Corpus Christi newspaper gets one right! Judge Klager reelection endorsed

[Czolgosz]

Here is an excerpt:

"Klager is the hands-down choice in Court-at-Law No. 4. The voters need to keep reaping the investment of his 20 years on the bench.

Even though he is serving his fourth term on the bench, this is the first race in which he has drawn opposition. As one of the senior judges in the Nueces County Courthouse, Klager has handled, by his own count, more than 40,000 cases over his judicial career."

<http://www.caller.com/ccct/editorials/article/0,1641,CCCT_840_4465568,00.html>

[sonias]

1. We got some great judical candidates in our area too

Experience and good temperament are something you really want in a judge. Good luck to Judge Klager.

Sonia

[Czolgosz]

4. Tell me about 'em . . .

[sonias]

5. Charlie Baird running for the 299th District court

This man is a Democratic workhorse. A great Democrat and a good judge. A judge with compassion that prefers to keep people out of jail if they can be helped outside. He knows that sending people to prison for non-violent crimes, turns them into real criminals.
http://www.judgecharliebaird.com/

Then we have the great line up of four great candidates running for the 3rd court of appeals. We call them 4 for the 3rd. Diane Henson ran in 2004 and just missed out taking out and incumbent Perry repuke appointment. This is a huge district covering 24 counties. All four of these Democrats are running for open seats or against repukes on the court. None are running against each other.

Justice, 3rd Court of Appeals, Pl. 2
Jim Sybert Coronado
5602 Palisades Ct.
Austin, TX 78731
[phone]
www.judgejimcoronado.com

Justice, 3rd Court of Appeals, Pl. 3
Diane Henson
908 Terrace Mountain Drive
Austin, TX 78746

Justice, 3rd Court of Appeals, Pl. 5
Mina A. Brees
9000 Ruxton Cove
Austin, TX 78749
[phone]
www.breesforjudge.com

Justice, 3rd Court of Appeals, Pl. 6
Bree Buchanan
1510 Edgewood Ave.
Austin, TX 78722
[phone]

All good candidates. Hope they all win come Nov.

Sonia

[Czolgosz]

6. Austin misses Judge Mack Kidd -- a great man and a great Democrat

Charlie Baird is a great judge too. I don't know the other folks, but they have to better than the nabobs and Perry appointees that have infected the Austin court of appeals recently. The young Republican judges on that court are often clever, but never wise.

[susanr516]

2. Klager's quite an interesting guy

to talk to. He's also a former State Rep.

What's your take on Court-at-Law 3?

[Czolgosz]

3. I read where someone compared the County Court 3 race to the 2000

race for the 214th District Court. Here are the results from that 2000 primary election (before the run off):

Mark Skurka ------------- 29%
Jose Longoria ------------ 26%
Hector Rene Gonzalez ---- 24%
Jeanette Cantu-Bazar ---- 15%
Mike McLelland ------------ 6%

Then Judge Longoria easily beat Skurka in the run off.

I think this 2000 race is a pretty close parallel to the current County Court 3 race with Skurka doing about the same as he did in 2000, Judge DePena performing about the same as Judge Longoria did, Martinez doing nearly as well as Gonzalez did, Villarreal-Kuchta doing about as well as Cantu-Bazar did, and Flores doing a little better than McLelland did. Other than Martinez probably not doing quite as well as Gonzalez did and Flores doing better than McLelland, I think this model will fairly accurately predict a Skurka-DePena run off, which will be close, but I suspect Judge DePena will win.

I didn't come up with this analysis, I just read it somewhere, but I think it's as good a guess as you could make. Except for Flores, whose campaign literature obsesses about "lawsuit abuse" and "frivolous lawsuits" so much so that he may as well be running as an anti-consumer Republican judge, I think any of the four other candidates would make a fine judge, but I think Skurka and Judge DePena are the most well qualified and would make the best judges.

What do you think?

[susanr516]

7. I think you're dead on

with this race analysis. Skurka is the vote leader in the primary, and then loses it in the runoff. Both De Pena and Skurka seem to be real workhorses, which is what I've heard is needed in that court. I think either of them would be a good choice.

[Czolgosz]

8. These results also suggest Klager should beat Gonzalez without a runoff

In 2000 Hector Rene Gonzalez could only manage a third place finish with less than a quarter of the vote in a five-way race.

In 2002 Gonzalez ran against Judge Sandy Watts in a two-way race and -- again -- he got his ass handed to him in a brown paper bag. She beat him 58%-42%.

In these past two elections, Gonzalez actually had some yard signs etc., but in this election virtually no one seems to have yard signs or any other visible demonstrations of support for his half-baked candidacy. The word is that ex-Democrat Fil Vela was behind Gonzalez's run (with some behind-the-scenes help from a very controversial lawyer friend of Fil's who's trying to play both sides of the field in this race) and now that Gonzalez has hung himself out to dry with his third-strike loss immanent, neither Fil nor his behind-the-scenes buddy are returning Gonzalez's phone calls. In addition to Gonzalez's complaining about being left high-and-dry by those who originally encouraged him to run in this certain-loss race (whereas he might have had a chance in the race for the 94th), Gonzalez has been repeatedly heard roaming the halls of the Courthouse saying that he's only running because the third candidate, Luis Octavio Gutierrez, would make such an awful judge.

Speaking of Luis Octavio Gutierrez, he has done an excellent job of running such a stealth campaign that I have yet to meet anyone who has even seen him on the campaign trial.

Based on Hector Rene Gonzalez's past performance, and Luis Octavio Gutierrez's complete invisibility, I expect this race come in somewhere near the following numbers:

Judge James Klager (i) --- 55%
Hector Rene Gonzalez ---- 38%
Luis Octavio Gutierrez ---- 7%

I'm assuming that Klager will get the same votes that went to Judge Watts in 2002 (at the very least) and Gonzalez will certainly do no better than he did in 2002 and that Gutierrez will probably take few votes from either candidate but will take more from Gonzalez than he takes from Klager.

Any thoughts?

[susanr516]

9. Klager will definitely be top vote-getter

But, Watts is female and a fluent Spanish speaker. Thinking it will be more of a squeaker, but Klager prevails without a runoff, due to dueling Hispanic opponents (one unknown, and one perennial candidate.)

I have heard the Velacrats are involved on both sides of this race, I just haven't heard a good reason as to why, yet.

[Czolgosz]

10. Good points. Velacrats are on Klager's side of the race because he'll win

and they want to appear to be supporting the candidate everybody else in town is also supporting and who will win. The Velacrats are also quietly working on the other side because encouraging a longshot opponent is a win-win situation for them. If something wholly unexpected were to happen and Gonzales pulled off the upset of the century, then the Velacrats could chalk up the win for the Democratic candidate they encouraged into the race. If Gonzales loses, as is 99.9% likely to happen, the Velacrats still chalk up a win because they made Klager raise and spend a bunch of funds in the primary so he will have raise additional funds to beat David Jones (the Velacrat-backed Republican candidate) in November.

The problem is that the Velacrats encouraged Gonzalez into the County Court 4 race without telling him that they were also encouraging Jones into that same race (Gonzalez thought Velacrats Jones and Juan Reyna were running for the 94th and County Court 3). Now Gonzalez feels like he was left high-and-dry by the Velacrats (because he was) and so Gonzalez isn't being as discrete as the Velacrats (who thought that they could get away with playing both sides of this race) expected him to be.