Thursday, November 28, 2013

14 Years

14 years.  Unless someone else files on Dec. 9, this will be the first time Democrats have had 2 elected officials running for executive statewide office since 2002.  Democrats have had elected officials run for the U.S. Senate and the statewide judiciary, but it has been 14 years since at least 2 incumbent officials have attempted to make the leap to one of the statewide executive offices (Gov., Lite Gov, AG, Comptroller, Land Comm, Ag Comm, Railroad Commission).  Just to be clear, when I say elected official I mean someone who is currently in office and running for another.

We've had former officials run in the past:
2010 - Bill White and Hector Uribe
2006 - Chris Bell, Fred Head, VaLinda Hathcox
2002 - John Sharp and Kirk Watson

Elected officials who ran:
2014 - Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte
2002 - David Bernsen and Tom Ramsay

If Sen. Carlos Uresti had filed for Attorney General, we could go even further back.  The last time Democrats had at least 3 elected officials try for statewide executive office was 1998: Garry Maruo, John Sharp, Richard Raymond, and Pete Patterson.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Politifact vs. ABC News (Aussie)

Just an observation.

Politifact is the outfit that attempts to rate statements politicians, public figures, etc., in terms of their truthfulness.

Politifact's Truth-O-Meter has the following levels:
True
Mostly True
Half True
Mostly False
False
Pants on Fire!
No Flip
Half Flip
Full Flip

The flips are primarily in relation to the presidential campaign.

What's interesting is that in Australia, ABC News created a similar type of Truth-O-Meter in conjunction with the most recent federal election called Fact Check.  There are some differences.  ABC has three types of verdicts: Red, In Between, and Green.

For the Red verdicts we have the following results: Figure Not Credible, Implausible, Improbable, Incorrect, Misleading, Spin, Unsubstantiated, Wrong.

For the In Between verdicts: Cherrypicking, Close to the Mark, Debatable, Doubtful, Exaggerated, Improbable, In the Ballpark, Incomplete, Inflated, Lawyers' Picnic, Not the Full Story, Out of Context, Outdated, Overblown, Overreach, Oversimplified, Overstated, Speculation, Splitting Hairs, Unenforceable, Unlikely, Unsound, Unsubstantiated, Unverifiable, Yes but More to It.

For the Green verdicts: Accurate, Checks Out, Close to the Mark, Correct, Fair Bet, In the Ballpark, On the Money, Stacks Up, Unverifiable, Yes but More to It.

I don't know if nuanced is the right word, but at the very least ABC does have a wider vocabulary.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Bexar County DA: 3 Way Democratic Primary?

Democrats may be faced with a plethora of choices for DA.

We have 1 announced candidate, attorney Therese Huntzinger, 1 semi-announced candidate, Judge Phil Kazen.

The third?

Attorney and 2010 candidate Nico LaHood.  We heard this mentioned over the weekend, but apparently LaHood announced it tonight at an event.