Late Night-Early Morning Coffee-Fueled Post-Election Mash-Up

We’ll leave to others the predictable analysis and sentimentalizing about what it all means and just say that the best candidate won. As Parker herself noted, her victory was historic in overcoming the long-standing stigma that has prevented Rice graduates from ascending to the city’s highest office. Our newly elected mayor has a sense of humor––it can be wicked, we’ve heard––and we’d imagine that will come in handy.

Locke never struck us a bad person, and in fact had the most interesting personal story of the entire field, but as we tried to point out in this space on a number of occasions, in a number of ways, there wasn’t much rationale to his campaign. Combining all that union support and promise-making with backing from the likes of Ned Holmes and Bob Perry made for one ungainly effort and a very muddled message. The current demographic equilibrium in the municipal electorate necessitates artful coalition-building–– that’s a good thing!––but welding the monolithic black vote to whatever anti-gay sentiment there is to be stirred-up apparently is not the ticket. (Rumors that Hotze the Herb Doctor and Dave Wilson were spotted loading up U-Hauls late Saturday night apparently were false.)

Locke was gracious in defeat, as was Parker in victory, and as a concerned citizen we would ask that Locke perform one more public service before he returns to the rigors of $640-an-hour public-agency lawyering: MAKE SURE SOMEBODY TAKES DOWN ALL THOSE GODDAMN SIGNS YOUR CAMPAIGN TACKED UP ALL OVER THE CITY ON FRIDAY AND SATURDAY. Yeah, that was overkill. Bizarre overkill. We plied the hustings a bit on Election Day and thought we even spied one tied to a fence outside a cemetery. Very unsightly.

Elsewhere on the ballot, we were pleased to see that Stephen Costello prevailed in the at-large Position 1 council race. He struck us as thoughtful and low-key, attributes that will be in demand on a council to which Jolanda Jones will be returning. We had no horse in the controller’s race––statutorily, we believe the controller’s main job is to lay the ground work for a future mayoral campaign––so once in the voting booth (or cubicle, whatever you call it now) we shrugged and spun the dial for our outgoing councilman, M. J. Khan, ’cause we figured it would be cool to have a lesbian as mayor and a Muslim as controller. Nah, not really. We just never heard Ronald Green offer a specific, detailed explanation of his troubles with the IRS. Lord knows we’re sympathetic with anyone who has problems with the tax collector, but the liens against Green, and the total he owes to the agency, suggest that he has a long-standing problem getting his own fiscal shit together. But apparently there are enough Democrats in the city playing Democrats-versus-Republican in supposedly non-partisan municipal politics to hoist Green to higher office (that includes Chris Bell, our former congressman [recently elevated, or demoted, to state senator by the error-ridden daily newspaper], who left an urgent message on our machine on behalf of Green). Now that he’s obtained a better-paying post at the public trough, we hope Councilman Green will be able to satisfactorily resolve this dispute (you can bet we’ll never hear back form the media on this particular matter, because winning cancels all debts, at least spiritually).

Now for the distressing news: We were stunned––okay, very surprised––by the results in our own humble District F, where lawyer Aloysius Hoang beat lawyer Mike Laster. The latter, a former assistant city attorney, had a long record of civic involvement in Sharpstown and apparently has lived for a number of years in a downscale, unfashionable neighborhood in the area, in a house that’s even smaller than ours and carries an even lesser appraisal for tax purposes. In other words, Laster was committed to the district. Hoang, by contrast, appears to have taken an address in District F for voting purposes, becoming eligible to cast his ballot there just prior to the November first-round election, and his wife claims a homestead exemption on an abode in Brazoria County. Almost every cent he raised came from fellow Vietnamese-Americans, many of them from outside of the district. (There’s nothing wrong with that, per se––that's how immigrant groups traditionally have gotten a leg-up in electoral politics, but it doesn’t exactly reflect support from the wider “community” you’ll pretend to represent.) Some benighted representatives of the media and academia will, of course, hail the election of a Vietnamese immigrant as some splendiferous triumph of “diversity,” but the actual story is infinitely more complex and, if we may stoop to rank sentimentality, sadder. The turnout for Saturday’s runoffs in District F was pathetic: Hoang won by about 500 votes of the 8,860 or so total cast. Aloysius found a convenient jurisdiction in which to pursue his ambition of becoming a macher in Viet-Am circles. We hope that from here on out he can be found laying his head on a goddamn pillow every night in District F (F is for “forewarned is forearmed”).

Okay, we were stunned. More on this as developments warrant.

Mayoral Candidate Takes Bold Stand, Declares "Race" Is Off the Table

We see that Gene Locke, sporting very pimpalicious Stetson-like headgear he may have borrowed from the Bill White Collection (since both seem to have relatively large heads, and we mean this in a purely physical sense), has gone far, far out on a limb to declare that he will not be making an issue of race or sexuality in the coming days before his runoff with Annise Parker.

We were relieved to learn, and maybe you were too, that Locke has boldly deemed "race" to be a hands-off topic, because, y'know, it hasn't exactly been coming up a lot previously and because, y'know, at least a bare majority of the Houston electorate is still of the Caucasian persuasion (as am we). As for making an issue of sexuality (we believe he meant homosexuality) ... well, apparently he's leaving that to others.

By the way, we have to say that Jack Christie's rejection of the Hotze endorsement causes us to look with some renewed favor on the man. We have no idea what that move was all about, but it seems that Christie could probably use however many votes Hotze commands (we'd bet it's a lot [lot] fewer than the number of mailings he sends out) in his runoff with at-large council incumbent Jolanda Jones. (Although Jones' apparently insatiable need for attention and/or validation still gives us the skeevies, we found our self warming to her a bit after watching the municipal-access broadcast of the council meeting at which she went after the mayor's expensive BARC consultant*––particularly when she expressed mock incredulity at the fellow's charging the city for two hours of his time to speak with her, an elected rep of the people, which Jones suggested was in any event a gross miscounting of the minutes he actually "consulted" with her. )

So we may be throwing our vote Christie's way, if he can satisfy us that he, or somebody, has cleaned the algae from that pool at the in-town apartment he rented last time he ran for a council seat (scummy swimming pools being a serious liability for office-holders).

*An issue we otherwise care absolutely nothing about.

Attention Dave Wilson: Annise Parker Is Claiming to Be “Sensible,” and You Know What That Means! (Doncha?)

We learned today that during our two-week hiatus from blogurbatin’ the Houston mayoral race has gotten downright meta-, with one of the two remaining candidates exploiting familiar stereotypes to win votes. That candidate is, of course, Annise Parker, who has sent the Slampo family a mailing –– we’re pretty sure ours was not the only household to have gotten it –– declaring, most proudly and unashamedly, although rather prosaically, “There’s Nothing Wrong with Sensible” (not even an excitement-inducing exclamation mark –– how sensible is that?!). Beneath that declaration for the ages is a full-color picture of a pair of scissors and a passel of clipped newspaper coupons, possibly the most unexciting visual accoutrement in the history of direct-mail political advertisements.

We presume this is the Parker campaign’s sly, tongue-in-check riposte to those (supposedly) 35,000 mailings that our old pal Dave Wilson sent out week before last warning Republicans of the plagues that will befall Houston should it elect a lesbian as mayor on Dec. 12. (Dave would have been better off doing something sensible with his money, like taking a book of numerology with him to the dog track.) Parker, in fact, seems to be touting her, ah, whatyacallit, sexual orientation, as proof that she'll be a trustworthy steward of the public purse.

As all of our wised-up cosmopolitan readers know, “being sensible” is a sure sign of lesbianism, perhaps the hallmark sign of lesbianism. You see it in their choice of comfortable footwear, in the low-maintenance, non-gas-guzzling SaturnsSubarus they drive to the softball field, in their cost-conscious, no-frills buzz-cut hairstyles, in their proficiency with hammers and screwdrivers and do-it-yourself projects, in their love of that godawful straight-ahead heartland rock ’n’ roll of Melissa Etheridge, in their ... and so on.

It’s a wild, crazy lifestyle, as Dave Wilson will tell you.

We personally find nothing wrong with “sensible,” having recently been forced to come to grips with our own inner lesbian. Not only do we clip coupons, often finding that experience the highlight of our minutes spent with the local Sunday newspaper, but for many years we, too, drove a low-maintenance, non-gas-guzzling Saturn. We like to keep our blades sharpened and our tools in order. We spend no more than $10 to have our remaining hairs cut, although we throw in a nice tip if the Vietnamese lady barber administers a brisk scalp massage, and we always wear the most comfortable and unfashionable shoes we can afford (although we don't wear our Crocs outside of the house, and wish you wouldn't, either). And, no, you can’t smoke on our porch. Go stand in the street. (We may have crossed the line from sensible to “stodgy.”)

It was not always thus. Many years ago, in a Hub City barroom near the break of day, we set our T-shirt on fire, not by accident, to impress a girl (she wasn’t, or maybe she was ...). But we have lived, and we have learned, belatedly, that there is nothing wrong with sensible.

Sins of Omission: As “Gay Panic” Hits Runoff, Still No 1040s From Locke, While Chronicle Soccer-Stadium Story Manages to Leave Out the Good Parts

Following an interesting and informative Bradley Olson story on Saturday documenting a potential unholy alliance between Gene Locke and, as Olson describes it, "staunch social conservatives who are either actively planning on attacking [Annise] Parker's sexuality or strongly considering it,” the Chronicle on Sunday offered a look at the runoff candidates’ positions on the city’s contributions to a new soccer stadium that was notable for a glaring factual error as well as the germane context that it left out.

The paper erroneously described Locke as a former chairman of the Harris County Houston Sports Authority, which presumably has a hand, or would have a hand, in structuring and administering whatever financing arrangement emerges from the apparently stalled negotiations over the facility. Actually, the law firm in which Locke is a partner, Andrews Kurth, is the general counsel to the publicly funded authority, and Locke himself acted as its lawyer at least until April (if not beyond), when, as the doughty Texas Watchdog put it, he gave up “the $640-an-hour fees that went with the job” to run for mayor. And Locke, as far as can be discerned from the public record, is still listed as a partner in Andrews Kurth, meaning he’s still benefitting from whatever work the firm is doing for the authority (as well as other tax-funded local government entities). All this has been batted around fairly extensively in the ground-level media, most notably by Texas Watchdog but also occasionally in this space, when the Lord grants us the time to perform our important community work, and other places as well. Yet nowhere in the Chronicle story is the name “Andrews Kurth” mentioned, nor does the report point out that Locke, as of his last campaign finance disclosure to the city, had received a total of $7,500 in contributions from the Dynamo’s owners, including $3,000 from California billionaire Philip F. Anschutz, and another $2,000 from Dynamo president and former sports authority executive director Oliver Luck (who is identified in the Chronicle story as a fund-raiser for Locke). These contributions, of course, would be wholly irrelevant to the stadium question and were made simply because the donors are concerned about good government in Houston. (Sleepy Chronicle columnist Rick Casey –– hey, we were thinking the other day, what happened to his cuz and onetime Chronicle stablemate, Whitney Casey? –– did report that former welterweight champ Oscar De La Hoya had given $2,000 to Locke, but Casey cited this act of selfless generosity as a “celebrity” donation and failed to mention that the Golden Boy has been reported to have a minority ownership stake in the Dynamo).

(The Chronicle story did include –– you saw this coming, right? –– some contextual fluffery from none other than Bob “You-Need-A-Quote” Stein of Rice University, the yeoman journalist’s bestest friend, whose son-in-law, it is disclosed, works for the Locke campaign, a factoid that only gives rise again to perhaps the most pressing civic question facing Houston today: Is there nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide, from Bob Stein? [Of course, we can’t argue with the CW that Stein dispenses to the paper, but the dude needs to start screenin’ his calls .])

All of this makes a nice set-up to the Locke campaign’s refusal to even respond to Texas Watchdog’s request that he and Parker make public their households’ IRS returns for the past three years (Parker has released returns for both herself and her partner).

As for the emerging gay-panic narrative –– and how predictable was that? –– we will for the time being forgo the temptation to pound out 2,000 or so choice words on the subject and instead direct all concerned citizens to the succinct deboning of the non-issue by blogHouston’s Kevin Whited.

It's the White Lesbian Vs. the Formerly Angry Black Man. What'll the Neighbors Say?*

Self-promotion is not our thing, either here at Slampo's Place or back in the real world, which is why we always turn promotional tasks over to Hidalgo Hidalgo & Associates LLP., whose namesake's rise from $6.40-an-hour illegal yardman to $640-an-hour world-class publicity-mongerer is the quintessential Houston story affirming Our Town's embrace of both "opportunity" and "diversity." So, in a Peter Brown-like effort to get our full money's worth, we'll turn our space over to this morning's press release from HH & Ass., which he promises will be winging its way to you soon "if I can figure out how to get this dang Fax deal workin'."

Of all the bloggers, joggers, bum-smackers, fact-checkers, booty-snatchers, sack-scratchers, dog-catchers and other "observers" of the 2009 Houston mayoral race, it appears that Slampo's Place was alone in correctly "calling" the results. As Sr. Slampo wrote back on Oct. 24, after viewing the final televised debate between the candidates and ingesting a large plate of Indian take-out that he says left him "a bit gassy" ... "We still think it’ll be Locke and Parker in a runoff, with the black vote (and what else?) breaking monolithically for Locke and Parker beating the bushes to get her diehards to the polls, but either of those two and Brown wouldn’t surprise, and in any case it’ll be close, 3-5 points separating the three but Morales doing better than expected ... "

Thank, you Hidalgo. We couldn't have said it better ourself. However, we must point out that we were a little (or a lot) off in setting the spread among the top three candidates, as the difference between top finisher Annise Parker and Out-of-the-Money Brown was a full 8 points (we figured that Farmer Brown would top out at about 25 percent), and, in truth, we thought Roy Morales would be lucky to crack 18 percent (rather than the 20.4 percent he got –– did the additional 2 or so come out Brown's instant "base" of not-so-committed TV watchers?).

OK, so we weren't that close. And we should also point out that most knowledgeable types whose forecasts came to our attention at least had Parker in a runoff, if not leading. That most knowledgeable of knowledgeable observers, the Bob Lanier Professor of Public Policy at the University of Houston, in his undercover guise as Prof 13, called the "advantage" for Parker and pretty much predicted that she would meet Locke in a second round.

So what happened to Farmer Brown? While we can't quite embrace Sr. Rick Casey's in-so-many-words assertion that Brown's finish proves money can't buy an election –– hell, this is America, you can buy any damn thing you want, at all hours, especially out on Harwin Drive –– it is true that there was much less than met the eye to Brown and his campaign, starting with the constant flurry of plans and proposals the Friends 'n' Family Candidate issued forth to project an aura of substantiality, if that's an actual word. The high point of his effort was the front-runner status he was accorded in late-breaking polls issued by the Chronicle and Channel 11/KUHF, both of whose "screen" of voters who claimed they would go to the polls for the very low-interest election seemed a bit suspect (you know how it is –– you catch some people-pleasing registered voter/respondent at home who's only vaguely aware there's an election and has no history of participating in past municipal election but has seen a PB commercial just recently so she's down for PB, at least for the moment). But PB gained no traction, no momentum from the attention delivered by these polls; instead, we suspect, they caused people who were unsure of their choices to look a little closer or go ahead and throw in with Morales, the other non-black, non-openly gay candidate (unless of course they were black themselves and had somehow been unaware that Locke's black, too, and upon having had that salient fact brought to their attention fell quickly in line so as to adhere to the rule laid out in the Unofficial Guide to Being an Authentic Black Person in America: that is, a black person can only vote for a black candidate, when given that choice). The general lack of widespread interest in the electoral doings basically brought the contest down to committed and informed voters, proving, again that low-turnout elections are to be preferred (the lower the turnout the better; our ideal neo-Platonic electorate would consist of just us –– me, myself y yo.) We believe, however, that PB might have fared better had he not come across in public as a Brooks Brothers-clad combination of Hee Haw's Grandpa Jones and Mr. Haney of Green Acres.**

But the dogs bark –– hear them baying, out in the abandoned graveyard, site of a future high-density loft-apartment development –– and the caravan moves on, although there appears to be some back-up on I-10 due to an overturned tractor-trailer blocking the left two lanes. As to that future, we suppose that either of the runoff choices would be OK and the election of neither would cause some great tragedy to befall the city, although we personally will be casting our second vote for Parker on Dec. 12. We believe that those who say there isn't much difference between the two are wrong, and that Parker will be willing to say "No" at least occasionally, or more often than Locke, although such ability is not one that translates easily into a snappy 30-second TV commercial. As usual, though, we're willing to be disappointed.

As charitable contribution to this great metropole of ours, we're waiving our customary $640-an-hour fee and offering the following advice, free of charge, to each candidate:

1. Locke: Get some white folks out at your next big party, so it doesn't appear to be the nearly all-black affair that the cameras revealed (perhaps falsely) when panning your victory celebration Tuesday night. Couldn't any of those honkified lawyers or engineers who gave you the maximum $10,000 husband-and-wife contribution show up and mill around for a while, for diversity's sake?

2. Parker: Get some males, guys, dudes to stand directly behind you next time you're on TV and up at the podium speechifying; the two gents you had behind you Tuesday night were placed way to far in the back to project on-camera. If need be, Hidalgo Hidalgo is available, for diversity's sake, to mill around behind you and smile, at his regular $640-an-hour rate (meal not included).

Next: M.J. Khan Shocks the World; Reveals Plans to Spend "Three Consecutive Nights" Inside City Limits!

AND: Chronicle to Resolve Runoff Dilemma by Endorsing Peter Brown and Roy Morales, Publisher Says

* Headline borrowed from the New York Times, which belatedly decided that it was "unfit" for even their on-line editions.

**Outdated Baby Boomer-vintage TV references, possibly not even accurate.

Late-Breaking Election News: Scooter Khan Nabs Key Endorsement, Is No Longer a Campaign Finance Scofflaw (Or at Least Not as Much of One)

It had gotten so that every day for the past couple of months, after dragging our weary carcass back to the domicile we claim as a homestead for tax purposes, we'd pause at the mailbox and wonder, with a rise of no small expectation we found difficult to suppress, "Did Khalid Khan send us any mail today?" This semi-regular haunting of our mail receptacle by the District F council candidate was, for us, the high point of the current, rather drab municipal election season.

We were sad to realize that the mail loped to a stop last week after we were the recipient of a personal "Dear friend" missive from Mehreen Khan, who apparently is conjoined in holy matrimony to Khalid and who, if she's the same woman pictured on several of the many previous mailings we'd received from KK, is a looker, as we aging metrosexuals say (yes, we are the sort of superficial fellow who tends to think better of a guy if he's got a good-looking wife or girlfriend––shows initiative, among other things). Anyway, Ms. Khan wrote to inform us that her husband is not only a successful businessman but a great humanitarian, doting dad and all-around excellent role model. "I guarantee you will be pleased with his work performance," enthused Mrs. Khan, who appears to have affixed her personal signature to the letter.

You may snicker, but as far as we know we've gotten no similar endorsements from the spouses and/or significant others of any of the other six candidates vying in District F, a political jurisdiction that offers an almost too-perfect confirmation of Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam's theory regrading the deleterious effects of "diversity" on community. (Watch how low the turnout is in this one.) And we have received no similar letter, nary a one, from the wife of Peter Brown (whose full name, we believe, is Schlumberger heiress Anne Brown), or the wife of Gene Locke, or the partner of Annise Parker. Or even Roy Morales' significant other.

Certainly a letter from a candidate's wife urging a vote on his behalf is much preferred to a letter from a candidate's wife urging a vote against her husband, or a vote for another candidate (now that would get our attention).

In addition to the public support of his wife, last week brought more salutary tidings from Khalid Khan: He's finally gotten his campaign finance reports to comport with reality (or close enough), with his latest and yet another amended version of his earlier one now showing he had spent about $92,000 on direct mail through Oct. 24. (Khan, however, still hasn't listed the occupation of even one of his contributors, including one-named $1,000 donor "Nash" of LaPorte, who must be the guy who doles out political money from the convenience store parking lot.)

That strikes us as an absurdly high figure for a very low-interest election in a demographically inchoate city council district. We now belatedly realize that we had grievously underestimated Khalid Khan, who may in fact be the Peter "Farmer" Brown of our humble District F, layin' down the Astroturf and harvestin' the vote.

Enough of this micro-hyper-local palaver. Do we have a prediction on the mayoral race? Yes, we do. It's gonna be Parker and Locke, unless it's Brown and Locke or Parker and Brown. Personally, we're voting for Parker. You go with who you like, and let a hundred flowers bloom o'er this grand metropolis of ours, from the Ship Channel to Highway 6 and beyond, if the city limits stretch that far.

We forgot to vote early, so we may see you at the polls, unless we forget again (if we don't, please refrain from handing us any push cards, especially if they're for Khalid Khan).

Final Wheeze-Off: The Tie Goes to ... Roy Morales!

Our lightly edited card from the grand finale of mayoral debates, broadcast on Channel 11 Saturday night: We scored it a four-way tie, six-way if you count the two potted plants strategically positioned on-stage, nobody much gained or lost at all (at all), which means the big winner was Roy Morales, the least polished public presence and most un-mayoral looking and sounding of the quartet. But, if anyone was watching (and they probably weren’t), Morales did manage to cleanly and clearly cement his position as the distinct “none of the above” alternative to the other three. And he got on TV! Again! The question for Morales is not of course whether he can miraculously slide into a runoff but how high into the double digits he’ll place (there won’t be a kingmaker role in his future, though, because a sizable percentage of his voters won’t bother to return for an all-liberal Democrat runoff). So let’s see how it went down, by candidate:

Morales: Revealed that as a youngster he had been “beaten up” because, as he put it, “of the color of my skin.” Hmmm. Morales looked to be the second-lightest-complected candidate on the platform, after the overly made-up Annise Parker, so we’re wondering whether he meant other Mexicans were pummeling him because he looked too white, or what. Anyway, Morales obviously has sharpened his elbows since, as evidenced by the clean and relatively cogent poke he threw at Peter Brown over his council vote to assist a development in which his wife is an investor and the digs he took at Gene Locke over his Metro connections and (for instance) his pledge to create a new “flood plain manager” position for the city. Morales was the only one to clearly pledge to oppose extension of benefits to the same-sex partners of city workers (although Brown didn’t seem too enthusiastic over another voter referendum on the matter), a position not to be underestimated as a vote-getter in some limited quarters, and was most forthright in support of the city’s participation in the feds‘ 287(g) (although Parker crisply reiterated her standard no-BS position, the correct position as far as we’re concerned). He also got in a sweet and true plug for making English the dominant language in public schools (which it ain’t, at far too many). Morales’ big problem, aside from the fact that nobody’s given him any money to go on TV, is that he just doesn’t project in person. He did, however, manage to not look like a cute lil’ chipmunk with nut-stuffed cheeks––maybe it was the lighting.

Locke: No longer wants to “dehonkify” the University of Houston, or any other locale, for that matter. “In fact I love honkies ... I love all people, let me make that clear, but especially honkies,” Locke intoned. “Especially honkies who live in Kingwood, Clear Lake, River Oaks, Memorial, and west Houston and have a history of voting Republican. Sometimes I feel like a real crack-corn honky myself, like when I look at all the powerful, influential honkies who have given me money for this campaign, or when I’m up here with these other fine honkies––that includes you, too, Roy, mah honky.” Nah, he didn’t say that, not at all. We actually forgot most of what he said in a response to a panelist’s question about his call to “dehonkify” UH back in his long-past student firebrand days and whether a white candidate, having made a similar past comment about blacks in 1969, would have gotten off as easily as Locke appears to. But Locke basically shrugged it off, good naturedly, and acknowledged that at age 62 he’d learned to “measure my words.” (We know the dehonkifcation thing, if it ever got traction, would hurt Locke out in Kingwood and Clear Lake and so forth, although we personally hold to the LBJ dictum on such matters, pronounced by Johnson when [after being informed that someone or other, possibly a prospective appointee, had a wayward lefty past] he declared that anybody who wasn’t a commie or a fellow traveler back in the 1930s probably wasn’t worth a poo.) Locke’s deft swatting away of the pesky question underscored his real strength as a candidate: He looks and sounds more like a mayor than his opponents. (Yes, yes, this is a whatchamacallit, a phallocentric view, so discount it if you’d so prefer.) He gives off a little of the slick country lawyer––just enough, not too much––and Houstonians of all races and nationalities generally dig that schizz, in small doses. Scored solidly in the debate when he was closest on recalling the city’s current property-tax rate of .63875 and relating that his own tax bill was a “monster” and “in excess of $5000.” Big problem for Locke (aside from the really big one, that being that Anglo Dems who ordinarily could be counted on to back a black candidate are mostly with his two honky opponents) is that he has the least to say of all four––there’s “opportunity” and “diversity” surrounded by little puffs of vague rhetorical smoke––and his campaign seems to consist of retailing promises––or commitments, as he calls them––to all the various outfits that have endorsed him. Just today we read in the Pakistan Chronicle, our sixth- or seventh-favorite southwest Houston weekly publication, of Locke’s endorsement from the 80-20 PAC (Asian-American types) and his pledge to them: “This endorsement is like a contract with you all, to serve your needs and resolve your issues.” Jesus, he’s contracted. That one we didn't make up. (By the way, you know there’s one mighty nuke of a commercial waiting to drop on Locke if he makes it into a runoff––the one about his $640-an-hour fee charged to the Houston-Harris County Sports Authority.)

Peter Brown: He likes to speak Spanish. He’s passionate about recycling (said so twice, so maybe he’s super-passionate.) Didn’t sound as wheezy and raspy as he does around the council table or has at previous encounters. A nice tan. Looked hale and vigorous, as if he could pass for 65. Status as newly acclaimed poll front-runner certified by panelist's query about whether he’s “buying” support in the black community, theme of a recent Lockean radio ad tailored to African Americans. (Brown avoided answering the question but in the wrong way––he called attention to himself avoiding the question, so we had to strike him down 3-4 points). If he said the noisome word “blueprint” even once, we missed it, so we’re giving back the 3-4 deducted points. Hit back rather forcefully at Locke’s role as “dealmaler” and lawyer to the Sports Authority in structuring the now-stressed debt for our nice sorta-new stadiums. “I was a bad bond deal,” said PB. “When I’m mayor we’re not gonna have any of these, quote, ‘deals.' " (So we guess if Brown had been mayor back in ’97 or ’98 he would have employed his amazing powers of prognostication to foresee the subprime debacle and stand athwart these dealings, which means he’s way overqualified to be a mere big-city mayor.) Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job in masternig the art of being a veritable political Rorschach. Right where you need to be.

Parker: Likes to speak Spanish, too, but can’t reel it semi-trippingly off the tongue like PB (and shouldn’t try). Was way too smiley and squinty and sort of faded into the woodwork for the first half of the encounter. Relegated to a sidebar “response” in the Locke-Brown exchange over PB’s alleged purchase of black support, thus appearing to be reduced to a Morales-like irrelevancy. Rallied in the second half, though, with succinct and substantive (or appearing to be substantive––same thing) spiels on 287(g), air quality, flood control, the city’s use of borrowed money to satisfy pension obligations, etc. Parker’s a pro and managed to get off decent-sounding and thoughtful answers during the limited time allowed––not easy to do, as Morales and Brown proved. However, her "sincere," speaking-from-the-heart closing, recalling the old hard-workin' days in Spring Branch, etc., didn't work for us––sounded forced and tinny and definitely was not a deal-closer. Also lost points when she couldn’t recall how much she’d paid in city property taxes––come on, make a ballpark stab––and probably turned off considerable numbers of conservative voters, if there actually were any watching, with her generally favorable but still-cautious embrace of same-sex-partner benefits (although she has “no current plans” to seek a referendum on the question). We respect this as a heartfelt and honest position, probably honoring a commitment to core supporters and dancing with those that brung ya, touching close to home, etc., but there's something to be said for nuance.

So: We still think it’ll be Locke and Parker in a runoff, with the black vote (and what else?) breaking monolithically for Locke and Parker beating the bushes to get her diehards to the polls, but either of those two and Brown wouldn’t surprise, and in any case it’ll be close, 3-5 points separating the three but Morales doing better than expected (just think if he had the money and polish and telegenic good looks of a Rob Mosbacher––he’d be a cinch for a runoff he’d lose).

A Weak, Meaningless Gesture By a Fading Institution Unsure of Its Footing on Today’s “Media Landscape”

As we expected, the city’s leading daily newspaper had difficulty making up its institutional mind on the mayoral race. As we did not expect, the Chronicle resolved its internal confusion by issuing a non-endorsement endorsement Sunday of both Gene Locke and Annise Parker, complete with the candidates’ mug shots artfully arranged in alphabetical order amid the verbiage. The desultory nature of the entire enterprise could be detected in the less-than-vibrant prose (“Locke styles himself a consensus builder and dealmaker”) outlining the reasons for the paper’s dual recommendation (you the voter and resident of the real world will of course be limited to only one choice on Nov. 3), which read as if it could have been cut and pasted from the candidates’ campaign literature. Our first thought was that Peter Brown, by not squandering any of his wife’s inheritance on a series of full-page advertisements in the paper, may have screwed himself out of a coveted triple endorsement.

We have no inside information on the whys and wherefores of the process that led to this public profession of ineffectuality, but we’d wager that the Lockean portion of the double-nod was reached by a 1-0 vote of publisher Smilin’ Jack Sweeney, after a secret hooded ceremony that included a recitation of “The Song of the River,” that timeless bit of Hearstian poesy that wisely reminds us how fruitless it is to even wonder about “the mysteries/That only God may know” (and maybe [maybe] a friendly shoot-the-breeze discussion or two with Bob Lanier). Perhaps other, more earthbound placeholders on the masthead suggested that a full and unabashed nuzzling-up to Locke would be too much of a throwback to Ye Olde Chronicle, the Jones-owned and then Houston Endowment-ed one that was a serious downtown weight-thrower-around, famed for its inside wheelings and dealings, whose editorials, even into city’s the Early Modern Era, virtually seethed with contempt for the city’s first and thus far only female mayor. Perhaps the need to not solely embrace Locke was rendered more acute by the obvious fact that Parker is the better candidate of the entire lot, and we suspect that was borne out in the candidates’ meeting with the editorial board or janitorial staff or whoever supposedly makes these endorsement decisions. (As previously noted, we’re probably going to vote for Parker but are not yet fully in the bag, and in any case we’re not going to set our alarm to be first in line when the polls open.) A factor not to be underestimated in the paper's calculations is the extra pat-itself-on-the-back points it acquires through the dual nod: Look! We've endorsed a gay white woman and a straight black man! It's all about positioning. (You, the real world voter, will be unable to so widely embrace diversity.)

Meanwhile, the paper complemented its dual endorsement with a new Zogby poll confirming our previous prescient estimation of non-endorsee Brown’s mischief-wreaking potential (by the way, and apropos of nothing in particular, but outside of his commercials Brown has the public presence of a piece of rusty barb wire, doesn’t he?). While we suspect Brown may have reached his 52-week high, the Zogby numbers were in no way good news for double endorsees Parker and Locke. We were amused by the canned ham served up to the paper by somebody named Kim Devlin, a “senior adviser” to Locke (does he have “junior” advisers, too?), who opined that poll frontunner Brown is “learning an expensive lesson that Houstonians cannot be bought and leadership is more than just writing a check.” Well, as our coozan George Will has been known to exclaim upon awakening on the carpet after a long night of whiskey and Hank Jr.

Of these matters we shall soon say more, as sure as the mad river flows into the peaceful sea.

Locke’s Entanglements Finally Get Some Scrutiny ... (UPDATED To Note $$ from Dynamo Owners)

One of the unexplored issues of the Houston’s mayoral race––probably the great publicly unexplored issue, but that’s just our subjective and possibly unschooled opinion––is Gene Locke’s partnership in a wide-tentacled law firm that has had a close and highly lucrative relationship with many of the large public taxing authorities of Harris County, including the city of Houston. We’ve been around for a while and we can’t remember anyone with those sort of very stark entanglements previously standing for mayor without getting a serious scrub-down by the media. Come to think of it, we can’t remember anyone with those sort of very stark entanglements previously standing for mayor, period. The general lack of interest in the subject by the media has been puzzling, but into the breach has barreled Texas Watchdog, from the emerging non-profit public-service (and therefore, unfortunately, not widely noticed by the general populace) corner of the journalism food chain, with a report exploring Locke’s partnership at Andrews Kurth and the firm’s work as legal counsel for the Houston-Harris County Sports Authority, which was charged with building the fine professional sports venues we all enjoy and now apparently does some other stuff we’re not quite clear on. Texas Watchdog raises some solidly documented questions about Locke’s continued relationship with the Sports Authority, where he is said to have stepped down as general counsel when he announced his candidacy in April. The report does not mention that since declaring his candidacy Locke has made a rather forthright commitment to seeing a new stadium is built to accommodate the wealthy California-based owners of the Houston Dynamo, a project that presumably would fall under the purview of the Sports Authority, thus providing that entity with a pretext for its continued existence while bringing additional business to Andrews Kurth. (To be fair, odds are the soccer stadium is going to be built whoever gets elected mayor. Still ... )

In a follow-up blog posting, Texas Watchdog’s Steve Miller quoted what he described as Locke’s “boilerplate response” to questions the Web publication submitted for its story of last week:

When I am mayor every decision I make will be based solely on what is best for Houstonians. I am proud of the broad coalition of support I enjoy in this race, but when I am elected my only debt will be to the city of Houston.

Was that the entirety of his response? Not to be gratuitously crude, but that's some weak-ass shit, as the kids say.

Miller goes on to add

The city has some formidable power with regard to the authority, in that it appoints board members that shape its direction — which, in turn, affects taxpayers when a situation such as the possible use of public money to cover a bond-related shortfall arises. The story is a blue-skyer that we feel should be out there, akin to the items anyone should take into account before making a big decision. In this case, the voters can now add this to the list of “what ifs” before they make their final choice on Nov. 3.

Hear, hear. And there’s more to it than that: What exactly is Locke’s financial arrangement with Andrews Kurth as of this moment (a question we believe that only Locke can answer, although if we're not mistaken all candidates for city office are supposed to have filed some general personal financial disclosure that covers the previous calendar year). And what would be his relationship with the firm if he’s elected mayor? (We presume he’d sever all relations, but we shouldn’t be too presumptuous.) Under a Locke mayoralty, would Andrews Kurth continue as general counsel to the Sports and Metropolitan Transit authorities, over whose boards the mayor, by virtue of his appointments, has, as Texas Watchdog put it, formidable power? Would Andrews Kurth act as counsel for city of Houston bond issues? And finally, would Locke plan to return to the firm after he’s done being mayor?

These questions should have been pitched at Locke months ago, but they’re clearly fair game now in light of the candidate’s TV ad, wherein Locke is identified as a “businessman” who “helped revitalize our downtown communities, creating thousands of god-paying jobs,” a claim accompanied by video of Metro’s rail line and Minute Maid Park. You can ignore the fact that neither of these projects is what you would call a triumph of free enterprise, or even what you would ordinarily call "business," and you can look the other way from the dubious assertion that these and other projects have created “thousands of good-paying jobs” (must be the magical “multiplier effect”). But it’s hard to get past the cold fact that Gene Locke is a lawyer, not a businessman, and what he “creates” is billable hours.

As you were, and carry on.

ADDENDUM: For what it's worth, Locke's latest campaign finance disclosure lists a $3,000 donation from California billionaire Phillip F. Anschutz of Anschutz Entertainment Group, 50-percent owner of the Dynamo and would-be promoter of the now-canceled but once-upcoming Michael Jackson tour. Locke reported receiving another $2,500 from Dynamo co-owner Brener Sports & Entertainment of Beverly Hills (the corporate PAC, we assume, although it's not listed as such) and $2,000 more from Brener-associated Oscar De La Hoya, a "self-employed boxer" from Los Angeles (and one of our favorite fighters of the past couple of decades) who has been reported to have some ownership interest in the local major-league soccer franchise. We know these are wholly meaningless and random acts of generosity and that all of these California-based parties are simply interested in enabling GOOD GOVERNMENT in Houston, Texas.

Is Houston Ready for a "Gay" Mayor?

Since we asked: Sure, certainly, why not, etc.––with qualification. [Editor’s note: This posting does not advance too far beyond the previous sentence, so if you’ve got something in the oven or need to walk the dog by all means attend to those matters and don’t fritter away any more time here.]

By “qualification” we mean that if the leading candidate for mayor were a gay man, we suspect the issue/non-issue of the candidate’s homosexuality would have surfaced more prominently in the “public conversation” by now, although it’s unlikely it would have been raised there by any of our hypothetical gay-male mayoral candidate’s hypothetical opponents, because that would not only be tacky but most likely a vote-loser in the current climate. (In the interest of disclosure and so on we’ll note that we are leaning toward voting for the non-hypothetical gay female candidate, which certainly doesn’t give us pause in offering the following customary trenchant analysis that you’ll find only here and nowhere else.)

That’s just the way it is: At this stage of Western Civilization, the public is more accepting of lesbianism than it is of male homosexuality, at least when it comes to the sexual orientation of public figures. And while we’ve met many a lesbian in our day to whom we wouldn’t issue any smart lip, or even wish to face as a batter in a fast-pitch softball game, the public at large––males in particular but other women, too––is exponentially less threatened by gay females, especially the cute ’n’ cuddly type. Take MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, whose earnest, approachable, fresh-faced regular-gal-ness makes her rabid partisanship almost sugary-sweet. Or Ellen, who of course wouldn’t be the worldwide entertainment phenomenon she is if she were named Eddie ... or Elvis, whatever (particularly considering that Ellen’s not really funny).* Beyond mere temporal issues, Annise Parker has that Ellen-like appeal: wholesome good looks, not overbearing, doesn’t take herself too too seriously, etc. She’s the good daughter, and as a societal archetype the good daughter type has vast and still-virtually-untapped electoral appeal, no matter sexual orientation. It’s associated with “trustworthiness.” (Check it out.)

Some people won’t vote for Parker because she’s gay––”Su homosexulidad podria afectar al voto conservador,” as the Houston Chronicle’s "La Voz de Houston" insert recently put it––but it’s not like they’d vote for her anyway, either because she’s a woman, or is perceived to be too liberal (because she’s woman, although at bottom and on top too Parker’s probably the most conservative of the three money candidates) or, most especially in the present arrangement, because she’s not black. And, of course, some people will vote for her just because she’s gay (these would be mostly other gay people, and why wouldn’t they?). Certainly there are evangelical white voters and others in the city whose minds will be privately (most likely) set against Parker because of who she is, but the probable concentrations of opposition, perhaps vocal, are more likely to be found in the smaller black churches whose congregants already have Gene Locke signs in their yards and who consider homosexuality an abomination, except for the homosexuality of the choir director who can supply his own keyboard instrumentation. You’ll remember that the outpouring of black and Hispanic voters for Obama was credited with helping sink California’s gay-marriage referendum. Life’s funny that way.

It’s possible that Parker’s lesbianism could become an under-buzz issue, of sorts, or already is, particularly given the lack of any real staggering bright-line differences between the candidates. But it’s not like that’s going to swing many if any votes in a first-round election or a runoff, and most likely would lose votes for the opponent who publicly brings it up (or, in a more probable scenario, doesn’t or can’t stop his supporters from bringing it up). We’ll see. Parker’s won six citywide elections so you'd assume that anyone who’s going to bother to vote in November knows she’s gay, but we still get the sense that she and the others are relatively unknown quantities to people who don’t play politics or keep a close eye on City Hall. It’s interesting, though, that the race has gone this far without some nasty public eruption or another (and it’d be splendid if it stayed that way), considering that 25 years ago the Houston municipal election seemed to be about nothing but homosexuality––or gay-baiting, to be precise––with the “Straight Slate” of council candidates and Louie Welch’s “shoot the queers” quip** and Steve Hotze’s Il Duce impersonation and ... wasn’t there some half-baked proposal to make restaurant waiters wear plastic gloves, something like that, to prevent them from infecting a diner’s salad with HIV? That amounted to nothing but sound and fury, but my was it loud.

*Our personal opinion, not verifiable.

**He must have thought it was funny.

A Question for the Mayoral Candidates (First in A Continuing Series)

RE: That possible city-county “TIRZ package” for construction of a new soccer stadium, jail and redevelopment of the Astrodome (with gondola rides, we hope!): In light of the city’s ongoing budget shortfall (or decline in revenue funds, if you prefer), and in light of the fact that, if we heard right, the incumbent mayor has said that 10 percent of the city’s tax base is already covered by tax increment reinvestment zones, and in light of the general lack of accountability of the TIRZ authorities, do you

• Favor pursuit of such a "deal."
  
• Oppose pursuit of such a "deal."
  
• Believe voters would rather hear about my plans to appoint a "chief education officer" for the city.
  
• Think it's best to wait until after the election to say much of anything about this one.
  
• Believe voters would rather hear about my plans to appoint a "director of education policy" for the city.
  
  

Is Houston Ready for an "Old" Mayor?

Yeah, we know: the question de jour is supposed to be, “Is Houston ready for a gay mayor?” and at some point soon we’re going to take another of our interminable strolls down “Memory Lane” (hopefully accompanied by an able-bodied youngster to keep Gramps upright) to contrast the current climate with those not-so-long-past days of the “Straight Slate” and Louie Welch’s inadvertently broadcast suggestion that we “shoot the queers” to stop AIDS. But first let’s examine a really sensitive issue, one that we assume will not find its way into the public discourse--that of age, specifically the age of mayoral contender Peter Brown, who, if his Wikipedia entry is to be believed (yeah, a Houston city councilman’s got a Wikipedia entry--all hierarchies are being overturned, mon frere!), was born on Oct. 16, 1936. That would make Brown 73 when voters go to the polls in November and, should he win and then successfully pursue his term-limited allotment of years at City Hall, pushing 80 (!) when he’s finally wheeled out of City Hall in January 2016.

We got to thinking about the age issue (or, if you will, non-issue) after viewing Brown’s debut television advertisement, the first of the mayoral race, which according to no less an unbiased authority than the Petter Brown campaign has gotten rave reviews from the media and the kids in the blogosphere (which will translate into about, um, zero votes). With its quick cuts and frenetic pacing, the commercial is obviously keyed to making the 72-year-old grandfather of 15--here’s a dude who’s damn sure fulfilled his biological destiny!--appear to be vital, a veritable whirlwind of obsessive-compulsive perpetual motion* who just can’t stop serving the public, 24/7, a forceful PHYSICAL presence ready and able to impose his “blueprint” for Houston smack dab on the city (as if the city were a Lovett Home or sumpin’), then drop down and give us 20 push-ups, military-style, to burn off any excess energy.

Ageism--is that what you call it?--is of course the last acceptable prejudice that one can voice aloud in polite circles without fear of opprobrium: consider the tiresome razzing that John McCain still gets from late-night comedians over his long earthly tenure (we saw Steven Colbert do it just recently, aided and abetted by McCain himself, who tries to defuse the issue with frequent displays of good humor, when he’s not being a crotchety old man). Now consider this: Peter Brown is but six weeks younger than John McCain! When Brown entered this world, FDR was seeking his second term as president and Oscar “The Old Gray Fox” Holcombe was only midway into his eventual 22 years as mayor of Houston, neither as “old” nor quite as “gray” as he would be when serving out his string in the late ‘50s (by our possibly faulty calculations, Holcombe was in his late 60s when he stopped being mayor, and Bob Lanier--who already screamed “elderly” when he was first inaugurated--was just a little older than Brown is now when he was term-limited to the political scrap heap). Perhaps more astonishing, one of our favorite early Hollywood film stars, “Petey”, the crazy-eyed pooch from the Little Rascals, was still extant when Brown was born, and in fact was to pose for a picture with our then-10-year-old mother-in-law at Atlantic City’s famed Steel Pier the very next year, when Brown presumably was in his swaddlin’ clothes. Damn, that was long ago.

UPCOMING: We already know Houston’s ready for a black mayor, Lee P. Brown having crossed that bridge more than 10 years ago, but is Houston ready for a gay black mayor? An old gay black mayor? We’ll ask the experts!

*We can empathize: Although we’re not a member of Brown’s age cohort (we’re of the generation that didn’t go to Vietnam, didn’t go to Woodstock), we have recent first-hand experience of that sobering phenomenon of which Springsteen has sung--that is, of the girls in their summer clothes passing us by, sometimes passing us by even in their winter clothes, unaware that only the previous month we had had one of those whatyamacallits, an erection.

Annise Parker: The People's Choice ... Some of the People ... A Certain Kind of People ... But Still, Lots of People!

We have finally fulfilled our promise to roll at least half an eyeball over the July 15 campaign finance reports of the three major mayoral candidates, and we can now state unequivocally that ... are eyeballs are tired. Very. This is primarily due to the man hours our orbs logged perusing the report submitted by Annise Parker, whose list of contributors runs to 708 pages (at 4 per page, that’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,800 donors) and appears to include the gifts of every Tomasina, Dick and Jose who forked over $5 for a barbecue sandwich or whatever at a Parker fund-raiser (we’re tempted to breach our Slampo’s Place Code of Ethics and write a check for 15 cents to the Parker campaign to see if it’s cashed and shows up on her pre-election report). Still, it’s a fairly impressive document,* not so much in eye-popping dollar figures but in the number and eclectic mix of contributors. Parker’s money base seems to be three-legged: local contractors and engineers who presumably have come to know and like the controller during her 10+ years at the municipal trough (we’re just presumin’--maybe she strong-armed ’em!); national and local networks of politically active gays and heretofore not-so-politically active gay businessmen and -women, and what we’ll call, for lack of a more precise characterization, a monied gay elite (locally and nationally), along with organizations and individuals with a history of donating to liberal Democratic candidates (such as $5 grand Parker donor Ellen Susman, “retiree,” of the 77019 area code); and, most interestingly, lots and lots--lots!--of small contributors who handed over amounts ranging from $25 to $500 and whose occupational profile tends to the mid-to-lower white collar: software developers and Web page designers, paralegals, an administrative library assistant, a number of “helping profession” types (teachers, social workers, etc.), a flight attendant, some city employees, a few professors, the stray “writer” or “artist” and some guy listed, unintentionally or not, as a “PsychoTherapist,” along with slightly more substantial gifts from doctors, attorneys, developers and mid-level oil company execs. While this suggests that Parker’s support is deep, it’s not necessarily wide, at least donation-wise: We counted but 17 contributors from our out-of-the-way and tenuously Republican-inclined zip code on the unfashionable end of the city’s southwest side, compared to well over 250 from 77006, which includes the most Montrose-y parts of Montrose (we have a hard time imagining the way most of our neighbors will go, once they hear there’s an election and the main contenders are a gay gal, a black guy and a rich urban planner who summer vacations in France---yowza!).

Parker’s most generous source of money appears to be the Cobb Fendley engineering firm, which according to its Web site contracted with the city to turn part of Cook Road into a boulevard (little touch of Paree in Olde Alief!). The firm’s PAC donated the maximum $10,000, while vice presidents Dale Conger, James Mark Sappington and Monica Silver each gave $2,000, vice president Stephanie Funk gave $2,500 and president Allen Dale Watson chipped in another $2K. Parker’s other maxed-out $10,000 PAC contributor was Anne’s List of Austin, which distributes money to liberal-y gal candidates (such as state Rep.Ellen Cohen). The Fulbright & Jaworski law firm was also good to Parker during the first half of this year, with its PAC kicking in $7,500 and individual attorneys donating more than $11,000 (or thereabouts). Other big institutional investors in the Parker campaign include the Houston Associated General Contractors PAC ($5K), the D.C.-based Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund ($6,235) and the delinquent-tax collecting firm of Linebarger Goggan Blair Etc. ($2.5K).

Among other maximum individual donors to Parker were, in no particular order, lawyer Melanie Gray of the Weil, Gotshal & Manges firm; software entrepreneur Tim Gill, president of the Denver-based Gill Foundation, which calls itself one of the nation's “largest funders focusing primarily on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civil rights”; Mike Garver of BRH-Garver Construction; a James G. Stepp of Fort Lauderdale; Inderjit Kaur, a manager with financial software developer Intuit in Mountain View, Calif.; Georgia Anne Bost of Waller-based Village Botanica; Truman Edminster of the Edminster Hinshaw Russ engineering firm, which has been involved in Midtown redevelopment; Ray C. Davis of Spring, CEO of spooky Behavioral Recognition Systems (and a McCain man in ’08!) and his wife Debi (that is, $10,000 total); J. Nick Koston of cPanel; Aimee Boone, director of of the Texas Democratic Trust; self-employed investor John D. Freeman; tech investor William Edwrads of Austin; Houston lawyer Donald J. Farris; investor Ronald Bailey; “community volunteer” Naomi Aberly of Dallas (an Al Franken donor in '08!); Houston lawyer Pablo Escamilla; Susan Alleman of Traffic Engineers; Geoffrey Westergaard, who must be doing quite well in sales at Carl Moore Antiques Inc.; an Edward Fraser of Bayshore, N.Y.; Robert Fretz of Fretz Construction; Janet Harrell, area exploration manager for Shell; and Janet Guidry of Houston, occupation/time-killing activity unspecified. Parker also tapped a money spigot in San Antonio (Gene Locke tapped one in New Orleans), where she received maximum contributions from “homemaker” Leticia Rodriguez; boutique owner Fabeloa Diaz-Rodrigues; sales rep Julio C. Rodriguez; lawyer Douglas Poneck and wife Elizabeth ($5K each); and Dawn LaFreed, who apparently owns some Denny’s outlets that we may or may not have patronized.

Celebrity contributors--and here we’re stretching the definition of “celebrity” way beyond the word’s standard tensility--include former Montrose state rep and Linebarger Goggan attorney Debra Danburg ($250); Rice U political scientist Chandler Davidson ($50); Democratic candidate-in-waiting Chris Bell ($750); onetime Merchant Prince Robert Sakowitz ($100; also a donor to Parker foe Peter Brown); caterer Jackson Hicks ($1,000), and onetime Dem gubernatorial candidate Sissy Farenthold ($54). Media moguls include Greg Jeu, publisher of OutSmart magazine, a 5K donor, and fellow OutSmart publisher James Hurst, who contributed $4,504 in advertising, as well as Roger A. Bare, vice president/general manager for Channel 39 and Thomas Purser, vice president of the local Comcast cable operation ($500 each). On the non-mogulish media side were Clyde Peterson ($100), who we guess is the old Chronicle cartoonist of the same name, and one Daniel Pritchett, identified as a Chronicle copy editor, who could spare but $50 but no doubt has made invaluable contributions in seeing that his candidate’s Christian name is always spelled with two n’s. And then there’s our old pal Juan Ramon Palomo, formerly Houston’s only openly gay three-named Hispanic newspaper columnist, who, despite his current lofty perch as “senior communications adviser” for the American Petroleum Institute in D.C., was good for only $100 to Parker (but from each according to his abilities, as some dead German philosopher put it).

That guy also said something to the effect of "to each according to his needs," and while we're sure the Parker campaign does not subscribe to the nostrums of dead 19th century German philosophers, it certainly realizes that it’s good to get but better to give (or so we’ve heard), and early on in its effort doled out generous $1,000 "sponsorships" to the Houston Area Women’s Center, the Houston Food Bank, the local SPCA and the Houston Zoo. For some reason the League of Women Voters got but $900, New Life Christ Baptist Church but $300, the local LULAC Council but $175 and a mere $60 went to the Harris County GOP. The Harris County Democratic Party, meanwhile, got $4,050 from Parker’s campaign. (Spreadin' it around! Just like Enron!)

*We are easily impressed, however.

Not Just Your Average Run-of-the-Mill Hispanic Museum, But a “First-Class” Hispanic Museum ...

The Chronicle’s Bradley Olson has now reported twice on Gene Locke’s campaign promise to push for creation of a “Hispanic museum” in Houston and has thoughtfully posted a recording of a recent “Latinos for Locke” soiree during which the mayoral candidate can be heard “reiterating” the promise, as the reporter put it. While it’s all vague and tenuous sounding--we assume this idea has been floating round out there somewhere and Locke has latched on to it as a show of solidarity with los hermanos y las hermanas--it does not cause us to look with great favor on Locke’s candidacy, especially if creation of this facility would require the expenditure of government funds.

The “Hispanic Museum” is included in a laundry list of demographically fine-tuned pledges Locke reels off to his Hispanic, Latino, what-have-you supporters. It sounds almost like a parody of a big-city politician’s pandering--like something from The Wire in one of its less inspired moments. (Yes, we know, all politicians pander, to greater or lesser degrees, and to all sorts of people--including to white voters, especially to white voters--but in this case Locke’s enumeration of his “commitments” is so overt and specific it borders on being funny.) After a spirited introduction by government-employee-for-life Carol Alvarado, who notes that Locke, as city attorney under Mayor Bob Lanier, was responsible for “writing” the city’s current affirmative action ordinance, Locke pledges to fight for more “diversity” at City Hall (by somehow ensuring that “there’s at least one Hispanic in the pool” of applicants for city department head jobs) and to “diversify our community developments dollars so they’re spent in all communities of Houston” (which we would take as implicit criticism of recent past mayors, including his benefactor Lanier). Then he says, “We need to be about the business of a least considering trying to build in this city a first-class Hispanic museum--that’s not just good for the Hispanic community, that’s good for Houston ...” (Locke adds something about this musuem being an economic development tool, although most of the addendum is drowned out on Olson’s tape by applause from the candidate’s supporters; he rounds out his Latino to-do list by pledging “to work to bring a soccer stadium to Houston” for the panhandling professional team, etc.)

Be about the business ... at least considering--that's not exactly whole-hearted. Then again, Locke also promises “to work night and day for the commitments I’ve made.” (A premise for a possible phone-call-at-3 a.m. TV commercial for Locke: He’s wide awake in his PJs, hollering into the receiver, “We gotta get movin’ on that first-class Hispanic Museum deal--the economic vitality of the city depends on it!”)

We’ll spare you the obvious and refrain from going on about what a bullshit idea this is and arguing why municipal government should have no hand in these little exercises of ethno-narcissism. (Yes, we know the Houston Museum of African American Culture took root way back in the Lee Brown administration and has received city funding, and where has that led? The Facebook site for the outift says “Building Completetion: 2011." We rest our case). We’d have no problem, though, if Lanier ... excuse us ... Locke were to spearhead a private fund-raising for such a facility, although we’d think a mayor would have better things to do (we’d suggest he start out by tapping some of the Hispanic politicians supporting him--the ones whose faces are starting to sag from bending over the the public trough for so long).

We find this pledge, as well as Locke’s entire brief spiel to his Hispanic backers, interesting on two counts: 1.) They show Locke to be the traditional promise-making labor-liberal candidate he apparently is--he mentions his own past membership in the OCAW and steelworkers’ union in his opening--which kinda doesn’t jibe with the politics of many of his big-money supporters. He must be the only past union card-holder who named his daughter after the site of the famous (or infamous) 1971 New York state prison uprising to have gotten campaign contributions from GOP moneybags Bob Perry, that noted friend of organized labor. And 2.) in a realpolitik sense, Locke is playing to the wrong crowd. It’s unlikely this “Hispanic museum” promise will have much influence on actual Hispanic voters, who generally seem to be a fairly independent lot (we're talking about voters here, not the "community" at-large) and who, according to no less an authority than Richard Murray, the Bob Lanier Professor of Public Policy at the University of Houston, constitute only about 8 percent of the city electorate (seems just a tad low to us, and as we’ve reported we graduated in the top 75 percent of our high school class). On the other (Caucasian) hand, Locke’s pursuit of a Hispanic Museum is liable to carry considerable symbolic weight for Republican-inclined suburban voters, and not in a good way for Locke. (Murray estimates that heavily GOP Kingwood alone accounts for 5-6 percent of the electorate.) These are the voters who will probably be the deciding factor in an election in which the three top contenders (the monied candidates, that is) are all traditional promise-making labor-liberals, of a sort. We await reports of Locke trumpeting his Hispanic Museum down in Clear Lake and out in Memorial (maybe he has and we missed it).

Standing on the Verge of Getting It On: Peter Brown, the Friends ’n’ Family Candidate for Mayor, and the Clear-Cut Favorite of ... Peter Brown!

In observance of the biblical injunction (at least we think it is) that “by their contributions shall ye know them,” we present our second in what apparently will be a long-running examination of the July 15 finance disclosure reports of the major candidates in Houston’s November mayoral election. We hope to complete this venture sometime before the election. In this installment we administer a less-than-thorough going-over of the document submitted by Peter Brown--architect, urban planner, at-large city councilman, husband of Schlumberger heiress, annual summer vacationer in France, father of five and grandfather of 15, U.S. Army vet, a guy who if elected mayor would be older than Bob Lanier was when he took office (!) and, last but certainly not least, the only mayoral candidate bearing the coveted endorsement of Parliament/Funkadelic's George Clinton*. (“But what about Bootsy, baby?”, as some observer, perhaps us, was moved to remark after this news broke.)

We’d like to declare here at the outset that was do not consider Peter Brown to be solely a vanity candidate, even though more than 60 percent of the money he amassed in the first six months of this year came from his own apparently deep pocket, in the form of loans totaling $765,000 (for which he’s charging himself zero percent interest--there’s nothing subprime about Peter Brown!). And we were slightly off-base recently when we airly dismissed Brown as the candidate of Stuff-White-People-Like white people, because there are obviously many SWPL white people who dig Annise Parker (like the massage therapist her campaign listed as having made a $10 contribution), and some--well, maybe a couple--who have given money to Gene Locke. Moreover, we were mildly surprised that people other Peter Brown were willing to hand over almost $500,000 to the Peter Brown campaign from January through June, despite general widespread skepticism about his chances of winning (here’s an astute but gentle analysis of Brown’s prospects, by somebody who knows what he’s talking about). It’s clear that Brown has built up quite a bit of good will in certain sectors of the community, particularly among Inner Loop development-property management-realtor types, who share his penchant for planning and mass transit and orderly growth and whatnot, and in Houston’s interlocking circles of Old Money wealth (and by this we mean people who wouldn’t be caught dead in a Shelby Hodge column, at least on the scale and frequency of, say, Rebecca Cason Whazhername). The occupation of a noticeable number of sizable-dollar donors to Brown was listed as “self-employed investor.”

The bearers of venerable Houston names who’ve opened their wallets, and possibly their hearts, to Brown include Cullen Foundation president Roy H. Cullen, down for a grand; Corbin Robertson of Quintana Minerals, also good for $1K; Joan Blaffer Johnson, Jane Blaffer Owen and Marjorie Jester Milby ($1K each), and sundry others whose venerable names we’re too lazy to type. Somewhat more generous, at least for this go-round (but from each according to his abilities, as some joker once said), were Henry Holmes Cullen of Quintana Petroleum and Louisa Stude Sarofim, chair of the Menil Collection, who donated the maximum $5,000 apiece. Also on the Brown ledger were scions of some of the city’s long-past-their-heyday Jewish Merchant families, including Robert Sakowitz, down for $500, and Marilyn Oshman, who chipped in $2,500. Then there’s Sakowitz’s sis, socialite Lynn Wyatt, wife of former jailbird Oscar, who contributed $2.5K.

But Brown’s most generous supporter appears to be an exemplar of the city’s New Money, Frank Liu of Lovett Homes. Light-rail booster Liu himself kicked-in $5K, while Cindy Liu, whom we presume is the Missus Liu, added her very own $5K to the PeterPot (we think it’s sweet how spouses pool resources, especially went trying to get around vexatious campaign finance rules). But the Liu-related generosity didn’t end there: Brown’s report also listed $5,000 contributions from a Frank Liu of the 77007 zip code and a Kirby Liu of Hanover, N.H. (we been there and ain’t ever, never goin’ back). Both of these latter Lius were reported to be STUDENTS for occupational identification. It’s reassuring to know that even in these times of rising tuition, some students are willing to set aside the money they’ve earned washing dishes or whatever to make their voices heard in the political process (we sniff a future piece in this from the Chronicle’s Teen Columnist).

Also maxing-out for PB in the last reporting period were Michael Garver of BRH Garver Construction, who appears to have also anted up for Brown opponent Parker; Richard Bost of Environmental Resource Management; Glen Seureau, listed as president of Seureau Investments; Janet Pignataro Hansen of the Jamail & Kolius law firm; Edward Allen of Eagle Global investment advisors and wife Chinui; James Dunlap of the El Paso Corp.; Andrew Segal of Boxer Property; self-employed Meg Goodman, and James Flores of Plans Exploration. The Wu clan was especially good to Brown: Henry, president of American First National Bank gave $5,000, as did Janae Wu and Chyong Jae Jenny Wu (say that real fast--it’s fun!). (Developer Ed Wulfe--who would be a Wu if he lost the “-lfe”--gave $2.5K in the last period.) And then there were the Browns, proving again that blood is thicker than mud, in the person of Hoyt Brown Sr. of El Paso Energy, accountant Martin A. Brown of KPMG, and Catherine Brown, STUDENT, of the 77019 area code, each good for 5 grand. (We notice Brown listed no PAC donations--perhaps he swore off of them and we missed it, or perhaps he couldn't get any--but he does list, possibly erroneously, what appear to be two direct $5,000 donations from corporate interests, which we believe is not kosher, unless they changed election law while we were dozing for the past 20 years.)<>plans and proposals, a few of which might actually be politically viable). While we personally would not be willing to wager any of the fortune we’ve amassed as a self-employed investor on a Brown victory, the man obviously has potential to wreak some mischief, especially if he can lend himself another $765,000 and paper the airwaves with clever, wall-to-wall commercials, maybe using whoever it was who made Bill White’s ads (although he should have gotten started on it back in the spring). And of course there probably are several thousand Wus and Lius out there who haven’t maxed out, if not on this continent then some other.

*Brown told our old pal Bernstein, late of the Chronicle, that his favorite Funkadelic number is "Under a Groove," meaning One Nation Under Groove, although we would have guessed that he’s partial to Sexy Ways or perhaps Jimmy’s Got a Little Bit of Bitch in Him.

Reports Confirm the Obvious: Locke Is the Undisputed Insider-Establishment Candidate for Mayor (Not That There's Anything Wrong with That, Per Se)

We held off on mowing the grass last weekend--it's still too hot for a delicate flower such as our self to venture out in the fearsome daylight--and instead killed some precious time skimming the July 15 campaign finance reports of the major candidates to replace the apparently indispensable, irreplaceable and downright saintly Bill White as mayor. (We know this is "olds," not "news," but, as we've often noted, we're not on the White Man's Clock here at Slampo's Place.) We'd digested the earlier media reports on the disclosures, but scanning the reports our own bad self left us with a greater appreciation of Gene Locke's role as the chosen candidate of Houston's loose-knit establishment (as much as anything is really "established" in Houston) of insider lawyers, civil engineers, old-school developers and contractors, port interests and so forth. It's quite a distinct branding for a black guy from East Texas who initially came to public attention (sort of) when as a student activist at the University of Houston he was tried and acquitted on a hoked-up charge of inciting to riot. (What this all says about Our Town or Our Post-Racial Future or life in general we'll leave to journalists who get paid for that sort of nut-scratching; we're working strictly on a volunteer charity basis here, and while we're at it we might as well note that we have no horse in the race as of yet--we're in the undecided column between Locke and Annise Parker but listing slightly toward the controller, although if, say, Anne Clutterbuck were to temporarily abandon reason and declare for mayor we'd have to reconsider all options. )

The individual players who as of mid-July had forked over the maximum $5,000 to Locke run right along the Bob Lanier-Ned Holmes money-raising axis: the former Mayor Bob himself and his loverly Missus, the port commissioner (that is, $5k each); longtime port and hospital power/developer/banker/erstwhile potential mayoral candidate Holmes and his Missus; Meredith Long, whom we believe is traditionally identified as a "gallery owner," so we'll go with that; former Houston city attorney, Metro attorney and and Andrews Kurth big hat Jonathan Day and the Missus Day; investor Fayez Sarofim, father-in-law of the Lanier stepdaughter; Herbert Stewart of Camden Property Trust; lawyer Dan Arnold, formerly of the Metro and hospital district boards; John Nau of Silver Eagle Distributors, Kase Lawal, chairman and CEO of CAMAC* (also a port commissioner, as well as a board member of the Houston Airport System Development Corp., at least as of 2007, according to Houston's new leading information source, Texas Watchdog), and Kamaru Lawal, CFO of CAMAC (no relation, of course); engineer James Dannenbaum and his wife; ubiquitous GOP moneybags and homebuilder Bob Perry and wife; JSG chairman James Simmons and his Missus; Rockets owner Les Alexander; Astros owner Drayton McLane; celebrity lawyer (that is, lawyer-of-choice for local celebrities) Rusty Hardin, etc. and so on. (We noticed that Helen Chang, head of Mayor White's Office of International Affairs and Development, also anted up $5,000--of this we know not what to make. And, in what we can only interpret as a gesture of daughterly love, newly acclaimed mystery author Attica Locke made two donations to her dad totaling $700--ain't that sweet? )

Among the large institutional investors in the Locke campaign were the political arm of Landry's, purveyor of indigestible seafood and downtown Ferris Wheel rides ($3100); the PACs of the Andrews Kurth law firm, where Locke is a partner, and the Lockwood, Andrews, Newnam engineering firm, which both gave the maximum $10,000; substantial contributions from the PACs of the Teamsters and Longshoreman's locals; $5,000 from the PAC of Charles Hurwitz's MAXXAM; $5,000 each from the Fund for the Future and the Centerpoint Energy PAC, and $6,500 from the PAC of the Vinson & Elkins law firm, one of whose partners represents that Houston Airport System Development Corp. in its legal quest to remain unaccountable to the public (as detailed by Texas Watchdog).

Notable but somewhat less generous contributors were Oliver Luck, president of the panhandling Houston Dynamo (formerly the 1836---we think it's a soccer team, or maybe a lacrosse outfit), who could spare but a mere $1K; Jason Yoo, the Korean-American beneficiary of affirmative action whose JDDA Concession Management received that no-bid extension of its lucrative food-concession contract at Bush Intercontinental two years ago ( also good for a single grand); and a $2,500 chip from the campaign fund of Beverley Woolley, the westside GOP state rep.

Despite the big-money bent of the Locke effort, there were two humble $100 contributions that caught our eye, one from a Jim Westmoreland. Could this be the former councilman of the same name who lost his seat after it was revealed that he allegedly had privately joked that Intercontinental Airport should be named "Nigger International" when the city was considering naming the facility after Locke's old friend, the late Mickey Leland? The other was from Taylor Branch of Baltimore, Md., the former Texas Monthly writer who won a Pulitzer Prize for one of his three-book series on Martin Luther King and who must have known or interviewed Locke during his agitatin' days (days, we needn't add, that appear to be long past ... ). Perhaps there's a slogan in this: "Gene Locke, Bringing Together White Folks of Diverse Backgrounds and Interests." Or something.

UPCOMING: MORE OF THE SAME, Plus CORRECTIONS, UPDATES, ADDENDA, ASIDES And TENUOUSLY RELEVANT DIGRESSIONS (that is, if we can ever finish perusing Parker's July 15 report, which is almost as long as Thomas Pynchon's last novel).

*Claimed to be "the largest black-owned business in the world" in this 2006 Ebony profile.

Jay Porter Had a Plan to Stick It to the Man (Or Something Like That)

Will a novel—that is, a work of fiction (which if we remember correctly means “made up”)—have any impact on the still-nascent Houston mayoral race? Probably not, but it’s nonetheless interesting, even intriguing, that Attica Locke, the daughter of mayoral candidate Gene Locke, has a new novel out that’s getting prime critical notice just as the heretofore nearly invisible mayoral campaign is becoming more visible. Even more intriguing is the plain fact that the protagonist of Attica Locke’s Houston-set book, a lawyer named Jay Porter, appears to be closely modeled on her real-life father, the mayoral candidate, right down to his “student-radical” past.

Her book, Black Water Rising, got the kind of boost that most first-time authors might consider sacrificing a limb for when it was accorded a mostly favorable review by the New York Times’ Janet Maslin at the top of the newspaper’s Monday Arts section. Maslin called the book “atmospheric [and] richly convoluted” and invoked Scott Turow, Dennis Lehane and one of America’s best working novelists, George Pelecanos, in praising facets of Locke’s plotting and characterization.

Attica Locke—she was named, Maslin reports, after the site of the 1971 New York state prison uprising­—is a graduate of Hastings H.S. and Northwestern University and a disillusioned aspiring screenwriter, according to this Houston Chronicle profile from last week, wherein she emphatically disclaimed the notion that Jay Porter is her dad, or vice-versa:

“I have to be clear that Jay is not really my dad. At all,” Locke says. “Some of the circumstances of the character’s life line up with my father’s in the sense that my dad was also a political activist at the University of Houston at that time period. He did go on to become a criminal defense attorney. He was on trial, not for trying to kill somebody, but for inciting a riot.

Whatever the case, the daughter’s book can’t help but be fodder for local parlor-game amusement. It’s set in 1981—the year, coincidently, that we arrived in Houston*, along with half of the rest of North America—and the mayor is a white woman named Cynthia Maddox, an “old flame” of Jay Porter’s and onetime “outspoken member of Students for a Democratic Society, a white girl drawn to black radicals ‘as sure as if the Temptations had come to town.’ ” (Real-life reality check: Houston’s first and only female mayor, Kathy Whitmire, did not assume office until 1982, and Whitmire was no radical revolutionary, even in her youth, but rather a moderate, working-class North Houston-to-the-Heights Democrat [there used to be a whole lot more of ’em than just Gene Green]. As for the rest of it, including the Temptations part, well, we’d rather not think too much about it. ) According to Maslin, Locke also includes “arresting visual filed trips (to places like the huge country-and-western club Gilley’s … )" and other apparent deep-Houston touches.

We’ll refrain from any sweeping judgment, not having read Locke’s book, but we do detect traces of a clichéd mind at work in the plot turnings, if Maslin’s summary of the book is correct:

Where will the strike [by dockworkers at the port] lead this story? It will lead to “Chinatown”-style conspiratorial rumblings, with oil supplanting water as the natural resource worth killing for.

Forget it, Jake: It's just the Big Bad Oil Business, always messing up people’s lives and minds. (Real-life reality check: Without oil [and the Ship Channel and attendant petrochemical facilities], this place would be Shreveport [maybe], a festering, sweltering dump of no import, not a moving-and-grooving multicultural polyglot world-class metropolis, the one where insider-lawyer Jay Porter … ’scuse me, Gene Locke … has a good shot at being elected mayor.)

*At the time the local constabulary's reputation for railroading and whipping up on blacks and longhairs was so fearsome that upon arrival in our Chevy Biscayne we made a solemn vow to our self that we would do everything possible to avoid arrest and/or overly long contact with the police, a vow that, amazingly, we've been able to keep, lo these many years.