Countdown to The West Wing Election

The countdown to The West Wing presidential election and the final episodes of the show began last night. I'll be posting material about this fictional election because as I've mentioned it 's been my favorite show the past seven years and I think they do a good job of reflecting real life presidential campaigns. Last night's episode confirmed that because of the nuclear power plant accident the race is now dead even, with Congressman Matt Santos polling well not only in swing states, but in the South and California as well. As a result, the Vinick campaign was forced to campaign in the South to shore up support there while the Santos campaign went to Senator Vinick's home state of California. It's quite a bold move really, the Santos campaign is attempting to take away not only their opponent's home state, but also the state with the most electoral votes. In real life, the 2000 election hinged on Florida, in 2004 it was Ohio, and for The West Wing election my bet is it will hinge on California.
There are new questions to consider in terms of what issues will be highlighted in the remaining weeks of the campaign. The Kazakhstan crisis has escalated to the point where President Bartlett has sent 150,000 American troops in order to keep the peace. Unfortunately this whole crisis is essentially about China and Russia's desire for oil in Kazakhstan. The American army is standing in the middle of the advancing Chinese and Russian armies so it should be very intriguing to see if a conflict erupts. I think the Chinese and Russians will stand down though because to do otherwise would open up World War III, something I'm pretty sure The West Wing writers are not going to tackle in the final weeks of the show. The real question is how long American troops should stay in Kazakhstan and that will probably be debated between Rep. Santos and Senator Vinick.

Costa Rica Finally Declares Winner in Presidential Race

After what I thought was going to take a week, the winner of the presidential election in Costa Rica was finally declared last Wednesday, March 8. It turns out that the man who had the small lead on Feb. 5th, Oscar Arias, won the election after all. This is actually a return to office for Mr. Arias, he served as president of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990.

Great Election Websites

Here is a list of websites I use to research elections. So if you're ever in need of more information on anything I post feel free to check them out. Enjoy!

http://www.cqpolitics.com/

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/

http://www.politics1.com/

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

http://www.hillnews.com/

http://www.electionguide.org/

http://www.fec.gov/

http://www.uselectionatlas.org/

http://www.swingstateproject.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.cnn.com/

Texas Primary Showdown: Incumbents Survive Challenges

There were some competitive congressional races in yesterday's Texas primary.

Texas 28th
First there was the rematch in the Texas 28th between Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar and former Democratic Rep. Ciro Rodriguez. The much more progressive Mr. Rodriguez wanted to take back the seat that he had lost to Mr. Cuellar in 2004 by a mere 58 votes. This time the margin was much wider as Rep. Cuellar received 53% of the vote to 41% for Mr. Rodriguez. I know progressives across the nation were pulling for Mr. Rodriguez to win but I guess it wasn't meant to be. The Texas 28th is located in southern Texas. Both candidates actually had bases of support in the district, Rep. Cuellar's being Laredo in Webb County and Mr. Rodriguez having San Antonio in Bexar County behind him. So it was truly a battle of who could bring out their base to vote and while Mr. Rodriguez came out strong with 74% in Bexar County, Rep. Cuellar pulled in 85% of the vote in Webb County. In fact, Mr. Rodriguez had lower numbers in each county in comparison to their 2004 battle. The presence of a third candidate, Victor Morales, explains much of why this happened because it looks like the 6% he received took away votes from Mr. Rodriguez. Rep. Cuellar is a moderate conservative Democrat and since he will be staying in office I hope he doesn't pull of a Phil Gramm and switch to the Republican Party.

Texas 22nd
The other major congressional race was Rep. Tom DeLay's survival against three Republican challengers in the Texas 22nd. Rep. DeLay has been greatly plagued by scandals, as it's one of the main reasons why he's no longer House Majority Leader. The fact that he only got 62% shows signs of weakness. Usually incumbents survive primary challenges with percentages ranging from 70% and higher. His lowest percentages came from Fort Bend so that's something his Democratic opponent could take advantage of in the general election. His Democratic opponent will be former Rep. Nick Lampson. I'm sure Mr. Lampson would like to win this race badly considering that Rep. DeLay helped to engineer the redistricting plan that ousted him and three other Democrats from office in 2004. Mr. Lampson is raising plenty of funds so it looks like "The Hammer", the nickname of Rep. Tom DeLay, might get hammered by Nick Lampson in the fall.

Governor
In another bit of news the Democratic nomination for governor was won by former Rep. Chris Bell. He will have an uphill battle though against the incumbent Republican governor, Rick Perry.