#Txpolitics and Dem guv runoff debate timeLoopy Lupe Valdez vs Whiter than White

Time for Andrew Whiter than White vs Loopy Lupe Valdez.

Lupe Valdez of my nickname and Andrew White of Brains' moniker, the detritus leftover for a runoff in the Democratic governor's primary here in the Pointy Abandoned Object State™, will have a debate on Friday, May 11.

Brains calls the spot, the Friday before Mother's Day, a bad choice. Assuming both candidates agreed, this isn't quite like the DNC trying to bury Bernie-Hillary debates, and besides, it's right before early voting in the runoff.

He doesn't like my nickname for Loopy Lupe, which is part of why I put it in the header, especially as I – while respecting him for saying why he doesn't like it in a follow-up – disagree with his why. (If she were of Anglo heritage, let's say with the same last name as the current governor of Wisconsin, I might just call her "Wacky Walker," Brains.) As I told him, I've used it off and on since Loopy's Dallas County Sheriff's Office arrested and forgot about my teacher friend a decade ago, and thus got herself and her agency sued. (And I think my friend may have used it before I did, and given that she's of mixed ethnicity and other things, if she used it first, I likewise feel confident about her lack of conscious, or subconscious, racial animus.) But, that's OK. Brains knows that I disagree with him on the actual-from-childhood nickname of Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke, in that it's not (merely) an adult marketing scheme. And, while I've occasionally, since our talks about that, called him Beto-Bob ... I have yet to call him simply Bob and don't plan on changing.

In tagging Brains yesterday on Twitter with the top link, about the debate, I said we'd get "I personally" responses (White) vs. incoherent ones (Valdez). For the background on the incoherent, especially re Latin@ youth and immigration, see Jonathan Tilove and links.

Couple other nuances vis a vis Brains. He indicates he will quite likely undervote the race if White gets the nomination and there's no viable write-in or Greens with Janis Richards as the nominee don't regain ballot access. I'm with him. But, he stays silent on what he'll do if it's Valdez.

Sorry, kimo sabe, but Valdez ain't that far left herself on that many issues. Not far enough to offset a long, long track record of incoherence and incompetence. (Side note: I might appreciate her candor, but not her naivete, which should have been greatly reduced through two primary and four general election campaigns for sheriff. This ain't a rerun of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.")

As per Brains' worrying about her past cooperation with ICE? She was in the Army, and as an officer, not a grunt. She then, after county jailer time, worked as a federal jailer, then, essentially, as a federal detective, per Wiki. One can be a minority, and yet law-and-order, even wingnut law and order, a la Sheriff Clarke in greater Milwaukee, to look at Wisconsin again. And, per the other reason he doesn't like my nickname (which is again a wrong deduction), one can be LGBT and conservative, even a wingnut. Look at Milo Yiannopoulis of alt-right infamy. Yes, ethnic minorities, and gender-identity minorities, are more likely to be liberal, even leftist, than conservative, or wingnut. But, that's not an absolute; it's not with atheists, either.

Besides, undervoting if she should be the nominee (which I doubt) would (I hope) send a message to Gilberto Hinojosa and the rest of the Texas Democratic Party apparatchiks to stop selecting and favoring tokenism candidates.

Speaking of write-ins, Brains then talks about the possibility of a Democratic Socialist of America candidate, linking to a NYT piece touting them in Texas in general and Houston in particular.

Problem? Which he knows.

The DSA is an activist group inside the Dem Party, basically. It isn't a third party. It never endorses to the left of the Dem Party. Likelihood of a DSA write-in? Slim and none.

Now, a Socialist Party USA write-in? Or a Green-affiliated one if the party isn't on the ballot? Maybe not much more, but perhaps a touch.