2012 Primary Early Voting In Collin Co.

Texas Democratic Party and Republican Party Primary Election Early Voting started Monday for county and statewide office contests. Early voting will continue through Friday, May 25. Voters can finally pick their party's nominees after a four-month delay caused by extended court battles over redistricting, which, by the way, aren't finally settled yet.

The four-month primary election delay has resulted in voter apathy, which creates a challenge for candidates to get out the vote. Voter apathy can spell trouble for some Republican incumbent candidates facing opposition from Tea Party conservative activists, and create an opportunity for very well organized newcomers.

Obama's Campaign To Launch Holy Grail Of Digital Campaigning

Barack Obama's re-election campaign for the White House is poised to launch its secret weapon: an online tool that the campaign hopes will vastly increase its ability to mobilize volunteers and potential voters across the US.

The new tool, called Dashboard, is being seen as the possible Holy Grail of digital political organizing, one that has eluded campaign chiefs for years. It is already being road-tested in several of the crucial swing states that Obama must hold onto if he is to remain in office.

The technology has been incorporated into the campaign's website, myBarackObama.com, and is expected to be made available to thousands of staff and volunteers across the country within the next 10 days. Its URL can be found through search, though it remains inaccessible to most Obama supporters until the launch.

For the past eight years, online experts working within both parties, but particularly within the Democratic party, have aspired to create the first fully formed digital campaign. That goal may now be within their grasp.

Happy Mother's Day 2012

May 29 Democratic Primary In Collin County

As the May 29 Primary Election looms, 2010 U.S. Congressional candidate John Lingenfelder and County Chair incumbent Shawn Stevens are seeking the office of Democratic Party of Collin County Chair. In this presidential election year, the Democratic Party's County Chair contest is about the only county wide primary contest that anyone is talking about in Collin Co.

Other than the Collin County Democratic Chair contest, there are four statewide Democratic presidential candidates on the countywide ballot - Barack Obama, and three unknown would-be spoilers, who few voters, if any, even know are listed on the ballot.

May 14-25 Early Voting Locations & Hours for May 29 Election.

May 29 Election Day Polling Locations & Sample Ballots.

The Voter Photo ID Law Isn't In Effect.

Find your election precinct number on your new yellow Voter Registration Card.

Find information about statewide candidates in the LWV Voter's Guide.

Houston PBS - Conversations with Candidates for U.S. Senate: Parts One, Two, Three, and Four

Four statewide Democratic candidates, including former state Rep. Paul Sadler of Henderson and Sean Hubbard, are also on the countywide ballot running for retiring Kay Bailey Hutchison's U.S. Senate seat. Hubbard is a first-time candidate who worked on Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2008. But, regrettably, Sadler, Hubbard, and the other two Democratic candidates for Hutchison's U.S. Senate seat are not widely known, so voter interest is low on that ballot position, too.

Katherine Savers McGovern and Walter Hofheinz are on the ballot for congressional district 32. The winner will challenge Republican incumbent and Tea Party favorite Pete Sessions in the general election this November for his congressional seat. District 32 encompasses election precincts in northern Dallas County, plus six southeastern area Collin Co. precincts.

The remainder of the five Democratic primary ballot styles, tailored to the county's 202 election precincts, are made up of uncontested single person ballot positions and three ballot proposition survey questions. The Collin Co. Republican Party has 36 primary ballot styles since that party has primary candidates running for every local and statewide elected office.

As Matt Taibbi said in a Rolling Stone article, "The apathy factor in American presidential politics this year has seemingly never been higher."

Tx State Sen. Ellis: Make Clear The Voter Photo ID Law Isn't In Effect

State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, on Friday asked the Texas Secretary of State to make clear that the voter photo ID requirement will not be in effect for the May 29 primary.

Legislation passed in 2011 (SB 14) requires that voters present one of a select group of government issued photo ID, such as a driver’s license, passport or military ID, before casting a ballot.

The U.S. Department of Justice rejected the state’s application for preclearance of the law in March, claiming the state did not prove that the law would not have a discriminatory effect on minority voters.

The voter photo ID law is currently tied up in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. with the earliest possible trial date, according to court proceedings, not until July – and that is only if the State of Texas makes certain discovery document available this week.

A statement, as specified by the Texas Secretary of State, concerning identification requirements on the back of new 2012-13 Voter Registration Cards can be misinterpreted to mean that voters must present select government issue photo identification, as specified in SB14, in order to vote in the primary election.

Related:

• Voter Registration Card 2012-13
• Texas Voter Photo ID FAQ

When Same-Sex Marriage Was a Christian Rite

Contrary to myth, Christianity's concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual.

Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the "Office of Same-Sex Union" (10th and 11th century), and the "Order for Uniting Two Men" (11th and 12th century).

These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiated in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards. These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE) and his companion John.

Read the full story @ Anthropologist Live Journal

Listen to NPR's interview with Pew Research Center's Andrew Kohut about the steady shift toward acceptance on the same-sex marriage social issue, May 11. (4:12)

President Obama announced his support for gay marriage this week after a long consideration saying his views were "evolving." The public's view of gay marriage has changed over the past several decades, with growing support.

In 1996, Americans opposed gay marriage by 65% to 27%, but today the public is more evenly split, with 47% in favor and 43% opposed.

Related:

• Pew Research Center's Michael Dimock on "The Diane Rehm Show"
• Andrew Kohut: The Electorate and Gay Marriage

Campaign Web Wars 2.0 - Republicans Strike Back

Raw Story

Tired of playing catch-up to the Obama Internet juggernaut, Republicans have rolled out a one-stop online shop for conservative activism which they hope will help them capture the White House.

The Social Victory Center, which launched this week and allows Republicans to do everything from distribute campaign materials to ring up undecided voters in battleground states like Ohio, has been craftily embedded in the most comprehensive social media landscape of them all: Facebook.

Call it the Republican National Committee’s newest weapon in campaign web wars 2.0, the virtual battlefield of the 2012 election. But is Democratic President Barack Obama’s huge advantage in Facebook, Twitter, digital advertising and online fundraising already unassailable?

President Obama's Campaign Kickoff

In back-to-back campaign rallies at Ohio State University and Virginia Commonwealth University on Saturday, President Barack Obama was introduced in Columbus and again in Richmond by first lady Michelle Obama. Thousands cheered and waved signs that read "Forward" as President Obama moved to speak to the assembled crowd.

President Obama in Columbus, Ohio on Saturday

During his remarks the president called Mitt Romney a willing and eager "rubber stamp" for conservative Republicans in Congress and an agenda to cut taxes for the rich, reduce spending on education and Medicare and enhance power that big banks and insurers hold over consumers.

Romney "doesn't seem to understand that maximizing profits by whatever means necessary, whether it's through layoffs or outsourcing or tax avoidance, union busting, might not always be good for the average American or for the American economy," the president said.

Romney and his "friends in Congress think the same bad ideas will lead to a different result or they're just hoping you won't remember what happened the last time you tried it their way. Obama said his rival was merely doing the bidding of the conservative power brokers and has little understanding of the struggles of average Americans. "Why else would he want to cut his own taxes while raising them for 18 million Americans," said Pres. Obama of the Republican presumptive presidential nominee.

"When people ask you what this election is about, you tell them it is still about hope. You tell them it is still about change," he said. It was a rebuttal to Romney's campaign, which has lately taken to mocking Obama's 2008 campaign mantra as "hype and blame."

"The economy is still facing headwinds and it will take sustained persistent efforts, yours and mine, for America to fully recover," the president said. He noted that jobs are being created and urged his audience not to give in to what he predicted would be negative campaign commercials designed to "exploit frustrations."

"Over and over again they'll tell you that America is down and out and they'll tell you who to blame and ask if you're better off than the worst crisis in our lifetime," he said. "The real question ... is not just about how we're doing today but how we'll be doing tomorrow."

WTF, GOP?

Mother Jones

Hey, GOP? A bit of simple math: Women are 51 percent of the population and 54 percent of voters.

The gender gap between Republicans and Democrats, in presidential elections, has historically ranged from 4 to 11 percent; in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, it was 8 percent in 2008.

Fifty-five percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Sixty-three percent support requiring health plans to include no-cost birth control; 67 percent of independent women do. And a staggering 77 percent of Americans think a petty argument over contraception has no place in the national debate.

"Republicans being against sex is not good," one GOP strategist told Maureen Dowd. "Sex is popular."

This sanctimony is not playing as part of the genuine, profound disagreement between (and, guess what, among) liberals and conservatives about whether and when abortion should be legal.

It's playing as needlessly humiliating women with invasive procedures, as denying people the choice of when and whether to have kids, and, frankly, as straight-up slut-shaming puritanism (recall Rick Santorum admonishing married couples that it's not okay to have sex unless it's "procreative").

Let's have GOP strategist Alex Castellanos bring it home: "Republicans being against sex is not good," he told Maureen Dowd. "Sex is popular."

Not content to enrage people who like sex? Well, party of Lincoln, you've also bullied Latinos, a giant, socially conservative, upwardly mobile, and demographically growing bloc that many analysts see as key to securing the White House—and that as recently as 2004 swung 42 percent for George W. Bush. That was before GOP lawmakers spearheaded some 160 punitive anti-immigration bills in the last two years. Before Mitt Romney—whose own forebears fled to Mexico to avoid anti-polygamy laws—bent over backward to embrace such "self-deportation" measures. Before Rick Santorum demanded that Puerto Ricans switch to English. These days no more than 14 percent of likely Latino voters can see themselves casting a ballot for any of the GOP candidates. Hasta la vista, Nevada!

No one expected you to make nice with gays and their families. Ditto African Americans, Muslims, teachers, climate scientists. But cops? Firefighters? Every other middle-class independent who's watching his kid's school fire the lunch ladies? Seriously?

Read the full story @ Mother Jones

"Sen. Cornyn and Texas’ Congressional Delegation Has Met The Enemy, And It Is Planned Parenthood" @ Texas Observer by Eileen Smith

Planned Parenthood Again Prevails In Suit Against Texas Republican's War on Women

Fifth Circuit Judge Jerry Smith agreed Friday that there's sufficient evidence the state's law banning Planned Parenthood from participating in the state's Women's Health Program is unconstitutional.

Judge Jerry Smith today let stand an injunction issued by District Judge Lee Yeakel in Austin on Monday that blocks Texas from enforcing the law championed by Gov. Rick Perry and passed by the Republican dominated Texas legislature in 2011.

Smith had stayed the injunction earlier this week so he could review the law.

The law passed by the Republican-controlled 2011 Legislature forbids state agencies from providing funds to an organization affiliated with abortion providers. Eight Planned Parenthood clinics that do not provide abortions sued the state.

Texas officials have said that if the state is forced to include Planned Parenthood, they'll likely totally shutter the program that provides basic health care and contraceptives to 130,000 poor women.

When the Texas Tribune asked Texas state Rep. Wayne Christian (R-Nacogdoches), a supporter of the family planning cuts, if this was a war on birth control, he said: “Well of course this is a war on birth control and abortions and everything.”

Family planning clinics are routinely referred to by many Republican lawmakers across the U.S. as “abortion clinics” because many social conservative Republicans say contraceptive use is the same as abortion. On Thursday, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and his team of state lawyers asked a federal appeals court to block U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel's Monday decision that required the state to continue funding Planned Parenthood. In his request for an emergency stay, Abbott analogized Planned Parenthood to a terrorist organization.

Cecile Richards, President of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund said in a statement:

"This case isn't about Planned Parenthood - it's about the women who rely on Planned Parenthood for cancer screenings, birth control, and well-woman exams.

"Governor Perry has already thrown 160,000 women off of health care for partisan political reasons - now there will be more to come. Mitt Romney would supersize what's happening in Texas and try to block women's access to lifesaving health care nationwide.

"Planned Parenthood's doors are open today and they'll be open tomorrow. We won't let politics interfere with the health care that nearly three million people a year rely on Planned Parenthood for in Texas and around the country."

Related:

• Women's Health Care Suffers As Republicans Slash Funding

Using Social Media To Fact Check Attack Ads

The Koch brothers recently launched a $6.1 million attack ad against the Obama administration which quickly received a "Pants on Fire" rating from PolitiFact. As an example of one of the ways the Obama campaign will use the YouTube social media channel, here's how the Obama campaign responded to the Koch attack ad:

Democrats Paul Sadler and Sean Hubbard Join US Senate Candidate Debate

Texas Tribune

Tonight, the Democrats vying for Kay Bailey Hutchison's U.S. Senate seat may finally steal a sliver of the spotlight.

Paul Sadler and Sean Hubbard, two of the four Democrats running for the seat, will join the race's four major Republican contenders at a forum in Houston starting at 7 p.m.

Though the Republicans in the race have been fighting for months and raising millions of dollars, Democrats — without a marquee candidate — have struggled mightily to attract money and attention. The party hasn't won statewide office since 1994, and the candidates so far have struggled to meet even low expectations: Sadler, who so far has led the Democrats in fundraising, reported collecting just $72,800 in the year's first quarter — an amount he called "absolutely shocking."

As the Tribune's Aman Batheja notes, both Sadler, a former state representative from Henderson, and Hubbard, a 31-year-old who recently left a sales and billing job, have made fighting the influence of Super PACs a major component of their campaigns.

Read the full story @ Texas Tribune.