GREETINGS FELLOW DEMOCRATS!





There will be no more informational articles or editorials on either presidential candidate.

We have received unhappy thoughts from people in both camps and that means it is time to stop. Linda Coats and I have bent over backwards (not easy when you are over 60) to be impartial but it is heating up. The Brazos County Democratic Party has endorsed no one. NO ONE!!! Don’t think that is going to happen. I hope not. We have to support whoever is left standing when it is over...and I mean support. If you don’t get it, look at the opposition and take a deep breath. We need our country back. Either of these 2 wonderful Democrats will be head and shoulders above them...Far, Far above. So be fervent but be temperate and take care of Linda and Maggie.





This Saturday will be the last one to block walk before the primary.

Corbet Perkins will open the office. There will be bags of information in bags just as there have been. They are scattered but really need to be finished. I appreciate all of you that have shown up on Saturday to help make our Democrats and others aware that they need to vote. Meet at the office at 9:45. Pair up or go in groups of 3. Be safe and have fun. You are doing good things. Our phone rings with request for absentee ballots and requests for location of their polling place. You will not have absentee ballots this week. It is too late.





For dormant Texas Democrats, an early spring

John Young
Waco Tribune-Herald
Sunday, February 24, 2008

Look out your back window, Texas. What do you see? I see green. Not waves of green. Not take-out-the-scythe green. But new-growth green.

Democrats are seeing that out their windows. It’s only February. Winter is still with them. But evidence depicts life anew.

They’ve been starved, scorched, steamrollered, left for mulch. Seasons change, though.

You ask, how dead is dead? Zero state office holders. That’s dead. Candidates for statewide office who barely had campaign stationery. That’s dead.

And just when you figure the Ds couldn’t be deader, you look out the window and see . . .

Satellite trucks.

By the thousands they come, along with the eyes of the country for the March 4 primary. Hillary’s last stand? Obama’s coup de grace?

And numbers of voters — who can tell?

Waco state Rep. Jim Dunnam, who heads Democrats in the Texas House, says his party is braced for a primary-day tidal wave not seen in maybe a generation, with voters “who haven’t been on anybody’s mail list, anybody’s phone list.”

The presidential race aside, the Democrats have nominations to award for five state offices. Unlike recent years where a few Democrat nominees spoke to lamp posts and lived under overpasses (I exaggerate only slightly), this group is likely to yield some top-of-the- line individuals.

Like Rick Noriega. He’s running against U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. First Noriega must win the primary against three rivals of considerably lesser heft.

A state representative from Houston for nine years, Noriega had to take a break from lawmaking in 2004 to command an Army Reserve unit in Afghanistan.

Noriega also was Houston Mayor Bill White’s point man when the city dealt with evacuees from hurricane Katrina and Rita.

Against the follicularly splendiforous Cornyn, Noriega should have less hope than he has hair.

But Texans who’ve felt queasy or outraged about what President Bush did to lead our country into Iraq (rest assured, Cornyn has few qualms) might be receptive.

If the presidential race turns into a referendum on Iraq, so might the Texas Senate race.

Other high-profile primary contests for the not-so-dormant Democrats include the Railroad Commission race. In that contest, newspaper endorsements have split between San Antonio City Councilman Art Hall and repeat challenger Dale Henry, a petroleum engineer. Neither candidate looks to be a handmaiden of the oil-and-gas business. That would be a change of pace.

An interesting race between quality foes is for Texas Supreme Court Place 8. Thirteenth Court of Appeals Judge Linda Yanez, out of South Texas, is a very impressive jurist. A former nominee, she has gotten most of the newspaper endorsements. Opponent Susan Criss, a district judge in Galveston, won the endorsement of the Austin American-Statesman.

On the ballot for Supreme Court Place 7, the name Sam Houston appears. Sounds like one of those never-ending tricks on voters by some crank with a great name. Actually, the attorney has impressed many, and has run the table on newspaper endorsements against primary opponent Baltazar Cruz.

Whatever transpires in these down-ballot races, it’s clear that the energy stirred by the presidential race has given the party the most buzz since the days of Ann Richards and Bob Bullock, and before that when the Dems were the dynamos and Republicans were deader than dead.

Clinton vs. Obama is bringing out the new growth the Democrats see in their backyard. That growth is in minority participation, the youth vote and among disgruntled independents. It is accenting the fact that the Democrats can have a strong base of support in Texas if they put strong candidates before the voters.

Even in Republican-dominated Texas, elections are won at the margin. (Rick Perry held onto the governorship with less than 40 percent of the vote.) Seasons change. Ask the Rs, who once were in the outs. Hope always springs eternal for those who don’t give up on the process.

John Young’s column appears Thursday and Sunday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.





Blogger, Sans Pajamas, Rakes Muck and a Prize

By NOAM COHEN
February 25, 2008

Of the many landmarks along a journalist’s career, two are among those that stand out: winning an award and making the government back down. Last week, Joshua Micah Marshall achieved both.

On Tuesday, it was announced that he had won a George Polk Award for legal reporting for coverage of the firing of eight United States attorneys, critics charged under political circumstances. The “tenacious investigative reporting sparked interest by the traditional news media and led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,” the citation read.

Also last week, the Justice Department put him back on its mailing list for reporters with credentials after removing him last year.

Mr. Marshall does not belong to any traditional news organization. Instead, he is creating his own. His Web site, Talking Points Memo (www.talkingpointsmemo.com), is the first Internet-only news operation to receive the Polk (though in 2003, an award for Internet reporting was given to the Center for Public Integrity), and certainly one of the most influential political blogs in the country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/business/media/25marshall.html?ei=5070&en=975a5d3fc4eb6392&ex=1204606800&emc=eta1&pagewanted=print





Brazos County Democratic Party
P.O. Box 4568
Bryan Texas 77805
979-779-5600 Fax 979-779-5601

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
Harry S. Truman, Democrat, President of the United States of America