Her opponent is a lawyer, so I guess it's easier for a lesbian to get elected mayor in Houston these days than it is a lawyer.
Houston local elections are always strange. Since you do not declare your party affiliation on the ballot, many people do not have a clue on who should get their vote. The ballot only shows if someone is the incumbent or not. I ended up voting for Parker because Locke was running some fairly negative ads over the past few weeks. I don't like to reward someone for that. Note: Parker may have done that as well, but I didn't see it. I also voted against Jolanda Jones for City Council. I hated her on Survivor and she's been a very polarizing figure on the council. Enough where other council members publicly endorsed her opponent, which is apparently a rare event. But she won 70K to 68K.
Or maybe voters realized that someone who has served on the City Council and been Houston's Controller is more qualified to run a city than a former city attorney.
16.5% is about as pathetic as a stat as I have ever heard. She may be a great mayor, but how disinterested in local politics is the city that the election is based on that small a number of folks... It seems a bit tragic.
Annise is a smart as hell Rice grad with a real fiscal conservative side. I know this is confusing to some of you who think that the modern Republican must be a nazi tea bagger, but no. Republicans used to not give a **** about people's private lives. Small government meant small government. Then the christians took over and people think right wing equates to Perry and his full of **** wing of the party.
She is fiscally more conservative than Gene Locke. Hopefully she will watch spending and help preserve some of our neighborhoods.
As controller, presumably she had some involvement in policies that have bankrupted Houston. globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/10/city-of-houston-is-bankrupt-so-are.html
Don't think it was an issue that she was a lesbian at all, and not something she spent time on in the original campaign, but Locke kind of made it a campaign issue in the runoff. She seemed to be the candidate for mayor who happened to be gay until Locke started sending out mailers that tried to paint her as the leader of the homosexual agenda trying to take over the world and recruit children.... Shame.
Locke didn't send out anti-homsexual mailers. Anti-gay groups became supporters of his (not so much his supporters but her detractors) recently and they mailed out anti-gay crap.
I want to know why BigWill, the self professed lefty, thinks enough about her lesbianism to splash it all over the thread title. I'm a self professed righty and I don't give two shits what a politician does in their private life, at least to the extent of their orientation. (Cheating is a character flaw and a different issue altogether.) I primarily care how they spend MY money.
Because I found it newsworthy that a town the size of Houston, in a "red" state, elected a lesbian. I think it's noteworthy. And, as I hinted with the "texags" remark, the wingnuts' response has comedic value .
What Sangre said. It looks like she's already dumped our sorry Police Chief and Metro Cheif so she's getting a great start.
