Starboard Broadside

Tuesday was Primary I in the state of Texas for 2010. If candidates won an outright majority in their party's primary, they will proceed to the general election in November; if a primary resulted in no outright majority for one candidate, the top two proceed to Primary II later in the year (it's a runoff system). With that in mind, here are the results, via The Texas Tribune, that people outside Texas would probably be most interested in... but the selection is, of course, based mostly on what I am most interested in. These results are (unless noted) from around 11 PM Tuesday.

Texas Governor's Race
Republican Primary
Gov. Rick Perry, arch-conservative secessionist, waged a bitter and very contentious primary campaign against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, whose people allege that Perry had promised not to seek re-election this year so she could crown her career with the governorship. There was also a lot of back-and-forth about whether and when Hutchison would resign her Senate seat to focus on campaigning. The other side-plot was whether or not Tea Party-anointed, Ron Paul-endorsed, 9/11 conspiracy theorist Debra Medina would do well, and whether she could break past a teabagger ceiling of support or just play spoiler. As it turns out, her support plateaued, but not high enough to deprive Perry of a majority tonight, thus ending Hutchison's dream as well...

Governor - R Precincts reporting - 48%	Rick Perry	491,896	51.32%
	Kay Bailey Hutchison	297,711	31.06%
	Debra Medina	168,838	17.62%

I guess it's good (for herself) that Hutchison didn't give up that US Senate seat after all. It was always going to be tough to finagle such a resignation anyway because if she did it too early she'd give Perry the power to appoint and if she did it too late, she'd leave it open for a lengthier span or risk Democrats capturing it in a special election sneak attack (though after Massachusetts, it seems that would never have been in the cards). So, she just decided to hold onto it. Smart move.

Democratic Primary
Former Houston Mayor Bill White faced off against a field of lesser-known candidates and triumphed easily.

Governor - D Precincts reporting - 50%	Bill White	323,655	76.16%
	Farouk Shami	50,880	11.97%
	Felix Alvarado	21,585	5.08%
	Alma Ludivina Aguado	12,832	3.02%
	Clement E. Glenn	6,809	1.60%
	Bill Dear	4,897	1.15%
	Star Locke	4,302	1.01%

The good thing is that Bill White fares better against Perry than against Hutchison in polling matchups I've seen (e.g. R2K, 2/10/10: Perry 46, White 42), so this increases the chances of Democrats saving Texas from another term under its crazy governor. He was also the only Democratic candidate that could mount the (very expensive) statewide campaign to win. That doesn't mean he will win, but the planets are aligned as close as they will be. EDIT: This post has been partially retracted. Find out why. -CR, 7/1/10

Rep. Ron Paul's Primary
There was some brief discussion recently about whether or not Ron Paul was endangered by the Tea Party movement's primary candidates, despite his general alignment with the movement on most issues. His positions on earmarks and on defense were most at issue. However, Rep. Paul prevailed easily, winning 81% of the vote. Presumably, he will now cruise to re-election.

U.S. House District 14 - R Precincts reporting - 72%	Ron Paul	33,001	81.01%
	Tim Graney	3,829	9.40%
	John Gay	2,115	5.19%
	Gerald D. Wall	1,792	4.40%

Texas State Board of Education
District 9
This one's a bit obscure, and as of right now it's too close to call, but it's very, very important for the country. The Republican primary is between incumbent (and former Perry-appointed board chairman) Don McLeroy and challenger Thomas Ratliff. McLeroy is basically the ringleader of the seven Christian fundamentalists on the fifteen-member state board that controls the content of school textbooks in the most important market in America. Don McLeroy is in charge of fucking up America's education system, since his content amendments make it into the textbooks and curricula of about forty-six states. McLeroy puts the Tex in "Textbook." I don't know much about Ratliff, but I'm guessing he's trying to replace McLeroy to join the sane Republican bloc that has often tried to halt the Christianists. Since this race is in "District 9," I have to wonder if this primary is a battle for whether the people from earth or the ones from another planet will control the Texas State Board of Education. However, he's just a ringleader of the seven, so McLeroy being defeated won't stop the problem, just mitigate it.

There appears to be no Democratic primary.
11:45 PM Results: Too close to call... but good for the moment.

State Board of Education District 9 - R Precincts reporting - 83%	Thomas Ratliff	46,664	50.96%
	Don McLeroy	44,910	49.04%

District 5
In the 5th district's Republican primary, I notice the winner (by a solid majority) is Ken Mercer, currently the Vice Chair of the board. He has a bachelor's degree in biology from UT-Austin, in addition to some business degrees. I feel like that's a good thing on a board with seven creationists.

Small update @ 1:45 AM: Here's a list of the three big Board of Education races to watch, one of which I'd already included. The others are the very tight 10th district Republican primary and the 12th district Republican primary where one of the sane board members is currently losing. If she does lose and McLeroy pulls out a win in District 9, the crazies will have a majority. Not good.

Update @ 9 AM, 3/3/10: Texas Tribune has called the 9th for the sane Republican and the 12th for the insane challenger. Assuming this isn't altered by a recount, the fragile sane majority is preserved. Meanwhile the 10th district has gone to a runoff, and I don't know what that would mean for the board's composition.



Conclusion: I'm sure there were a few races (especially on that education board) across the state that I missed that deserve attention, but these were the ones I was paying attention to. I will add more or update this post tomorrow, if I find more interesting race news.