The Texas Blue: News
Governor's Mansion Damaged In Fire
Sun, 06/08/2008 - 8:12am
A major fire destroyed parts of the governor's mansion in downtown Austin earlier this morning.
Clinton Concedes, Time For Unity
Sat, 06/07/2008 - 11:41am
We were watching the speech from the floor, and there were some occasional feed outages. The most striking moment for me was a spontaneous outbreak of a chant.
Nominations and State Chair Candidates
Sat, 06/07/2008 - 10:17am
The Nominations Committee is in recess, having just given 24 of 29 votes to Boyd Richie. Some extraordinary things just happened in this room, not the least of which is that Chairman Richie just answered questions for an hour and picked up a few votes, and he was able to do that while in the middle of running the largest TDP state convention in modern history. More on this after the jump.
Friday In Retrospect
Sat, 06/07/2008 - 4:47am
As is usual for most Convention Fridays, yesterday seemed like it started an impossibly long time ago. We had some national political figures roar through town, we had Kirk Watson elected permanent chair of the convention, and we had the obligatory committee problems that resulted in a late night for everyone.
(But hey, how about Natomi Austin's Star Spangled Banner? I am totally friends with her. I was blown away.)
New Delegates
Fri, 06/06/2008 - 5:56pm
Boyd just asked all of the new first time delegates to stand up. The ratio can only be described as 'most'.
Dispatches from the Sunflower State
Fri, 06/06/2008 - 4:32pm
Howdy folks! While Josh and George keep you up-to-date on the goings on in Austin, I'm writing to you today from Lawrence, Kansas. While I am here for decidedly unpolitical reasons, I don't think that someone who is fascinated with Texas politics can avoid being fascinated with Kansas politics. While Kansas is thought of as a deeply red state, it has a female Democratic Governor (Kathleen Sebelius) and two of Kansas' four seats in the House of Representatives are held by Democrats Nancy Boyda and Dennis Moore.
Friday Vignettes
Fri, 06/06/2008 - 3:25pm
An ongoing collection of things seen and heard throughout Friday.
The TEC Doesn't Take Stickers
Fri, 06/06/2008 - 12:32pm
So like Josh mentioned, when David Van Os stickers are making their way around the floor of the convention, it's pretty much official that he's running for chair. As that's a public statement of candidacy, the Texas Ethics Commission would likely think so too. So should there be concern that a TEC spokesman confirmed that they have not received Van Os' filing?
Making Friends and Influencing People
Fri, 06/06/2008 - 10:15am
The convention hasn't been on for 24 hours yet and I have already been able to see much of the Democratic candidates for state rep, state senate, and for Congress. I've been duly impressed.