Category Archives: Election 2009

Chron poll: Brown leads

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Campos teased the news earlier today, and now the story is up: Peter Brown leads in a new Zogby poll of the Mayor’s race. According to the poll, Brown leads the field with 23.8 percent of the vote, followed by … Continue reading →

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Endorsement watch: At Large

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Having dispatched with the District Council races yesterday, the Chron continues with the schedule I’d hoped they’d follow by making their endorsements in the At Large races. As I thought, they went with incumbents Sue Lovell in #2 and Jolanda … Continue reading →

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Correction!

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Now that everyone has had a chance to look over everyone else’s campaign finance reports, a number of candidates have made some corrections to their reports. Former City Attorney Gene Locke and City Controller Annise Parker received money from donors … Continue reading →

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Where to find the candidates on YouTube

Posted on October 16, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

I’ve mentioned candidate videos on here a few times, and it occurs to me that I ought to just do a search through YouTube to see what’s out there for the people running in this election. So here you have … Continue reading →

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Endorsement watch: ABCDEFG

Posted on October 16, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

I’ve been hard on the Chron lately for being so lackadaisical about getting to some of their endorsements. In my opinion, they should all be done before Early Voting begins, or else their value erodes. So I’m pleased to see … Continue reading →

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Opposition to Prop 4

Posted on October 16, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Prop 4, the Tier 1 Universities constitutional amendment, has gotten a lot of support across the spectrum. Any high-profile amendment will always have some opposition, however, and Prop 4 no exception. A proposed constitutional amendment to help the University of … Continue reading →

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Endorsement watch: Seven of eight

Posted on October 16, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

I didn’t get around to this yesterday, but the Chron endorsed nearly all of the remaining Constitutional amendments by giving its thumbs-up to propositions 2, 3, and 5 and 1, 6, 7, and 8. From the former: Proposition 2 would … Continue reading →

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Election tidbits for 10/15

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Just a few quickies… – Super Neighborhood 22 will be holding a candidate forum for At Large positions 2 and 5 this coming Monday: According to the email I got on this, CM Melissa Noriega will also be present. – … Continue reading →

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Today the HCDE, tomorrow the world!

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Remember those Cy-Fair school board candidates I mentioned last week? Turns out they each have Facebook groups supporting their candidacies. A brief look at them reveals a couple of interesting things. One is that spelling, or at least spell-checking, is … Continue reading →

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What the candidates say about mobility

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

The Citizens Transportation Coalition has done a candidate questionnaire every election in which the hopefuls are asked a bunch of questions about various transportation-related topics. This year is no exception, and as always there are a lot of detailed questions … Continue reading →

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Roy gets his moment in the sun

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s the Chron overview of Roy Morales, which like the Locke and Brown stories was done with a bit of gauze over the lens. Well, except for the bit where they quoted those mean ol’ bloggers. Political observers and bloggers … Continue reading →

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Interview with City Controller Annise Parker

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

We wrap up our 2009 interview season with a conversation with Annise Parker. Parker is serving her third term as Houston City Controller, having served three terms as an At Large Council Member before that. She is a native Houstonian … Continue reading →

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Endorsement watch: A late roundup

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Some recent endorsements in City elections over the past few days. Going back to last week, here are the endorsements from the Houston Black American Democrats (HBAD): Mayor – Gene Locke Controller – Ronald Green At Large #1 – Karen … Continue reading →

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Endorsement watch: Takings

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

The Chron endorses Prop 11, which is the constitutional amendment to limit eminent domain takings that were allowed by the Supreme Court’s 2005 Kelo ruling. [It] would prohibit “the taking, damaging, or destroying of private property” for purposes of economic … Continue reading →

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Interview with Council Member Peter Brown

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Our next Mayoral candidate interview is with City Council Member Peter Brown, who is currently serving his second term as the Member from At Large #1. Brown is a Houston native and UH grad who served six years in the … Continue reading →

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The Mayorals on public safety

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Reading this story about the Mayoral candidates and their public safety plans, I have the same questions that I’ve had from the beginning. How do they plan to pay for the things they want to do? Hiring more officers, obviously, … Continue reading →

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Brown’s fourth ad

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Team Peter maintains the air assault: Okay, I’m a math major, so maybe I’m the wrong person to bring this up, but shouldn’t that be “I look at city government differently than other politicians”? I had to watch a few … Continue reading →

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Khan goes on the air

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

We knew it was coming, and now here we have MJ Khan’s first TV ad. It’s…okay. Unlike Greg, I think Pam Holm’s ad, which was strong up until the last few seconds, was better. The presentation in Khan’s ad, with … Continue reading →

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Interview with Gene Locke

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

And we come to the end of the campaign interview season for 2009 with a conversation with each of the three leading contenders for Mayor. First up is Gene Locke, a native of East Texas and longtime resident of Houston … Continue reading →

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Spending on voter outreach: At Large races

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

I did this exercise for the Controller’s race last week, let’s see now what we can learn about the four contested At Large Council races. First, At Large #1: Candidate Amount Purpose ========================================================== Karen Derr 88.32 Advertising (Allen Jamail) Karen … Continue reading →

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Endorsement watch: The Chron goes Green

Posted on October 11, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

In their first endorsement for an elected office on the ballot this November, the Chronicle endorsed Council Member Ronald Green for Controller. A practicing attorney with a master’s in business administration from the University of Houston, Green chaired the Council … Continue reading →

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Koozie!

Posted on October 11, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Well, the Pam Holm campaign may not have received the Chron’s endorsement, but they did make my weekend by delivering this fine piece of campaign swag to me: As you can see, it’s primed and ready to go for today’s … Continue reading →

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Ethics complaint filed against Bradford

Posted on October 10, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

I’ve received word via email that an ethics complaint has been filed against At Large #4 candidate C.O. Bradford, alleging violations in his October campaign finance report. The sender included a PDF of the complaint, but I’m not posting it … Continue reading →

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Where conservative governance gets incubated

Posted on October 10, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

This story about area school board elections is both a revealing look at the state of the modern conservative philosophy of how to govern, as well as a stark reminder of why these obscure little elections really do matter. In … Continue reading →

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34 > 20, and other campaign finance news

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

I’ve added two more candidate reports to my campaign finance report spreadsheet, Robert Kane and KA Khan, both in District F. Each of them had filed paper reports instead of electronic reports. You can see a list of such reports … Continue reading →

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So what do you think will happen?

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Dr. Murray offers some thoughts on turnout in the November election. Public interest may finally be picking up a bit, but I still think turnout will lag well behind 2003, when 304,907 ballots were cast in the city. Two reasons … Continue reading →

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KTRK Mayoral forum

Posted on October 8, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Anyone catch the KTRK Mayoral forum? The four major candidates vying to be Houston’s next mayor took some of the first steps toward engaging each other directly in a live televised debate on KTRK Wednesday evening. With just four weeks … Continue reading →

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Spending on voter outreach: The Controller candidates

Posted on October 8, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

We know that this has been, relatively speaking, a low-dollar, low-profile election. I’ve been curious as to what the candidates’ strategies for doing voter outreach have been. We’ll probably know more when we see the eight-days-out reports, but for now, … Continue reading →

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The HISD Trustee candidates speak

Posted on October 8, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

These are short videos – I think Art Rascon’s intros of the candidates take as much time as they get to speak for themselves – but if you’ve not met the HISD Trustee candidates or listened to any of my … Continue reading →

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Interview with Council Member Pam Holm

Posted on October 7, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Wrapping up my interviews with candidates for Houston City Controller is Council Member Pam Holm, the incumbent in District G. Holm is a native Houstonian and a longtime citizen activist who serves fulltime as Council Member. She is Chair of … Continue reading →

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Holm goes on the air

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Via Mary Benton, we have the first non-Mayoral TV ad of the season, from Pam Holm: My thoughts: – Basically an intro ad, though a fairly substantive one. Holm’s pitch – she’s a strong financial manager who’ll keep a sharp … Continue reading →

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Corrections, clarifications, and conundrums

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

This is a followup to my post from this morning about the 30 days out reports. I’m sure there will be more of this stuff to come, from plenty of folks, but this is what I’ve got as of now. … Continue reading →

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Interview with Council Member MJ Khan

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Next among the candidates for Houston City Controller is Council Member MJ Khan, the incumbent in District F. Khan, a native of Pakistan, is a professional engineer who also has an MBA from Rice University and owns a real estate … Continue reading →

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More on the 30 days out report

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s the Chron story on the 30 days out finance reports. It discusses the disparity in cash on hand totals between Annise Parker, Peter Brown, and Gene Locke. “[Parker’s] got a challenge to compete on the airwaves down the home … Continue reading →

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