Thursday Roundup: More and Other Democrats

In the post for this week's episode of Who's Blue, I referred to Sam Coats and Don Hill as "two Democratic candidates in the non-partisan race for Dallas City Mayor." Several people have pointed out, since yesterday, that Dallas City Councilman Ed Oakley is also a Democrat, and is also running for Mayor, so I am glad we didn't say that Coats and Hill were the only Democrats. As always, visit every candidate, judiciously, and remember to vote in your city elections.

A few weeks ago, I asked State Representative Pete Gallego if there would be a special session this year. He said that he didn't think so, that the Republicans have likely learned their lesson about special sessions. I agreed with him — the answer made total sense. So I was surprised to hear that Perry is getting ready for just such an event, this one over toll roads and transportation. O, special sessions, how you complicate things yet give us more to write about in the summer months. I wonder if this has something to do with Perry wanting to flex a little after all his beatings over the last few months.

This is an interesting political play on the part of Mitt Romney — he accused Al Sharpton of bigotry. The argument is hard to reconstruct with any justice, but it boils down to a quote by Sharpton from a debate he had with Christopher Hitchens, an author and atheist. In reference to Romney, Sharpton said, "those that really believe in God will defeat him anyway, so don’t worry about that." He claims he was taken out of context, etc., so forth. My feeling is that this is a weird fight for Romney to pick, especially now.

Speaking of weird fights to pick, Giuliani is unabashedly in favor of abortion rights, and he plans to tell you so. His people seem to feel like the primary calendar is now so arranged as to give him a path to the nomination in which very socially conservative states don't matter as much. This is an odd thing for a Republican to do, obviously, but on further consideration it makes sense for Giuliani. He won't win the socially conservative vote anyways, so he might as well push forward on what could potentially be viewed as his merits. Maybe he'll get some people in the middle for what he loses on the far right.

The Politico brings you something that might lead you to picking weird fights — it presents a guide to befriending bloggers. It is as if bloggers are domesticated animals or some exotic plant, the care and feeding of which requires tips and tricks for maximization. I wonder if in grocery stores around D.C. there will someday be impulse-buy handbooks in the checkout line: "How To Make Your Blogger Happy!" will sit right next to "101 Cute Kittens" and "Cookie Recipes For Fall."

Carl Leubsdorf at the Morning News makes a few comments about Cornyn and the Senate race, which includes brief takes on both Nick Lampson and Mikal Watts. He also mentions John Sharp, who hasn't been brought up lately, but is still a consideration.

The House bill that would have denied in-state tuition to illegal immigrants died in the House last night, and I wonder if it being killed on a technicality rather than getting to an actual vote signifies that there was less support for it than some of the members could admit. After all, it was a Republican who put it down: Representative Merritt from Longview.

Reports are circulating now about a small, intimate get-together at the White House, at which moderate members of the Republican congressional delegation informed President Bush that Iraq has to start working, by fall at the latest, or they will bail out on him and the war. This is bad for President Bush, and the open discussion about details from this closed meeting indicates that an open revolt among what may turn out to be a majority of the GOP is underway. Everyone on that side of things at the federal level knows how support of the war is playing with the mainstream of the American public, and they aren't taking that lightly.

Finally, the recent series of tornadoes in Kansas revealed that the dispersal of National Guard resources to Iraq from that state has impaired its ability to properly recover from natural disasters. Emergency management officials in Texas are concerned that we may end up in the same boat. With the first named storm of this year predating the actual beginning of hurricane season, this might be a salient issue.