Lubbock Left

Just want to get some thoughts down as the afterglow of Election Night wears off.

(By the way — the Lubbock Democrats victory party was definitely the best place to be last night we had 200+ people of all races laughing, crying, hugging, dancing, and having a great time!)

Two things weigh heavily on my mind amid the joy of the Obama/Biden victory.

First, every single anti-gay ballot initiative in this election passed, even California’s prop 8. This is terrible. We have a long way to go in terms of gay rights in this country.

Second, our local and statewide Democratic candidates did not do as well as I had hoped. At the county level, we kept our one Democratic seat on the Commissioners Court, and that’s it. We failed to unseat Congressman Randy Neugebauer, a Bush Republican who bears some responsibility for our financial crisis. We didn’t elect Rick Noriega to the Senate, although we did make John Cornyn sweat a little.

Reigionally, we kept Joe Heflin — a real rising star in Texas politics — in his TX-85 House seat. He will continue to do his district proud.

In the meantime, I look forward to having a President I can be proud of and a spirit of progress that we can feel in our hearts.

Congratulations, President-Elect Obama, and good luck on picking out that puppy!

I find myself still thinking about the possibility of packaged alcohol sales in Lubbock. I have learned that making Lubbock wet MUST require a petition; the City Council cannot put the issue before the voters as they can with a bond package. This is a state law that should be changed, but I don’t believe our state legislature will change it.

Now, the prevailing wisdom seems to be that the petition cannot get done unless a paid group comes in and organizes the petition drive. This was successful recently in Fort Worth. Groups like this aren’t cheap, and likely some coalition of big businesses in Lubbock would have to fund such a move.

I still believe that it’s possible to obtain the nearly 20,000 valid signatures necessary to put packaged alcohol sales on the ballot with an all-volunteer effort. The trick will be putting competent organizers in charge of the process and making it a multi-petition process. I believe 2009 is the year to make Lubbock Wet — that’s when all the best organizers in town will be done with the (much more important) campaigns of the 2008 election cycle.

On a totally unrelated note, I’ve been re-reading some books in my spare moments at my month-old (yay!) bookstore, Awesome Books. This week, I’m re-reading the excellent Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander. I was struck by a quote from the third book, The Castle of Llyr:

“Whether it be Prince or Pig-Keeper,” said Gwydion, “such is the way of a man. The destinies of men are woven one with the other, and you can turn aside from them no more than you can turn aside from your own.”

The above quote is a nice way to express one of my core beliefs, shared by most of us on the Left: we are in this together. We are individuals, yes, and that’s important. However, there is a greater fabric of society that links us together, and that’s why we have to look out for each other. These days, many on the Right do not look far past the individual, often refusing to look at problems from a systemic perspective. They just don’t get it.

Lloyd Alexander got it, and he gave this insight to millions of children through his wonderful books.

1420 AM reports tragic news today, as a Hockley County child accidentally shot his brother with his grandfather’s pistol found in his other brother’s room.

Sheriff David Kinney says no charges have been filed. It is being investigated as an accident. Here’s Kinney speaking on News Channel 11. “The weapon, we found out the 13-year-old had taken the weapon about three months ago from his grandpa’s house in Lubbock, without the grandpa’s permission or knowledge.”

Guns are designed to kill, and having one in the home in a place where a child could access it is not wise. Grandpa had every right to own a gun and keep it in his home, but this story and the many other accidental gun death stories like it are a major reason why I have made a personal decision not to allow guns — mine or anyone else’s — in my home.

My heart goes out to the family in this sorrowful time.

The City of Lubbock will hold an election on Saturday, May 10 along with other cities, area school districts, and water districts. Today I want to focus on the City of Lubbock election only. We have elections in City Council districts 2 and 4 as well as the Mayor.

My prediction: All three races could go to a June runoff election, and I believe that all three races will go to a runoff.

My reasoning is as follows. In the race for Mayor, David Miller and Tom Martin will be in pretty much a dead heat for the top spot — more or less a rematch of 2006. Roger Settler has enough name recognition to pull upwards of 20% of the vote. Two front-runners pulling roughly the same number of 80% of the voters plus a 20% candidate equals a runoff between Miller and Martin.

In City Council District 2, I anticipate a similar situation with two front-runners and a minor candidate. Incumbent Floyd Price and challenger Armando Gonzales will be the top contenders, and challenger Gilbert Salinas will draw just enough votes to force a runoff.

In City Council District 4, I anticipate a runoff between Paul Beane and Jerry Bell. I believe that there is no clear front-runner in this race — each candidate will basically bring out their own “base” of voters plus whatever uncommitted voters they can. I just think that Beane and Bell will draw the most votes. We will probably have a 40-40-30 or 35-33-32 type of situation.

What are your predictions for the 2008 City of Lubbock election?

Tonight I have been thinking about what I have in common with those who have positions opposite mine in certain issues. And really, I think this is something we need more of — focusing on our commonalities rather than our differences.

For example, the recent news that America has a high STD rate among teenage girls has me thinking about sex education and family planning. My position is that teenagers should be taught in school that abstinence is the best — and the only guaranteed — way of preventing unwanted pregnancy and STDs, but they should also be taught ways to have safer sexual relations in the event that they do decide to fool around or have sex. The conservative approach around these parts seems to advocate for abstinence-only sex education in the schools. I think it’s worth noticing that both approaches have the same goal: fewer STDs and fewer unwanted pregnancies; they differ in means but have the same end in mind.

Sometimes I can spot a similar principle at work across different issues, but in different ways. For instance, I think that 2nd Amendment advocates and GLBT Rights advocates have a common principle: government should not interfere with our civil liberties. Yet one is thought of as a “conservative” issue and the other as a “liberal” issue. Remove the liberal/conservative lens and what were once opposing ideas are now near each other on an ideological spectrum, the head and the tail of a political orouboros.

So, I challenge you, reader. Whether you identify as progressive or conservative or anywhere in between, can you find one of your issues where the opposing view has the same goal? Can you find an example of a common principle at work across seemingly unrelated issues?

I suspect that you can. That’s why I believe that we have a good reason to hope for a new kind of politics in America.