Republicans Give Up...

...on defeating Chet Edwards, anyway. After dispatching Arlene Wohlgemuth and annihilating the hapless Van Taylor, it's pretty clear that Chet couldn't be dislodged from this seat with dynamite. Hopefully, he will still run his usual strenuous campaign and offer some coattails to local Democrats, maybe even carry Johnson County this time (having fallen less than 10 votes short last go-round). And now that he's about as secure as you can get in Congress, he won't feel the need to cave on issues like Bankruptcy "reform."

H/T the Great and Powerful Kos

Chet Takes Johnson County?

Chet Edwards and a future member of Congress at the Johnson County Democratic Convention


With 83% of the total vote in, Chet is running away with it at 59% and is carrying every single county except for Hood. Even more astonishing, though, with 66% of the vote counted, he's carrying Johnson County 51% to 47% for Vancampen. If this holds, he'll be the first Democrat to win this county since (I believe) 1998.

UPDATE: Sadly, no. CNN reports that Chet lost Johnson County to Vancampen by 8 votes, still a remarkable achievement considering he didn't even break 40% in the last election. The Johnson County Elections site confirms the figures, as well as the fact that no other Democrats even came close to winning. More analysis of these results later, but they are frankly pretty grim for any prospects of this becoming a two-party county anytime soon.

B(F)logging the Debate

Small crowd at the Don Smith Special Events Center, maybe 200, all partisans of one side or the other. Seemed to be evenly divided, based upon lapel stickers and t-shirts. Both candidates wore virtually identical charcoal-gray suits. Van Taylor grips the podium for dear life and has a perennial deer-in-the-headlights look.

Shorter Van Taylor: I'm a Marine! And a hero! There's too much partisanship in Washington and it's all the fault of liberal cut and run Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, whom my opponent loves and plans to marry. America faces many challenges, and they are all the fault of gay terrorist illegal aliens who want to adopt. Grover Norquist loves me so you should, too! If you hate America, vote for my opponent.

Shorter Chet Edwards: I'm the only grown-up in this race and I've actually done my homework. Plus, veterans and normally Right-Wing special interest groups love me, thus showing how bipartisan I am. And I bring home the bacon for Johnson County. The Dallas Morning News says my opponent is a nitwit.

My observations: Van Taylor looks even younger in person, maybe 25. When you consider that Chet (at 51) could easily pass for 40+, it just emphasizes his immaturity. Vancampen was considerably better behaved than at the first debate, except towards the end, when he started to get cranky. Perhaps he missed his nap. You would've thought that sometime between the first debate and now, Vancampen would've bothered to read his own party's budget resolution, given that Chet has been relentlessly flogging him with it. Or at the very least, someone on his crack staff might've come up with a better response than "I didn't read it. There are too many bills to read." Yeah, and math is hard. Taylor answered "illegal aliens!" or "homosexual adoption!" to every question but his name. He is opposed to free health care for illegal aliens (i.e., the emergency room) but he wants them to have "dignity." Presumably, he'd like them to die with dignity in the hospital parking lot. Taylor also hates runaway government spending. Voters should send a message to stop runaway government spending by electing...more Republicans like the ones who've been writing the budgets for the last twelve years? The only applause of the evening came when Taylor made the mistake of claiming Chet was against Jesus. It was such an incredibly bone-headed manuever, you'd almost think Chet was paying him off.

Further impressions later on. In the meantime, Somervell County Salon has some interesting bits on Vancampen's pedigree. Let's see, a thin-skinned, arrogant trust-fund baby who owes everything in life to family connections? Does this sound familiar?

UPDATE: Capitol Annex has more fallout from the debate.

UPDATE II: Via BOR, the NRCC raises the white flag and cancels its ad buys for CD-17.

Chet Up, Van Down!

Chet Edwards has now racked up endorsements from both the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and polling data suggests he has a commanding lead. Significantly, the usually reliably Right-Wing DMN went out of its way to not only praise Chet, but bash Vancampen as a rich, carpetbagging, arrogant, light-weight doofus willing to stoop to naked racism to get elected. I will be extremely curious to see how well Chet does in Johnson County, and whether he'll have any coattails for downballot races.

The (Not So) Great Debates

Governor
Chris Bell: boring, yet earnest and the only grown-up on the stage. Had a couple of good lines about running against three Republicans and how Texans should be horrified that Rick Perry is already planning to run again in 2010. Extra credit for knowing that the Battle of the Alamo was in 1836.
Kinky Friedman: Ignorant beyond all belief, unfunny and pissy when asked questions, sort of like Bill Clements with a moustache. Endorsed DECLARING MARTIAL LAW on the Border within the first 5 minutes of the debate, thereby putting him to the right of the Minutemen. Will white liberals finally figure out this guy is a joke and a bad one at that?
Rick Perry: As prepackaged as Velveeta. Slick, smarmy, arrogant and condescending, especially when talking down to farmers who oppose the Pave Texas Corridor.
Carole Keeton Strayhorn: Her godawful attempt at impersonating Ann Richards is wearing thin. Manages to work the word "grandma" into every single bloody sentence that she shouts out like a tourist trying to make the locals understand English. Badly flubbed a simple question: who is the President of Mexico?

US House, District 17
Nicholas Vancampen Taylor: Came across like the preening, self-important College Republican he is, with the delivery of some weenie on a high school debate team. I lost track of how many times he managed to sneer the words "liberal," "San Francisco," "illegal aliens" and "Nancy Pelosi." Painfully obvious that he is being prepped with flash cards and is incapable of forming a complete sentence without bullet points. Spent a large amount of time bashing the "out of control" spending in Washington, DC. Uh, Nicky? Which party has been in control of Congress since 1994? Also, probably not a good idea to trumpet your ignorance in not being "at all familiar" with the most recent budget resolutions.
Chet Edwards: Earnest, friendly and obviously well-prepared while still maintaining his usual "aw shucks" demeanor. Managed to look genuinely hurt and disappointed that Vancampen wouldn't agree to stop the negative ads. I'll be interested to see how much he improves his vote total over 2004.

Sympathy for the Devil

Kevin Drum over at Washington Monthly notes outraged Ohio Democrats claiming they won't support Sherrod Brown or Ted Strickland because they voted for the White House Torture and Permanent Detention Act.
We've had a similar meme running through the party here over Chet Edwards, finally culminating in:

Chet is a practically Republican. He votes with Democrats only on the amendments to resolutions, but he votes with Republicans 80% of the time on passage (when it actually counts). This is one of many reasons why I will not vote for him! I am a Democrat, and I will only vote for people that support a Democratic agenda. Chet Edwards and Van Taylor do not meet this criteria thus, I will leave this portion of my ballot blank on November 7th. I encourage real Democrats, and people that believe in the Democratic party principals (not just flag wavers) to do the same.
LEAVE IT BLANK!!!!


My response:

Then you are voting FOR Nicholas Vancampen Taylor and if he wins, we will have YOU to thank, just like we have that preening narcissist Ralph Nader to thank for George W. Bush.
And, second, I resent your statement that I am somehow not a "real Democrat" because I choose to live in the real world of politics and not some liberal Candyland. There are several "real Democrats" on this list who were nowhere to be seen when I was running for office and whose sole contribution to the party appears to be sitting in the cheap seats and throwing spitballs. By your standard, we should've refused to vote for Ralph Yaborough because he started out supporting LBJ on Vietnam or refused to vote for JFK because he supported nuclear testing or refused to vote for Ann Richards because she supported the death penalty. If you cannot accept the basic reality that politics requires compromise, then electoral politics is not for you. I recommend blogging, where you can happily spend all day criticizing while the rest of us actually go out and win elections.

Once again, Democrats threaten to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Do you not think that Karl Rove (the evil genius) planned this vote? If Democrats vote AGAINST it, then the GOP blasts them as "soft on terror." If they vote FOR it, then pissy liberals stay home. Either way, Karl Rove wins. Friends, I have said it before and I will say it again: in politics, winning isn't everything, it's the ONLY thing. Unless we win control of (at least) the House, the GOP will continue its agenda of eradicating the Constitution. If you withhold your vote from Chet Edwards, make no mistake: you are voting FOR that weasely, crypto-fascist ankle-biter, Nicholas Vancampen Taylor.

Desperately Seeking Nicholas Vancampen Taylor

In case you were wondering how long it would take Nicholas Vancampen Taylor's flailing, collapsing campaign to pull out the race card, wonder no more. Obviously, young Vancampen can't just come right out and say "Boo! Mexicans are coming to steal the land we stole from the Indians! Boo! Be afraid!" so instead, he uses votes on pointless amendments flung by the ironically pro-secessionist race-baiter Tom Tancredo to make fraudulent attacks on Chet Edwards. Pathetic. At least Arlene Wohlgemuth went down in flames with a little of her dignity intact.

Van Taylor Pwned. Film at Eleven

Common Sense has more, including transcripts, of Van Carpetbagger's humiliating performance on Hardball. Burnt Orange Report has the video. Chet Edwards should run ads with this clip and this clip only, other than the "I endorse this message" tag at the end.

Free Campaign Advice for Van Taylor...

...if you can't run with the big dogs, stay under the porch. Video of Taylor getting schooled by Chris Matthews and Paul Hackett, courtesy of Crooks & Liars. Commentary by dday at DailyKos.

Chet Edwards Puts His Money Where His Mouth Is

After criticizing millionaire political dilettente Van Taylor for declining to inform us lowly peasants just how much his inheirited Exxon Mobil stock is worth, Cong. Chet Edwards has released a detailed accounting of his own (much smaller) finances. Good on him! Such exacting disclosure should be mandatory for all office holders and candidates.

Mr. Popularity

Fewer than 100 people showed up in Waco to hear Vice President Dick Cheney stump for congressional candidate Van Taylor, much less than the 400 who came in 2004 when he campaigned for Arlene Wohlgemuth. In all fairness, though, back then, people weren't generally afraid that Cheney might shoot them...