Commentary has said it before. Straight ticket voting in Texas is an option so leave it alone. You can vote the straight ticket or you can hop all over the ballot. Let us decide!
Ross Ramsey of the Trib has an article today on straight ticket voting in Texas. For your information, in 2012 in Harris County, 406,991 voted straight ticket Dem and 404,165 went straight GOP. Here is from the Ross Ramsey article:
Texas is one of only nine states that still allow general election voters to cast their ballots for everyone running under a particular party’s banner in one fell swoop. Pull a lever, fill in a bubble or push a button for the party of your choice and you’re done.
That is usually an advantage for the majority party, which is one reason why a Republican Texas Legislature has left the straight-ticket voting law in place in spite of steady attempts to change it.
But what if the person at the top of the ballot is unpopular? Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have higher “unfavorable” numbers than the Zika virus, and candidates below them on the ballot — particularly in the state’s scattered swing districts — are already reacting.
They’ve turned to an old page in the campaign playbooks: Disown unpopular candidates on your own ticket and try to marry the bad ones on the other ticket to your opponent.
And:
In big counties, like Dallas and Harris, the straight-ticket ballot poses a problem for the GOP. State Rep. Ken Sheets, among others, has tried unsuccessfully to exempt judges from straight-party voters. He’s a Dallas Republican, and while his district is (slightly) red, his county has swung to the Democrats. Because of straight-ticket voting, that means the courthouse, once dominated by his party, is now controlled by Democrats.
People who’d like to dump straight-ticket voting contend that some of those Republicans were actually better judges than the Democrats who replaced them. Democrats, it should be said here, made the same point when the winds of change flipped the county courthouse to the GOP in the 1980s.
Six states have rid themselves of straight-ticket voting since 2010, placing Texas in an ever-shrinking club.
Here is the entire article: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/10/analysis-straight-ticket-voting-could-hobble-swing/.
Leave it alone, please!
Yesterday, Commentary was talking about the 1965 MLB Amateur Player Draft – the first ever. Here is an easy one. In the 1965 draft, Cincy picked a player in the second round who is now in the Hall of Fame and the Mets picked a player in the twelfth round who is also in the Hall of Fame. Who am I talking about?
I have to say that the Chron’s Evan Mintz is pretty clever. Now his twitter handle is “Delete Evans Account.” Cool!
Let’s see. Yesterday, Secretary Hillary Clinton was endorsed by the President, Vice-President and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Donald Trump didn’t know jack about the issues. Here is from a NY Times piece:
But he condemned Mr. Trump’s lack of preparedness, and said that he will need to factor that into his choice of running mate.
“He needs someone highly experienced and very knowledgeable because it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t know a lot about the issues,” Mr. McConnell said. “You see that in the debates in which he’s participated. It’s why I have argued to him publicly and privately that he ought to use a script more often — there is nothing wrong with having prepared texts.”
What else is new? I will tell you what is new. Some GOPers are still trying to figure out a way to deny Trump the nomination.
Hall of Fame great Johnny Bench was selected by Cincy in the second round in the 1965 draft and Hall of Fame great Nolan Ryan was selected by the Mets in round twelve of course.
We are in Tampa Bay this weekend and don’t have to face the Rangers again until August.
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