The Chron puts what I believe are the wraps on its endorsements for 2005 by giving its recommendations in the HISD trustee races, choosing Richard Cantu in HISD1 and challenger Daisy Maura in HISD9. They did the one contested HCC trustee race yesterday, endorsing Richard Schecter for Position 5. I still don’t know what happened to City Council District A, not to mention several ballot propositions, but who knows, maybe they’re still to come.
Today’s profile is on the Mayoral race, in which some interesting numbers get tossed about:
Some political analysts say he could exceed the re-election margin of former Mayor Bob Lanier, who won his second term in 1993 with 90.8 percent of the vote, at the time the highest percentage in nearly 60 years. Lanier, like White, was popular and faced little-known challengers.
“I predict White will break 92 percent,” said Dave Walden, who served as chief of staff to Lanier and campaign manager to White’s 2003 runoff opponent, Orlando Sanchez. “All the stars are aligned for him.”
He noted that Lanier was under constant criticism from then-Controller George Greanias, while White has mostly kept cordial relations with other city officials. “What I didn’t expect was White’s ability to move things through council as smoothly as he has,” Walden said.
Ninety-two percent is pretty audacious, even more than Greg‘s 90% guesstimate and my downright pessimistic-by-comparison suggestion that the floor starts at 75%. Let’s make a contest out of it: What do you think Bill White’s election day tally will be? Go all the way down to the hundredth of a percent so we can more easily break a tie if we have to. I’ll put myself down for 82%. Leave your guesses in the comments and we’ll see in ten days who’s the closest.
Ah, here I’ve finally found the right index page with all the race profiles and Chron endorsements – note to whoever from the Chron is reading this, it would be nice if the Politics index page had this link. They’ve written about Props 1, 2, 5, 7, and 9, endorsing all but 2. For the rest, plus City Council A, you’re on your own, at least so far.
I’m not too surprised that there’s no action by the Chron on District A, since it is virtually unopposed – Dennis Carter is a member of the Green Party, had a grand total of $100 in campaign contributions, and is running in a deep red Republican district (the last two council members were Huey and Tatro). Of course, the other option is right-winger extraordinaire Toni Lawrence (who, when she was running against Tatro, received a 100% position rating from the Harris County GOP, which should tell you something), so I gave a protest vote to Carter.
Since I’ve already responded, put me down for 88% for White – as it is, it goes well against the natural vote of the right, but it’s hard to say if the anti-White bloc will bother voting for someone in protest, ignore the race entirely, or vote for him as the best qualified.
Maybe, but it’s still a contested race, and I’m surprised they’d just skip it. If they have no recommendation, they should say so. So I still don’t understand this one.