Fruit Pies and Pencil Lead: A Thanksgiving Meditation

(Adapted from a sermon at Northaven Church, delivered this morning...EF)
Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We had an incredibly restful one around here. We decided to stay here at home, just the three of us. We still did up the whole turkey/dressing/meal thing. It was wonderfully peaceful. Not that we don't love our families, and not that we didn't have chances to be with them. But a couple of months ago, Maria actually asked us if we could spend Thanksgiving by ourselves this year. This was deep in the middle of the campaign season when --between that, Maria's activities, and regular church stuff-- we were basically meeting each other coming and going. So, we took her small request as a barometer of sorts. After some original plans fell through, we thought, maybe we do just need the time by ourselves. As it turns out, we did. Hope you had a good weekend too.

And since it is still, technically, Thanksgiving Weekend, let me tell you a little story about family worries and fruit pie. For many of us, "family worry and fruit pie" about sums up our Thanksgiving experience.

But this story wasn't originally about Thanksgiving. It was a story about a breezy day in my Mother's childhood. My mother was a young child of maybe six when this story took place. She was playing, as children do, outside her home in Atlanta, Texas. Her Aunt, who just lived down the street, had come over to do some baking in my grandmother's kitchen. She'd decided to bake up some delicious fruit pies.

There is nothing quite so amazing as a good, homemade fruit pie, is there? So, Mom's Aunt baked the pies, and set them out on an open window sill to cool.

Mom was playing as children do when --like Adam and Eve in that first perfect garden-- she spied a fruit pie, cooling off in that open window. Like the very "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," it beckoned. And so, "seeing that the pie was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes,"* she took a bite from a corner of that fruit pie. And OH! It was good!! It was delicious. She was in pie heaven.

But it was not a fruit she recognized. Had a strange flavor. It certainly wasn't apple or cherry. It was a little bit like blueberry, or
raspberry, but not quite either. And so, having appropriately licked her lips so as to remove all evidence of the crime, she decided to ask her Aunt. She found her Aunt and Mom relaxing on the front porch swing. And she asked, "What kind of pie is that that you just made?"

And her Aunt replied, "It's Boysenberry."

Well, my mother had never heard of Boysenberry Pie.

In fact, not only had she never heard of it before, she didn't hear of it then either. For instead of correctly hearing her Aunt say "Boysenberry," she INcorrectly heard her Aunt say, "Poisonberry."

("What kind of pie did you just make, dear Auntie?"..."Poisonberry.")

Well, at age six, you still live in that magical world between fantasy and reality, where all things are possible. And, apparently, one of the things that's still possible is to believe that your kind, sweet, loving Aunt, would actually make a Poisonberry Pie.

In shock, and terror, my mother stumbled off into the other room. She thought about it for a moment. Maybe her Aunt had made it as some kind of a test. (A test she had obviously failed!)

So, what should she do now? With the poison pie now coursing through her veins, what was the better moral choice? (I'm sure she didn't quite think it that way at age six...)

If I don't tell about the pie, I will probably die.

But, if I do tell them about the pie, I will surely be in trouble.

Sadly, Mom decided that the best course of action was to sit there. Admitting to the sin of eating the forbidden (ahem) fruit pie was just too much to imagine. No, she decided, the better course was to just accept her immanent death.

But she started to think about how sad that would be. And how much she would miss her life and her family. And she started to cry. And, as you might imagine, her Aunt and mother came running, and explained to her that it was BOYSENberry, not POISONberry. And all was well...nobody got banished from a garden forever....and they all lived happily ever after....

So, I've been thinking about this story of childhood worry. And I remember the first time my Mother told it to me was when I was small boy.

You see, when I was in kindergarten myself, and I came home with my own traumatic-worry-experience. I was playing with one of the other boys in class, who apparently poked me with a pencil. I don't think he poked me very hard. I'm not even sure it broke the skin.

But what this young boy told me right afterwards was that I would probably die of lead poisoning.

I had actually heard about lead poisoning, and I knew that it was at least in the realm of possibliities, in that a pencil has lead in it. And so, I raced off to the bathroom, and scrubbed that arm as hard as I could, to try and get to (ahem) get the lead out, all the time worrying that my life was slipping away, right there in the kindergarten bathroom. But as with my mother before me, adults came to my rescue. A teacher heard my cries, and came in to reassure me that I was not going to die from a pencil poke.

No one, she reassured me, ever had.
--------------------------------

Ah...childhood worries.

We grow out of them, right? We grow taller. We grow stronger. Our brain capacity expands and we become quite smart for our own good. And we grow out of these kinds of irrational worries, right? We take on all sorts of rational adult worries. And rational adult worries: now those are real worries, right?

And, we tell ourselves that some adult worry is good:

It helps motivate us, we tell ourselves...
It helps keep us on our toes, we tell ourselves...
It keeps us thinking ahead of the next guy, we tell ourselves...
It gives us a competitive edge, we tell ourselves...

We tell ourselves all sorts of things about our worries.

And we worry about all sorts of things:
We worry about terrorism.
We worry about violent crime.
We worry that we will not be able to protect our children from terrorism or violent crime.
We worry about being good parents.
We worry about our own aging parents.
We worry about our health.
We worry about being a burden to our children.
We worry about the details of our jobs.
We worry about our coworkers.
We worry about what people think of us.
We worry about the finances of our church.
We worry about the direction of our country.
We worry about the love and support of our family.
We worry about never having enough.
We worry we might have too much.

"Fruit pies and pencil lead, ha!" we tell ourselves, "that was nothing. You want worry? Have WE got some ADULT worries for you!

This is what we say about our worries.

But what does Jesus say about our worries?

"Therefore I tell you," Jesus says, "do not worry about your life, what
you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will
wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look
at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"

"Yes, yes, yes," we say to Jesus, "we hear what you. We really do. But don't you think you're being a little unreasonable here? I mean, after all, worry is a motivator for us. Worry pushes us forward. Worry helps us be prepared for the unexpected."

To which Jesus replies: "And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?"

You know, that's actually a good question.

Some experts are now finding that we actually can take time OFF our life expectancy, if our lives are filled with unchecked stress and worry.

Ian Philip --one of the leading British experts on aging-- says that in a society where we have solved many life expectancy problems (through vaccinations and public health advances) that stress now becomes one of the major life expectancy factors for us.

So, in a sense, Jesus is absolutely right; maybe even righter than he knew! No, we can't add even one day to our life through worry. AND! We might actually take days OFF our life through worry.

Jesus continues:

"And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon
in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes
the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into
the oven, will (God) not much more clothe you--you of little faith?"

I love that first line of this last section: "Consider the lilies of the field..."

Consider them. Don't forget them. Ponder on them. And dare, we say, even give thanks for them?

Yes, it's as if Jesus might have said,
"Give thanks for the lilies of the field, for they neither toil nor sew..."
"Give thanks for the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns...and yet God feeds them..."

Give thanks.

Yes, worry robs us of our ability to enjoy life. Worry may even rob us of some of the days of our lives. But worry robs us of one final thing, and it's something worth remembering on this Thanksgiving weekend:

Worry robs us of our ability to give thanks.

If our minds are always cluttered up with our next worry --our next task, our next fear-- then there will be little room in our hearts for thanks; little room in our hearts to give thanks for all that we do have, right now.

I know you have worries. I do too. I know that you believe they are justified. I believe mine are too. But what I find, over the long span of my life, is that most of the things I worry about, while they seem monumental for a time, turn out to be fruit pies and pencil lead.

So, on this Thanksgiving weekend, imagine Jesus saying this:

"Do not worry about what you have to eat...give thanks for bounty that you do have."
"Do not worry about what you will drink...give thanks for the sustenance that is before you."
"Do not worry about what you will wear...give thanks that your body is more than clothing."

On this last day of Thanksgiving weekend, I challenge you to consider how to reduce the worry in your life, and how to replace it with thanksgiving. Even with everything you worry about, or that you want to change in your life, also consider the blessings in your life....RIGHT NOW.

Last week, several members of our staff were fortune enough to meet a homeless man who came into our building, seeking assistance. Afterwards, we were talking among ourselves, and we all decided that we really did believe his story. He didn't seem like the "typical" homeless person we meet, the ones who come in off the street, and who you often sense are telling you the same story they've told at about a hundred churches before....and who leave you with the vague sense you've just been conned.

This guy was different. You got the sense, listening to him, that perhaps just a few small things had gone wrong in his life, here and there, and he'd ended up on the street. We were able to help him some, and I hope and pray the assistance we gave is boosting him back onto the right track.

But later, as our staff was remembering what we are thankful for this season, we several of us remembered that guy.

We remembered...
How thankful we are to have a roof over our heads...
Food to eat...
Friends we can call on if we need them...
Family we hold at a distance, and family we hold close, but family, nonetheless...
A church community where we can belong...

And last Thursday, as I gathered with the two most important people in my life, I was grateful for all the things I just mentioned, but I was also thankful for the two of them too; and for the blessed chance to spend a few quiet days together.

Despite the real worries I am sure you have in your life, I hope you were thankful this weekend too.

Because, over the long haul? We ought to be able to find a way to be thankful far more more than we worry.

And most of what we worry about are fruit pies and pencil lead.

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Why We Should Elect Judges

In the days after the election, everyone from Republican partisans to Steve Blow raised up a clarion call we've heard before:

Why do we elect judges? Isn't there a better way?

Well, in short, there may be a better way to elect judges, but there is not a better way to get judges than through elections. As Churchill once said of democracy: It's not perfect, but it's better than all the other options.

The truth is, there really are only two good options:
1) Elections of some sort.
2) Appointments of some sort.

And while there are flaws to the first method, there are grave problems with the second.

When people complain about judicial elections, they do so for two main reason. They say:
1) "The judicial elections are controlled by 'special interests.'"

Then, they say:
2) "We don't know anything about these judges, the ballot is too confusing. How can we know who to vote for?!"
(This is the view Steve Blow took in a column a week or so before election day...)

As to the first concern....

Lawyers do contribute to many judicial campaigns. But they contribute in varying amounts, and some judicial races get almost zero dollars. Some of the most recent judicial campaigns were run on shoestring budgets funded only by the candidate's family and close friends. Others did get more total dollars from lawyers. However, I believe you will find is that --like many corporations on the national scene-- many lawyers eventually contribute money to both side of many campaigns. (And some will probably do so even more in the next election cycle...)

My own sense of most judicial elections is that there is little control or influence by the funders, whoever they are. Most of the candidates I know put up their own yardsigns, set up their own fundraisers, and used their own close family and friends as their "staff." If there were cookies to be baked, their Mom's baked them. If there were envelopes to be stuffed, their childhood friends stuffed them. Far from being manipulated by donations from lawyers, most campaigns were seriously grassroots efforts with little frills.

In fact, the grassroots nature of them can actually restore your faith in democracy.

I will wait to comment on the second "concern" about judicial elections ("the ballot is too long, and we don't know these people") until later in this essay. For now, let's turn to the other option: appointed judges.


Not A-Political, Just Differently-Political
Getting judges through an appointive system is seen by its proponents as an "a-political" solution. The idea is that some small group of people would recommend names to the governor --perhaps three-at-a-time for each open post-- and that the governor would then do the actual appointing.

Sounds good on the surface. But the truth is there are serious political concerns in this model too. This model, contrary to the myth around it, is not "a-political," it's just political in a different way.

And anybody who doubts it should remember what is currently going on in our state surrounding the issue of new coal burning electric plants proposed by the Governor and TXU. This process is overseen by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). As you can see here, the TCEQ is run by three political appointees, nominated by the Governor.

Surely, you have read the stories: local and county municipalities around the state worry that the green light is about to be given to dozens of coal plants without any "vote" by them or their local constituents. (a story in today's DMN estimates that the East Texas plants would result in more than 250 premature deaths each year..)

In other words, a highly controversial, seriously and long-term environmental decision, possibly affecting the health of millions of Texans, is being left up to the oversight of a group appointed by our governor, with no "vote" from the people.

That's what would happen if we to move to the appointment of judges.

The opponents of judicial elections complain about the problems inherent in lawyer's contributing to judicial campaigns. But think of what would be the case with appointed judges: The appointing body (even if their task is just to send three names up to the governor...) would, in all probability, be made up of...whom?

Lawyers!!!

Talk about undue influence!!! And just who would the governor appoint to this body? Do you really trust the governor to be non-partisan? Are you willing to take that risk?

Is the TCEQ acting in a non-partisan way toward these coal plants?

No way.

In fact, an appointive system would simply take control of judicial elections AWAY from the people, and put it INTO the hands of a few special interest lawyers, handpicked by the sitting governor. In a truly paradoxical way, it would not eliminate "special interests" from being a part of judicial selection, but instead guarantee it!!!

For all its flaws, at least with elections, we all get the chance to say our "yea" or "nea" to these candidates.

If you are a Republican in Dallas, right at this particular moment in time, perhaps appointing our judges seems like a good idea. But how will you feel in ten years, when a Democratic governor is in charge? That will happen at some point. (Impossible, you say? Two words: Dallas County).

Here's the bottom line on appointed judges:

Appointing judges is only a good idea if you happen to agree with the politics of the current governor.

And that's why they're a bad idea, no matter you may feel right now.

So, what about the second complaint about elections: that there's too many names on the ballot, and that no one can know about all these candidates?

I will turn to that issue now...


Turn Out, Tune In
First off, a word to voters. You complain that the ballot is too long, and that no one can know all these folks.

Well, me ask you this:

Do you take the time to get to know all the other candidates on your ballot?
Did you know all the candidates running for State Representative in the Dallas area (or, even in your district), before you stepped in the ballot box?
Could you name the candidates for Railroad Commissioner before the moment you saw the touch screen?
Do you even know what a Railroad Commissioner does?

One a Tuesday this Fall, when I was guest hosting the radio show with my friend, Charles Geilich (before it was bagged by KNON) we decided to do an electoral quiz. We asked our listeners to name the candidates for US Senator in the State of Texas. Somebody finally did. But it was probably five or six callers before anyone actually knew the answer; more than enough time for them to "Google it" and call in.

The point is, our ignorance of our electoral process extends far beyond our local judicial elections. And it's disingenuous for anyone to act as if this problem has somehow become horribly worse over night because of them. We were ignorant of our elections, and our duty as voters, long before the 42 judicial races of this cycle. Their appearance this time just put a hard spotlight on a problem that was already there.

And this time, candidates were out there, and candidates were available for you to get to know. At least on the Democratic side (all I can speak to), candidates attended hundreds of local events --parades, conventions, neighborhood meetings, elementary school forums, church and mosque services, bar associations, even the Greek Food Festival-- and were around for any normal human being to meet, greet, and question in the flesh. If you wanted to know about candidates, there were plenty of chances to do so over these past months.

So, in part, I blame ALL OF US for allowing ourselves to become so ignorant, and for then believing that the solution is to take a vote away from us, and give it to some "special interest group."

Yes, I blame us for not being more informed. But I blame one other group too.


I Blame the Media
Usually, this is something you hear conservatives doing. But I actually DO blame the media for a part of why we're so dissatisfied with our system of electing judges. And I'm frustrated with several of our local opinion columnists for blasting the idea of judicial elections (in columns and blogs), when the very paper they work for is part of the problem and part of the unrealized solution.

Here's what I mean...

Every Saturday morning during the Fall, I pick up my Dallas Morning News to discover a special "High School Football" section. Apparently, every Friday evening, the Morning News is able to dispatch dozens of reporters to small and obscure stadiums all over the great 100-mile radius of the Metroplex. Apparently, they find it important enough to devote 6-8 pages of coverage every Saturday morning to local high school football.

I am not questioning the wisdom of this. I am simply asking:

If they can do it for High School football, why can't they do it for local elections?

Why can't they --for the entire length of the election season (say mid-September on...)-- devote similar space (6-8 pages) once a week to local elections?

Imagine how well informed the voters could be with that kind of coverage!!!

They could create charts to explain the difference between a "County Court at Law" and a "State District Judge." They could print maps, showing the different state representative districts. They could literally run at least ONE story on just about every local race!!! Not just editorials (and I am NOT dissing their fine editorials), but real stories, focusing on the issues and the differences between local candidates.

I know, I know....everyone will say, "But nobody wants to read that stuff."

To which I have two responses:

1) The media should have no higher calling, and public service goal, than enabling voters to be informed, and
2) If you don't read that kind of stuff, then how can you ever be informed enough to vote for anyone?

It can be done. You can be informed. More than 70,000 voters during this election voted a non-straight ticket for either party. In fact, looked at from a certain perspective, no candidate won any election in Dallas County without some of these clearly discerning voters.

We need more of them, not less.

But to vote well, you've got to vote informed. And that takes effort, but it can be done.

You can argue the merits of "partisan" vs. "non-partisan" judicial elections, and I will not be able to respond nearly as forcefully against the latter. But I know that however we elect our judges, an elected system beats an appointive system any day, because it leaves the crucial job of selecting one whole branch of our government's leaders in the hands of "we the people."

And at the local level, that's never bad.

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Free Speech and Our Elections

The following stories are ones I have waited to share for two years. Each of them happened during the campaign of 2004, when my wife originally ran for judge in Dallas County. I did not share them until now, because in no way did I want to affect (positively or negatively) her election campaign this year. But I now feel somewhat freer to share the following true stories.

Political signs get stolen. It happens. They get taken down. You have to put them back up. It happens a lot. You can't attribute every time a sign goes missing to some malicious intent. But sometimes you can. Each of these stories come from the 2004 campaign:

Story Number One: The punctured tires
The first story come to me from a Democratic precinct chair in North Dallas, who shared with me his story of the 2004 primary election. He was a supporter of Howard Dean at the time, and he had two large Howard Dean signs in the back windows of his mini-van. One Sunday, he was a church and he and his family came out of the worship service to discover that all four of his tires had been slashed.

Story Number Two: The fearful neighbor
During 2004, one of the strategies I used was to approach houses that had "Martin Frost" signs up already, and inquire as to whether they would put a sign for Dennise too. At one home, not a quarter mile from our house, a woman turned me down saying that her signs had been taken three times already, and that she was was afraid to put anyone else's signs up. I thought her story strange, until I heard the next two stories...

Story Number Three: The fearful neighbor, #2
Not ten minutes, I was on another doorstep, again inquiring about putting up a sign for Dennise. Here, another woman again demured, and told me a truly disturbing story. She said that a week before, two young, cheery volunteers for the Frost campaign had come by to put the yardsign she had requested by phone. They were walking door-to-door, and they were wearing clearly identifiable "Frost" t-shirts. She thanked them for putting up the sign, and then she watched as they walked away, down the street.

But to her horror, just a few paces past her property, she watched as one of her neighbors rode up to them on his bike, threw his bike down, and began to berate them:
"What are you doing in our neighborhood?!!"
"You don't belong here!!"
"We don't want you here!!"

They were clearly shaken, and so was she.
So, she also declined a sign for Dennise.

Story Number Four: Sign Disassembly
It's a common thing for campaign signs to get stolen. But in one case, I discovered something even more creative and sinister. I was at a home on a major, east/west, Near-North-Dallas street. It was a home that had agreed to put up one of Dennise's larger 4x4 signs, and I was personally delivering it.
I noticed that their 4x4 Martin Frost sign looked a little worse for the wear, and so I asked them about it. They told me that one day earlier that week, as they left the house for work, they discovered their Martin Frost sign had been completely disassembled. Not only that, but the screws and nails had been taken out of the wood frame and left in front of the wheels of their SUV, parked in their drive way. They noticed it in time to clean it up before accidentally driving over the booby trap.

Story Number Five: Of Eggs and Concrete
A neighbor of mine, two streets away, called me up to request a sign for Dennise. He already had a sign for "Kerry/Edwards"up, and and wanted to put one of her's up too. So, I brought it over. A day later, he called back to report it had been taken, and to request another one. I brought it to him. The next day, he called back to ask for a THIRD sign. I brought him several more, and as I drove up, found that he was using a post-hole digger to put his third "Kerry/Edwards" sign in place. He dug a hole, hand-mixed some concrete, and planted it deep in his yard! That sign was not coming out!!!

However, two days later, I drove by his house just out of curiosity, and found him on the front porch with a bucket of soap and a brush, cleaning off his front door.

They had been unable to steal the concrete sign, but they did egg his house.
------------------------------------------

Truthfully?

I used to hear these kinds of stories from folks, and assumed they were either paranoid or exaggerating. However, I am here to tell you that I heard each of these stories, first hand, from the people they happened to. And I have become deeply concerned.

In fairness, I am sure that people on the other side of the political aisle could come up with stories like these of their own. I am not naive enough to believe that such negative behavior is only the purview of Republicans. However, at least in 2004, there sure seemed to be a lot of it in North Dallas that I was privy to see involving Democratic signs.

What concerns me in this is what these incidents do to our right to free speech.

How can we have an honest political debate about the important issues in our country, when some people are afraid to put out something as benign as political yardsigns?!!
What does that say about us?

Baron Von Humbold was a German-born contemporary of Thomas Jefferson. In a book by Margaret Smith, the story is told of one of his visits to the presidential residence where, much to his surprise, he found newspapers laying around, filled with views contrary to Jefferson's. Here's how Margaret Smith tells the tale:

"Another time he called of a morning and was taken into the Cabinet; as he sat by the table, among the newspapers that were scattered about, he perceived one that was always filled with the most virulent abuse of Mr. Jefferson, calumnies the most offensive, personal as well as political. "Why are these libels allowed?" asked the Baron taking up the paper, 'why is not this libelous journal suppressed, or its Editor at least, fined and imprisoned?'"

Note President Jefferson's reply:

"Mr. Jefferson smiled, saying, 'Put that paper in your pocket Baron, and should you hear the reality of our liberty, the freedom of our press, questioned, show this paper, and tell where you found it.' "

One of the finest freedoms of our country is the ability to celebrate the differences of our opinions. If we are afraid to do so, if we are badgered into silence, we lose more than just the right to speak.

We become truly un-American.

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Why Democrats Won in Dallas County

Many people have already written about the Democrat's win in Dallas County. Here is a very good essay by Ken Molberg that covers much of the same ground that I will here. I think Ken is quite right in almost everything he says.

(UPDATE (12.16.06): The Lone Star Project has now released their own report on these elections in Dallas County. And they have analyzed the actual voting data to an extent that others, including me, have not. They reach many of the same conclusions that I do in this essay, only they've crunched actual numbers from the election. Here's a pdf of their report.)

First off, this: Anyone who says they know definitively why the Democrats won Dallas County, but does not give you multiple reasons for the electoral wins, doesn't know what they're talking about. The roots of this electoral victory are deep and the shifts in Dallas County are complex. In my opinion, many of the old ways of analyzing the vote --where voters come from, who they vote for, and what their politics are-- will not hold in the future. And if you want to understand what did happen November 7th, and what will happen in Dallas County in future elections, you must look to at least three major factors:

1) An incredibly well organized Dallas Democratic Party and Coordinated Campaign.
2) The changing demographics of ALL of Dallas County, including the southern sector, a potential increase in the Hispanic vote, and the surprisingly strong showing in every suburb.
3) The intensity of the anti-Bush/anti-Republican vote, symbolized by Libertarian candidates getting crazy-good numbers in races where there was no Democrat.

Let me speak to all of these because, IMHO, you will not understand the election unless you understand them all.....

"What Did You Do With the Dallas County Democratic Party?!!"
That' s what many observers kept asking themselves during this campaign season. Because, unlike years past, when political infighting and recriminations tore unity to shreds, the Democratic Party in Dallas County was unified and strategic this time.

Over Labor Day weekend, I read a quote from Kenn George, the Dallas County Republican Chair, in the Morning News. He said that, in his opinion, the Democrats were unorganized and underfunded like "usual." I didn't know at the time time whether he was blowing smoke, or just genuinely deluded. To me, it didn't matter. It didn't matter if anyone outside of the small circle of candidates knew just how well they were working together. THEY knew they were, and they kept it going the whole election season.

Candidates stayed motivated on the task of beating their opponents, and did not beat up on each other. Each candidate, each party activist, brought his or her strengths to the table, and brought out the vote in many key areas of town.

At the heart of this effort was the "Coordinated Campaign." Ed Ishmael has described the Coordinated Campaign quite well in a Dallasblog essay. Kirk McPike, who led the Coordinated Campaign's "Northern Office," has also written an excellent summary of the organization behind it and even some of the key personalities who ran it. Please read it here on Burnt Orange blog. These two links will tell you just about everything you need to know about the Coordinated Campaign and the Democratic Party during this election.

I cannot add much to either of these two essays, except to say that its unity of purpose made this campaign season light-year's different from 2004. Hats off, and major kudos, to Darlene Ewing, who managed to herd all the Democratic cats in one direction long enough to keep the unity going. I am quite impressed with her leadership skills. Darlene was decisive when she needed to be decisive. But she also listened to alternative opinions, and changed her mind when that was the best thing too. She intentionally chose to keep the Democrat's campaign a positive one; concentrating on lifting up the qualifications of Democratic candidates, and showcasing Democratic values, as opposed to wasting time tearing down either on the Republican side. I cannot praise her highly enough for all she did in this campaign.

The candidates pitched in too. They raised money, enlisted their relatives, worked long hours at events when few people showed up, and did not take one single Dallas County voter for granted. They made sure the Democratic Party has a presence at Women's Events, Black Events, Hispanic Events, Gay/Lesbian Events, Christian Events, Jewish Events, Muslim Events....you get the idea...

They marched in dozens of suburban parades. They attended candidate forums of two listeners, and two hundred. They walked, door-to-door, to the homes of thousands of county residents. I don't know what the total count was, but I am certain that candidates and volunteers of the Dallas Democratic Party knocked on tens of thousands of doors during this election cycle.

In short, they worked their butts off. And their unity and hard work, is the first reason Democrats won.

"Oh the Times, They Are A Changin'"
And so are the demographics of Dallas County. But it is far too simplistic to reduce this shift to the classic "North/South" polarity of old. Yes, that's a part of what's going on. But, as I will go into below, it's not the whole story.

The key point to understand is this: every single neighborhood of Dallas County is trending more Democratic, and has been for the past few election cycles.

But first, the county as a whole. Consider this analysis of the county-wide straight party vote in the past three elections:

Republican: 2000: 49.28% 2002: 49.06% 2004: 48.32%
Democratic: 2000: 49.86% 2002: 50.41% 2004: 51.22%

As you can clearly see, since least 2000 the Democrats have been winning the straight party vote percentage battle. Not only is their percentage increasing over this time period, but the Republican's percentage has been decreasing.

The actual percentages for the recently held 2006 election were:
Republican: 46.14
Democratic: 53.04

These percentages actually exceeded my predictions (Rep: 47.24; Dem: 51.9) for this election. Democrats did even better than the straight party vote of the previous three elections would indicate.

This next line I am about to type is crucial: There is no imaginable way that this trend will reverse.

Read that last line again, and say it with me three times slowly. Especially those of you who believe this election was a fluke, or that Dennise's election last time was as fluke...or that Sally Montgomery's election the time before that was. Say it until you believe it.

And if you still don't believe it, consider these other facts:

In 2000, a Democratic State District Judge candidate (Mary Ann Huey) narrowly lost by less than one (0.74!) percent to the incumbent Republican.
In 2002, the Democrats won one county-wide judicial race (Sally Montgomery).
In 2002, another candidate (Lisa McKnight) lost by a just over 1,500 votes (0.42 percent!).
In 2004, Democrats ran in six contests, and won three (fifty percent)
In 2004, George W. Bush (Dallas resident of ten years, and personal friend to many in this county) won Dallas County by the slimmest of margins (10,000 out of more than 680,000 votes cast).
In 2006, Democrats ran in 40 races, and won all of them.
In 2006, Chris Bell won Dallas County (and might have even won a "head-to-head" with Rick Perry too).

So, yes, the "the times, they are a changin'" county wide.

But! They may be changing in more ways than you think. At least the data seems to indicate this. Here's what I mean....

These are not your Mother's Democratic Voters
As I said above, there are many folks who attribute almost all of the Democratic victory to an increase in southern sector voting. And while the southern sector vote is absolutely essential, always has been and always will be, if the analysis just stops there, I believe it misses the whole story.

Facts are, if you look just at the early voting numbers, turnout in the traditional South Dallas stronghold areas was significantly down. (BTW, this freaked out a lot of folks during early voting. There was not much confidence, in some circles, that ANY Democrats would win because this traditionally Democratic area was so lagging, turnout-wise...)

In fact, turnout was down at almost every early voting location in South Dallas, by percentages of between 15 and 37 percent. (compared to 2002, the last comparible midterm election...) So, it doesn't make sense to say that it was only the South Dallas vote that was decisive. It was important. VERY important. The races could not have been won without it. But, in my opinion, it was only when this is combined with other factors that the clear victory emerged for Dallas Democrats.

My personal hunch is that we will find another significant factor was increased Hispanic voter turnout. Domingo Garcia and others have already called it the most important single factor. We probably don't know enough of the facts yet to say that definitely. But you can't rule it out that claim based on the evidence.

Pundits argued for months about whether or not the Hispanic vote would "turn out," in record numbers this Fall. They didn't turn out in a tidal wave, that's true. But the facts are --with Dallas County as close as it is-- even a marginal increase in Hispanic voter turnout would have been enough to have a really key impact on this election.

And the Dallas Observer is reporting that it looks like there was a this kind of marginal increase. Their story reports that at least one analysis shows Hispanic turnout up 9 percent in early voting. If that total held for the general election, there's no doubt that it was a HUGE factor in this election. (In fact, taking into consideration traditional voting patterns, if the EV was up 9 percent, the election day voting was probably up even more than this).

The Observer story found anecdotal information about increased Hispanic turnout:

Poll workers in heavily Hispanic precincts say they noticed more Latinos casting ballots, especially people in their late teens and early 20s, and noted a high number seemed to be voting straight-ticket Democrat. Rising numbers of Hispanic activists and volunteers, along with a surge in citizenship applications, point to long-term political influence, and in the short term, observers believe Latino voters played a major role in Dallas County's Democratic sweep.

One factual indicator of this is the early voting turnout at Grauwyler Recreation Center. While there were not huge total numbers of votes there, it's interesting to note the huge percentage increase. This heavily Hispanic neighborhood saw a whopping 63 percent increase in early voting over 2002.

BTW, as an aside, let me give you one more factoid for your collection, regarding Latinos and this election...

On November 7th, Democrats elected five persons to countywide judicial posts. That one election night total is more than a 100 percent increase over what Republicans have elected in the past 20 years.*

Now, hold all these thoughts in your mind (about possible increased Hispanic turnout) and let me give you some other interesting factoids from the early vote.

Facts:

Early voting turnout was waaay DOWN in the Park Cities. (22 percent to be precise).

Early voting turnout was waaay UP in many of Dallas' suburbs (somewhere between 11 and 25 percent) take a look:
Irving: up 22 percent.
North Dallas: up 23 percent.
Richardson: up 22 percent.
Mesquite: up 25 percent.
Duncanville: up 11 percent.

As I puzzled over these numbers during early voting, it made no logical sense that early voting could be so far down in the Park Cities, but so far up in the suburbs, and for this to still just be Republican voters coming out. Coming out in the suburbs, but staying home in the Park Cities?!! It couldn't be. It had to be something else.

No, I was pretty convinced then (but too chicken to say it too aloud), and I'm even MORE convinced now, that this was something different and new. These were Suburban Democrats. I believe they are Black, Anglo, Hispanic, and Asian, and I personally believe turnout is up for all of them.

Elements of the Democratic Party (some candidates and several PACs) spent a lot of time cultivating votes in these more traditionally "Republican" or "swing" areas. I believe it paid off. You see this no more clearly than in the races for State Representative, which tend to be very localized. We assume that there are many safe Republican seats among these races, and that Democrats have no chance of winning them.

But take a look at these facts....

Moving from left to right across the Dallas area, take a look at how surprisingly well Democratic State Representative candidates did in this election:

Grand Prairie/Irving: Katie Hubener lost by a heart-breaking 250 votes!!! So, basically, she pulled in 50 percent of that vote.
North Dallas/Richardson: Harriet Miller hoped to beat Tony Goolsby. She did not, but she did pull in 46 percent of the vote.
Near North Dallas/Lake Highlands: My good friend, and church member, Phillip Shinoda did not win his race against Will Hartnett, but he topped a quite respectable 42 percent.
East Dallas: Allen Vaught (one of these candidate who walked door-to-door) won his race...pulled in 50 percent.
Center of Town/Park Cities: In one of the most Republican areas of town, Jack Borden pulled in 40 percent of the vote.
And, let's throw in one more: Will Pryor, in a district drawn to be "Republican safe," drew 41 percent of the vote in his effort to unseat Pete Sessions. Again, that's a District that's mainly North Dallas and Irving.

The point is this: No Democrat running for state legislature took LESS than 40 percent of the vote in Dallas' northern suburbs and in North Dallas itself.

Get your mind around that factoid. Yes, this is not your Mother's Democratic voter. These are Anglo suburbanites, joined by Black, Hispanic, and Asian suburbanites, and the traditionally rich Democratic base of South Dallas to form a powerful and winning combination.

We saw these Suburban Democrats first in 2004 during the Frost/Sessions race. Countless North Dallas and suburban Democrats expressed surprise at how many "Frost" signs were up in their neighborhoods. This time saw "Had Enough?" signs replaced the many Frost signs, along with signs for the aforementioned statehouse candidates; and folks like Will Pryor.

Summary: I believe we are seeing a permanent shift in the voting patterns of BOTH North Dallas and of South Dallas. And in both cases, this shift favors the Democrats.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Voter Scorned
There is no question that this election carried an anti-Bush, and anti-Republican, patina. It hung over the election at every level: from the Congress to the local race for County Judge. People --Republicans, Democrats, and Independents-- wanted to send a statement. They are mad about the war, they are mad about Katrina, they are mad about Jack Abramov, they are mad about the dozen or so Republican members of congress who have gone down with him, they are mad about Tom Delay, they are mad about Mark Foley.

They are just mad.

One anecdote from the Fretz Park early voting location (told to me by a Harriet Miller volunteer, so take it with a grain of salt if you must):

The story goes that a guy came up to vote, and walked right up to Tony Goolsby's (the Republican incumbent's) volunteer, and said something like this:
"I have voted straight ticket Republican all of my life."

To which, allegedly, the volunteer whooped and hollered.

But, as the volunteer calmed down, the man continued, "But this year, I am going to go in and vote straight ticket Democrat!"

With that, he then turned, and walked straight into the voting location, leaving everyone watching in stunned silence.

I don't know if that story was true or not. But either way, the facts show that a LOT of people did exactly that: voted straight Democratic. Some of them were Republicans, voting Democratic for the very first time. Other Republicans stayed home.

As I said above, more people voted straight ticket than was predicted by my own estimate this time. In fact, the anti-Bush anger vote probably accounts for about one percent of straight ticket votes overall. Doesn't sound like much, but countywide, that's a lot of mad folks. Liberally, it could have been as many as 15-20,000 votes.

So, yes, there was an anti-Bush/anti-Republican edge to this election. And yes, some really fine human beings --Republican office holders and candidates; some of whom I have known for years and consider friends-- got caught up in it.

But before you dismiss it as a one time fad, please understand how deep it went, and how it factors in with everything else going on in the county. Again, we turn to some interesting numbers....

Take the races for State Supreme Court, for example. In almost all these races, no Democrat ran. It was a Libertarian verses a Republican. You'd assume a Republican stomping here, wouldn't you? In fact, in 2002 when a Libertarian ran against a Republican (with no Democrat on the ballot) Libertarians were only able to garner 13 percent of the vote in the very best case.

This year, Republicans still won those races handily. But! This year, Libertarian candidates drew between 20 and 26 percent of the vote in Dallas County. In some races, 26 percent of the people voted for a Libertarian, rather than vote Republican or just leave the ballot blank!! That's significant, friends. It points to a real desire to send a message, and express an anger and frustration with the President and the Republican Party. Whether you think it misguided or not, it's there, it's real, and it was a factor.

Before Republicans sooth themselves by believing that this is a temporary situation, they should remember points one and two of this essay:
-- The Democratic Party is well organized and, especially now that they've won, there is every indication that they will continue their winning strategies.
-- The demographics of Dallas County continue to shift, in the direction of Democratic voters, in every sector and neighborhood of the county.

In fact, even if there was a one percent anti-Republican factor in this election, and even if you assume that it caused some Democrats to get elected this time who otherwise would not have, the simple continuing trends in the Democrats favor will mean that by next election (2008) the percentages of Democratic voters will more than increase enough to account for the anti-Republican vote this time. In other words: the results of this election, a Democratic sweep, were never in doubt over the long term.

The point is this: whether everyone admits it or not, what happened November 7th was never a question of "if," but only of "when."

The anti-Republican backlash may have caused it to happen this election cycle (rather than next) for some (not all) of the candidates who won this time. But even if you take away that backlash-vote next time, the Democrats will more than be able to make up for that small percentage in their own continuing gains.

As for Republicans, the task becomes pretty monumental. To re-take county-wide offices, the Republicans will not only have to win back the angry swing voters, woo back their voters who stayed home, but also win OVER some new voters to make up for continuing Democratic gains.

And that's probably too tall an order, given the realities of a party whose own straight party vote has now decreased for four straight elections.
------------------------------
Well, that's about it. I have now exhausted all my thoughts about turnout in this election. Others will disagree, of course, and come up with much more simplistic reasons for why November 7th happened. That's fine. It's one of the fun parts of politics...the second guessing...the armchair quarterbacking...the trying to put an election into context and come up with reasons for why what happened happened.

So, I am sure there are other ways to look at it. And others can write their own essays. But, I will remind you, I am now 2-0 as a political advisor to my favorite Democratic candidate.


So, if you take only one point away from this essay, I hope it will be this:

Lots of people think they have this election all figured out, but their figuring only includes one of the preceding set of factors, while the real answer is more complex:

-- They point to surpressed Republican straight ticket turnout, but fail to recognize that the trendline has been dropping for Republican turnout for the last four elections.
-- They point to the changing Demographics of Dallas, and assume it's all a "southern sector" thing, but fail to account for the increases in Northern sector and Hispanic voting.
-- They point to anger against the Republicans, but fail to see just how well organized and funded the Democrats were.

The answer to why the Democrats won is complex. And I hope I've given you all something to think about.

*Based on research I have done for election returns going back to 1992 in countywide judicial races. And the claim here applies to elected verses appointed judgeships. The point being that Democrats, in one night, increased the number of elected Latino judges in Dallas County by more than 100 percent. And not only 100 percent more than those serving currently, but 100 percent more than the Republicans have ever elected in their history. If anyone finds evidence to contradict this claim, I would be happy to correct it. But I'm pretty sure it's right.

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