As many readers know my wife is from the Philippines. They just had their Presidential election. Their politics are obviously very different than what we have in the upcoming runoff a rampant social media post about candidate evaluation seemed meritorious, and is a good guide to try and evaluate candidates for the upcoming election. That post suggested evaluating candidates as follows:
- Why is the candidate running?
- What do you think the candidate will do if elected? How did you reach this conclusion?
- How will they accomplish their campaign promises? Is what they are promising even possible?
- What is their legislative record? Are their campaign promises in line with their past behavior?
This seems like a good starting point to evaluate the candidates for the upcoming election. To that list I would add the following:
- Is the candidate electable in the general election?
- For county wide races, how will they reach independents and moderate democrats to obtain enough votes to overcome the baseline +10 democratic status in Harris County?
- Will the candidate be a good messenger for our beliefs?
We have a great opportunity to flip some county wide seats, and Judge Hidalgo seems vulnerable. However, we have to take a moment and do a cold analysis on the candidates to see who is the better candidate for the election regardless of if they are the closest to our beliefs. Ideological purity is great if it isn’t a determent to being elected. We have too much at stake this cycle to let the opportunity pass us by.
I don’t hold strong opinions in the races, other than against Wayne Christian. He steadfastly engages in pass the buck speeches regarding the power fiasco last year. A true leader has a the buck stops here mentality. I will vote for Paxton over Bush. Paxton has his ethical situation, but he has been an effective Attorney General, and other than the Bush name – which is double edged in November – Bush is an especially weak candidate.
I’m also still undecided on the county judge race. Ideologically Alexandria del Moral Mealer is the better choice, but Vidal Martinez seems far more electable. Glad to hear anyone’s pitch for either candidate. The best way to reach me is [email protected].
Primary season can get emotions high, and it’s easy to become pot invested in a candidate. The heat of the primary can skew our thoughts. Given the importance of this cycle to the county, please take the time to look at the criteria above and make sure the candidate you support is the best choice from a cold analytical standpoint. That’s what swing voters will do in November.
I wish everyone would spend this much time considering their choices in the primaries. In the County Judge runoff I am firmly in the Mealer camp, the candidate brought to my attention right here when our host outlined why she was the best of the batch earlier this year.
Martinez started off with a great deal more money but came in second, is an establishment type tied too heavily to the pay slate crowd, and then there’s all that news how he donated time and again to Democrats and their pet project, Actblue. Maybe I’m wrong here but a lot of us take exception with those donations that weren’t heavily advertised until after the primaries when Martinez went negative. Friends up in Tomball attending the debate were livid and started calling Martinez a draft dodger after he started bashing his opponent’s grandfather. I’m told he’s faring poorly on social media too, making me wonder how he will survive the runoff, let alone the November election.
If Martinez had more support from the grassroots members of the party, I’d have higher hopes for him but that just isn’t the case. His campaign website shows a few almost recognizable names but is simply dwarfed by the volume advertised on Mealer’s website. With the police backing her, many current and former elected officials, and of course wildcards like Mattress Mack, I can’t help but think she’s going to bury him in coming weeks.
Crime is the biggest issue going and county finances a close second, only one of the candidates really has a background in the latter along with the community support of the former. It’s wonderful to learn that Martinez has been voting for 50 years and part of the establishment but that is a huge drawback for the fickle voters of our party too. Fox News endorsed Mealer and that talk show host Berry has been pounding Martinez almost every day. I think it hurts him that he isn’t getting around nearly as much as she is too, Mealer is treating this like an 80 hour a week job while Martinez seems to be on autopilot, we saw how well that worked for Ed a few years back.
With scandal after scandal on the daily news, all the fiscal issues bowing up on county spending, and the indictments of her leading staff, Hidalgo just isn’t going to be as appealing to independents as she was. At the same time, Mealer’s purported financial expertise puts her in a better position to hammer Hidalgo in the general election while Martinez would only appeal to the older crowd, his liabilities are more exploitable than hers to the younger crowd. I don’t believe either candidate in the runoff has ever held office and that works against him as he’s been around for 40 years while it makes her look fresh.
Does that sound fair?
Peter,.thank you for your thoughtful response. At the outset, I think you are correct in Melar will win the runoff.
I voted for Martinez in the first round, and have been looking for a reason to change my vote in light of the Act Blue donations. But here is where I have concerns about Melar that keeps me undecided.
I’ve seen both her and Martinez at various events, but never at the same event to see how they answer questions side by side. They obviously have been with the unwise (putting it charitably) comments about Melar’s grandfather.
That leaves me looking to the campaign pieces they mail out as to what they believe is important.
Discarding masks/vaccines since that’s obligatory red meat in a Republican primary and likely in the past I question how Melar is going to accomplish campaign promises like lock up criminals.
Bond is a judicial function. Reducing flooding seems to be inextricably opposed to reducing taxes. Sure, a shell game switch from county to port or the like can leave that promise technically met, but taxes somewhere will go up to offset the county tax rate. It’s just a shell game.
Plus as a meteorologist I seriously don’t like any of the plans I’ve seen. I lose that argument because of inertia, but all the plans leave significant problems and could deal with the issues in a much more close effective manner.
What’s most concerning to me is I have trouble seeing how she overcomes the base democratic +10 status in the county, while I don’t have that issue with Martinez.
If I could see a way for her to overcome the + 10 gap I would vote for her despite the above concerns.
Hidalgo is vulnerable, and the ongoing scandals and crime may be enough that whoever the Republican candidate is wins. I fervently hope that is the case.
I did see a way for her to overcome the + 10 before the leaked Dobbs decision. Now, Beto is going to bang the abortion drum early and often here in Harris County and drive up democratic vote turnout. That’s going to blunt much of the weakness that Hidalgo has, unless, somehow, she is directly caught in one of the scandals.
I definitely want to find a reason to justify switching my vote in light of the Act Blue donations. But I want the Republicans to flip the County Judge seat more.
Where am I wrong?
Greg, I spent some time over the last few days reviewing the campaign literature of the two candidates and their social media feeds. By and large, when sticking to issues alone they sound almost like clones in the issues they want to address. Fix flooding, solve the crime problem, stop wasteful spending, secure elections; all the usual talking points.
Then, when driving down the road, I saw a sign advertising Martinez claiming he was a proven crime fighter. I figured I had missed something in his biography because I didn’t remember him telling us he had served as a cop of any sort. Upon reviewing his website, I found something I had glanced over previously, that when he was fresh out of law school 45 years ago, he served a few years as an assistant federal prosecutor and he is now claiming he fought drugs and human trafficking. There were no examples of him prosecuting a single case or really much of anything other than what he said, nothing on recorded Youtube speeches or debates either. It turns out there had been repeated requests for cases he’d worked on yet he remained silent. Not good.
The only significantly different issue on Mealer’s website was about vaccine and mask mandates, her wall showing a doctor and nurse that had been fired from Methodist supporting her. My vague recollections aside, I Googled the pair and saw they were two of those fired by Methodist Hospital, the system where Martinez is on the board of directors. Long story short, it looks like Martinez refused to address questions regarding the hospital’s policies and rejection of religious exemptions. While this isn’t in my top 5 of things I’ve cared about, it’s real big for the younger crowd, Martinez closer to Hidalgo in his stance from the looks of it. Again, not good.
Neither candidate has outlined a path to correct most of these issues though, Mealer sounding like redirecting flooding projects based on their impact rather than Hidalgo’s social justice plan to spread them out, Martinez talking about going back to what was promised despite a large lack of money to do so. Neither had a plan to change the bail settlement, how to afford fully funding law enforcement, or how to speed up the courts; all areas that the runoff winner is going to need to address long before November.
To address your primary concern about Mealer being able to overcome the democrat numbers, I just don’t see Martinez having any advantage over her in that regard. It’s going to come down to getting people to vote and right now, Martinez is looking worse considering those donations. If he wins the runoff, I just don’t see as many Republicans turning up to the polls. at least Mealer appeals to the younger crowd and has all that grassroots support pushing for her. The SCOTUS draft is going to hurt either candidate of course but I can see where more of our team vote for Mealer than Martinez, she’s just going to need more polish to persuade those only slightly leaning right or fed up with the incapable Hidalgo. I’m not going to bash someone who picks one of them over the other in the runoff but there’s going to need to be a lot of support for the survivor to win in the general election.
The easiest path to overcoming the +10 democratic baseline advantage is to strike an alliance with the conservative black democrats. The coming focus on abortion will make that a realistic possibility.
How can Mealer establish such an alliance?
This is the issue I’m hung up on. Or another articulatable viable pathway.
Our discussion has caused me not to early vote today since you are making good points and I want to finish this back and forth with you before voting.
Greg, thanks for the vote of confidence but I admit that I am not fluent in area of black democrats, conservative or otherwise. Neither of these two have shown a lot of black people in their ads or photo opportunities, Mealer has Trump-endorsed Wesley Hunt and Charles Blain in her corner while Martinez has Rod Paige and Martina Dixon in his but I doubt either would make overtures to democrats of any sort prior to the end of the runoff. Your idea may have some merit given the social media backlash from some black churches over Hidalgo’s suggestion of using county dollars to fly pregnant women out of state for abortions.
I may be wrong but my casual observation is that Mealer has a great deal more support from those under 50 years old and Martinez is stronger with the 65 and older crowd. If she is getting the younger crowd to vote heavier than usual, the older crowd will stick around for the general election but I don’t believe the reverse is true, younger voters convinced Martinez is part of the swamp are less likely to bother with him later. For the next week, I doubt any significant bombshells are going to come out on either of these two but if you or anyone else comes up with a better analysis than David offered recently, I’d like to hear it before I vote too,
I take it since you’re against Wayne Christian that you are supporting Sarah Stogner? Just curious, but do you think her Tik Tok video riding a jack pump, wearing only underwear, pasties cowboy hat, and boots proclaiming “ , “They said I needed money … I have other assets.” makes her more electable or less electable in the general? It did garner her attention, but in my, world, doesn’t show a serious candidate. Also, playing off her “assets” as a reason to elect her to Railroad Commission does not sit well with me. Not sure women want to be represented by someone with that mentality. Even the San Antonio Express withdrew their endorsement after that stunt.
Karen, I’m against Wayne Christian. No more, no less.
Whether it’s his steadfast refusal to accept responsibility for his part in the freeze last year, or his profane response to Mike “Tuffy” Hamilton wanting to amend the groundwater district Christian carried in Newton County, Christian is not someone who accepts responsibility for his actions or criticism.
Having the SA Express pull their support will only help Stogner. Stogner practices law in the energy arena and it’s her clients that want to see Christian gone because of his close ties to the industry he regulates.
Sitting on a pumpjack in her underwear didn’t hurt her chances with me. I have to admit our wells would sure look better with that kind of adornment.
Peter, sorry for abruptly going silent. I ended up with rat bite fever which progressed to sepsis, and I’m just now back home and settling into a routine again.
Greg, it’s no problem as all of us experience times when political commentary isn’t high on the list for us. I hope you’ve recovered and are feeling better. The runoff for county judge was a massive win for Mealer. She won by over 3/4 of the vote despite a lot of last minute chicanery by a small group of Martinez supporters. They were sending out links to one of the Biz Pac pieces as some sort of definitive guide to why Mealer was a horrible choice and bashing anyone who said differently. I don’t follow that group so I really have nothing to say about them other than what was sent looked like shoddy work. There seemed to be a lot of younger people out voting so maybe that is a good sign for November.