Elections 2010: General election day: “On with the show, this is it!” Vote!

The candidates, pundits and the rest of the gifted and talented have spoken. All that’s left for you to do, if you haven’t already, is----vote! It’s raining and thundering as I write this and for elections that doesn’t bode well for the Democratic party. Then again, not much does these days. The folk are riled, pissy, amnesic and disoriented. Now you know why Alexander Hamilton called them what he did.

There are few certainties for Elections 2010. Even the gifted and talented professionals are hedging their bets as if they had experience working with John Paulson on Wall Street.

It is likely that not all of the doom and gloom (for the Democrats and by extension the nation) that has been predicted will come to pass at the end of today. There are signs here and there that the usually too cerebral, too laid back lucidly rational are aware of the predicament they (and by extension the republic) face. If that group isn’t too worn from the Jon Stewart assembly maybe they’ll make it to the polls.

In Bexar County Karl Rove’s (GOP)er character-assassination hit squad a/k/a Crossroad’s GPS is heavily financing several GOPer candidates. The Rove and company infomercial attack ads being funded are credulity straining diatribe that while holding no water when tested at factcheck.org are sure to fire up compassionate conservative religiosities who will certainly not fact check. It’s easier to believe distortions and outright lies.

The Ciro Rodriguez (DEM) and Francisco Canseco, (GOP)er race is probably still too close to call but it is likely that Ciro will pull it off.

The Bexar County District Attorney race pits two inapposite mindsets. Nico Lahood (DEM) a charismatic, articulate moderate voice is giving long-time (GOP)er DA Susan Reed a run for her money. Reed would be more at home in the heavily conservative Euro Anglo Hill Country dispensing “Hill Country justice.” In Bexar County she has gone out of her way to deprive minorities of civil liberties and to ignore progressive movements such as Veteran’s Court. Lahood has broadbased endorsement and it appears that will translate into a victory for the newcomer.

Despite the fact that Bexar County has a considerable Hispanic population there is no certainty the fine Hispanic folk will vote progressive with the notable exceptions listed above.

Most of the other Bexar County races are foregone conclusions. What can I tell you about the nation’s 7^th largest city---it’s willing to put almost anyone in the mayor’s office. Fortunately, the mayor’s office is a weak one, window dressing---not much but window dressing. (The real power is in the hands of the City Manager, thank goodness). So the mayor-thing is what the founders feared a popularity contest. “Tyranny by majority.”

When minorities are treated with impunity and subjected to the whims of the majority that is one thing. It is quite another when the minority---now the majority keep the same policies in place. These are policies that send more high school aged Hispanic young men to prison than college, endorse an apartheid public education system, fight the first chance for affordable healthcare and are, by god, determined to keep it that way because the Wholly Trinity (government, big business and organized religion) tells them it’s the right thing to do.

Be that as it may---all that can be done has been. Time to get on with it.

I thought it appropriate to send you off with what should be the theme song for Elections 2010!

  

Overture, curtains, lights,
This is it, the night of nights
No more rehearsing and nursing a part
We know every part by heart
Overture, curtains, lights
This is it, you'll hit the heights
And oh what heights we'll hit
On with the show this is it

Tonight what heights we'll hit
On with the show this is it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUKADwTqkBQ

From Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way…

Hasta Siempre,

More:

Bexar County Candidates at a glance
http://mysapolitics.com/election.php/2010/01/06/current-election-candidates-list-2010   

Bexar County Elections Department
http://www.co.bexar.tx.us/elections/Links/links.html

Bexar County Democratic Party
http://www.bexardemocrats.org/

Bexar County Republican Party
http://www.bexargop.org/calendar.php

League of Women Voters of Texas
http://www.lwvtexas.org/

Fight Night: What to watch in Tuesday's elections

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101101/ap_on_el_ge/us_watching_the_returns

LaHood Looking for Redemption-- Yami Virgin

http://www.foxsanantonio.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/vid_3838.shtml

God's Voters

http://www.texasobserver.org/purpletexas/gods-voters

Elections 2010: a systemic pattern of disenfranchisement, racism and bigotry “American as cherry pie”
http://www.examiner.com/bexar-county-elections-2010-in-san-antonio/a-systemic-pattern-of-disenfranchisement-racism-and-bigotry-american-as-cherry-pie

The Center for Public Integrity
http://www.publicintegrity.org/

Think Progress
http://thinkprogress.org/

Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
http://www.amazon.com/Winner-Take-All-Politics-Washington-Richer-Turned/dp/1416588698

Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity
www.amazon.com/Good-Capitalism-Economics-Growth-Prosperity/dp/0300158327/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285203922&sr=1-1

13 Bankers
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307379051

Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future
http://www.amazon.com/Aftershock-Next-Economy-Americas-Future/dp/0307592812/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1285922323&sr=1-1

Bill Moyers on Plutonomy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSoglDcRbAg

On with the show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUKADwTqkBQ