 Primary voters must vote in the same party’s Primary Runoff Election. Voter[s] may not cross-over between the Primary and the Primary Runoff Election. Eligible voters who did not vote in March may vote in either political party’s Primary Runoff Election, but not both." As for when we can vote to get Stan Stanart's mug off the Harris County Clerk's website, you'll most likely have to wait until 2018.
I almost never do this, but I have received an email with some details on some of the activities planned for the GPUS Presidential Nominating Convention at the University of Houston, 4-7 August, and I'm about to copy & paste some chunks of it into this here blog entry. Click the Read More link below to get right to it.
If you're reading carefully, you'll notice that there's a reference in one of the bullet points below to lunar solar power. If you're not familiar with LSP, here's where you can fix that. Also requiring and deserving some explanation is the paragraph on recognized presidential candidates. There's a link to give you the full skinny on how that works. Only Jill Stein and Bill Kreml have been "recognized," but rest assured that if you favor Kent Mesplay, Darryl Cherney, of Sedinam Kinamo Christin Moyowasifza-Curry, those candidates can still receive delegate votes in the convention (and quite likely will). Speaking of delegates, you do not have to be a delegate to attend this convention, and you certainly don't have to be a delegate to volunteer (HINT-HINT).
I don't always embed YouTube vids. But when I do, they typically have something to do with the Green Party.
Actually, to my recollection, this is the first time I've used the Embed Code tool on Weebly. Sorry if it cuts of the right edge. Also sorry that I didn't post something here before this happened. The video is a 30-minute excerpt of the two-hour Green Party candidates' forum RT America broadcast Monday afternoon. Three Libertarian candidates get their turn Thursday. As of this writing, RT has not posted the entire two hours. Green Party Watch also embedded the excerpted video. Their post also includes a link to RT's page summarizing the issues discussed. Blessed Cecilia, this Sullivan dude does go on!
I honestly could not finish reading Mr. Sullivan's essay, fascinating and insightful though it may be (in places). It kept me alternating between nodding along, nodding off, waking from my snooze to read a little more, and grimacing in disbelief. It gave the muscles in my neck and face a workout. Sometimes I found myself agreeing with a premise but not the conclusion drawn from it; other times, agreeing with a thesis statement but finding the explanation dodgy on factual grounds. Rather than go into detail, I'll let you pick through it and decide for yourself. The important take-away from the essay is not, repeat not, repeat again notnotnotnotnot, that the US will certainly lapse into authoritarian tyranny as a direct or indirect result of expanding democracy too broadly. I don't envision such a collapse, even if presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump becomes our next president. Instead, it is to understand that conditions are ripe for our democracy to self-destruct. |
Blogging Sporadically since 2014Here you will find political campaign-related entries, as well as some about my literature, Houston underground arts, peace & justice, urban cycling, soccer, alt-religion, and other topics. Categories
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