Tag: Racing

Republican congressional candidate Janice Arnold-Jones hasn’t won an election for public office in 10 years. Her losing streak is sure to continue this fall based on the laws of gravity. It’s impossible for Arnold-Jones to climb in the polls with both feet embedded in her mouth. She killed any chance she had in the congressional race by taking a potshot at the Native American roots of her opponent, Democrat Deb Haaland. “If anything, I’m guilty of sounding petty,” she told me in an interview. Earhardt said Haaland would be the first Native American woman in Congress. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who says she is part Cherokee and part Delaware Indian, already is a member of Congress. Arnold-Jones said this led to her skeptical tone about Haaland breaking the barrier. The point I was making is we are more similar than different,” she told me. But she later conceded that her comment about Haaland not living on a reservation had opened her to criticism.

DALLAS – Most political analysts can usually agree on one thing: Texas is a state that practically "bleeds red," as it has for decades. And now, a Texas congressman is trying to do what no Democrat has been able to do here in nearly 25 years -- win statewide office. Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke from El Paso, elected in 2012 to serve Texas’ 16th Congressional District, is battling it out with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, aiming to capture Cruz's seat come November. "We're listening to and bringing in everyone -- Republican, Democrat, independent -- everyone in Texas is important," O’Rourke tells Fox News. A recent Texas Lyceum poll put the spread at just two points. "Senator Cruz is awake, at this point," Jillson adds. Cruz's first TV ads came out at the beginning of this month – accusing O’Rourke of being extreme and reckless. In the meantime, both continue crisscrossing the state, trying to win over voters. Everyone has a place in this campaign,” O’Rourke says. Cruz is even trying to get his former rival, President Trump, to campaign for him.

On the State of Australia and Race Race politics is back. But his speech also follows a recent burst of activity by his office that included several data-heavy reports showing the wide gap between Australia’s ethnically diverse population and the mostly white elites running government and business. Dr. Soutphommasane grew up in Fairfield, an area of Sydney that has long been the first stop for immigrant families like his own — and here he is arguing that those who fear such areas do not understand how they work. On Double Standards On the so-called Sudanese crime crisis in Melbourne, if we turn to the facts, we know that in Victoria Sudanese-born people aren’t the only ones overrepresented in crime statistics. In fact, according to Victoria’s Crime Statistics Agency, criminal offenders born in Sudan make up about 1 percent of all offenders. That’s greater than their proportion of the total population in Victoria, but state figures show that is also true of Australian-born offenders (who make up almost 72 percent of criminal offenders and roughly 65 percent of the population) and New Zealanders (who are 2.2 percent of offenders and 1.6 percent of the population in Victoria). They’re the complaints of snowflakes who can’t hack it when people challenge racism. It’s a fragility that explains why when racism is called out, the real offense in some people’s eyes is not that an act of discrimination occurred, but rather that someone was subjected to being called racist. More tough talk from Dr. Soutphommasane — especially on the point that some people are less offended by a racist act than by someone calling it what it is. He acknowledged at one point that “prejudice and discrimination are like the permanent stains of our humanity,” but phrases like “implicit bias” or “unconscious bias” — schools of thought explaining that racist outcomes are often tied to historical and unseen influences that shape us all, regardless of background — do not appear in Dr. Soutphommasane’s speech.

A changing U.S. Supreme Court and lawsuits winding through federal courts seem sure to put abortion rights front and center in governor's races, including in Pennsylvania, where Wolf and Wagner are on opposite sides of abortion bills that could see votes in the Legislature. Wolf, a staunch supporter of abortion rights, vetoed a bill last December to shorten Pennsylvania's current legal abortion limit from 24 weeks to 20 and effectively ban dilation and evacuation, the most common method of second-trimester abortion. Wagner also backs a "heartbeat bill" in Pennsylvania's Legislature that would ban abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, usually at around six weeks of pregnancy, and a bill prohibiting abortions on the basis of Down syndrome, his campaign said. One important question is how far state lawmakers who call themselves pro-life would go to limit abortion — or ban them — if they think Wagner would sign the bill. The 20-week abortion bill passed with 121 votes in the House and 32 in the Senate, not enough to override Wolf's veto. Wolf has said that he would veto a "heartbeat bill" — viewed as a six-week abortion ban — and that he opposes the Down syndrome bill. Wolf's office said he would veto a complete ban, while Wagner is making no commitment, his campaign said. Rep. Rick Saccone, R-Allegheny, the sponsor of Pennsylvania's "heartbeat bill," said he has no commitment from House Republican leaders to advance the bill in this legislative session, which ends Nov. 30. If the Down syndrome bill goes to Wolf's desk this fall, McMonagle sees electoral significance. "Wolf's veto," McMonagle said, "will be fresh in voters' minds before the election."

And there was a candidate for county commission whose brochure highlighted his ardent support for Mr. Trump in dramatically larger type than his vow to protect Sarasota’s “amazing beaches & parks.” This Trumpian spectacle was an ominous sign for Adam Putnam, whose main appeal in the Republican primary for governor is to support the candidate “who puts Florida first and knows Florida best.” Only last month, Mr. Putnam — the state’s agriculture commissioner and a genial conservative tabbed for political stardom since he won a state house seat at 22 — was ahead of Representative Ron DeSantis in fund-raising, local endorsements and opinion polls. And there may be more to come: Mr. Trump recently said he would campaign “six or seven days a week” this fall for vulnerable Republican candidates — though some of them may not want his help in states or districts where he is unpopular. Beyond Mr. Trump’s kingmaking capacity, the rapidly shifting fortunes in the governor’s race also tell a larger and perhaps more consequential story about the role of Fox News in shaping the president’s views, and thereby today’s Republican politics and about the diminished role of local media, especially in a transient state like Florida, and certainly in a primary. But those cable news appearances may have doomed Mr. Putnam, because it was Fox that begot Mr. DeSantis’s candidacy. Mr. Putnam’s allies — including his former House colleague, Vice President Mike Pence — scrambled to stop the president from formalizing his support. Mr. DeSantis’s campaign has even gone so far as to conduct polls on the Fox News viewing habits of Florida’s Republican electorate. They found that 66 percent of likely primary voters watch the cable network anywhere from every day to a few times a week, according to Mr. DeSantis’s strategists. His frequent appearances on Fox News have also illustrated the limitations of negative advertising in Republican primaries, as Mr. DeSantis has been able to fend off a barrage of attack ads from Mr. Putnam. At the time, credentials like those currently on his resume — a University of Florida degree, and membership in the school’s Blue Key leadership society; service in the state legislature; a stint in the congressional leadership; and two terms as agriculture commissioner — meant something here. In an interview before he plunged into the Sarasota gathering, he noted that Mr. DeSantis’s bid for governor was coming on the heels of an aborted 2016 Senate run, and argued that voters would come to see his rival as “someone who’s more interested in whatever the open higher office is at that moment than in making a difference in that office itself.” That distinction would grow clearer, Mr. Putnam insisted.

To prove it, University of Chicago economists Marianne Bertrand and Emir Kamenica taught machines to guess a person’s income, political ideology, race, education and gender based on either their media habits, their consumer behavior, their social and political beliefs, and even how they spent their time. The surveys were tuned and filtered to be consistent over time, which allowed Bertrand and Kamenica to measure how America’s cultural divides have evolved. Differences in social attitudes between liberals and conservatives have been widened over time, Bertrand and Kamenica found. The gap in social attitudes between whites and nonwhites has fallen slightly, but the difference in consumer behavior between races has grown. Within the surveys they analyzed, social attitudes and media habits were almost as closely linked to race as consumer behavior was. “In 1976,” the authors write, “one could correctly predict race based on views towards government spending 74 percent of the time but by 2016 this number was down to 56 percent.” Attitudes toward police violence are only a few percentage points less effective in predicting high (in the top 25 percent) income than they are in predicting whiteness. By 2016, its place as the key signifier of the country’s economic and cultural divide had been taken by Apple’s iPhone — which the researchers found to be a much clearer signifier of income than the condiment had been. Yes, high-income households buy different things from low-income ones, and white Americans and black Americans watch different television programs and movies. “For the past 40 years, liberals and conservatives are disagreeing more each year. The General Social Survey, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago, polls between 1,093 and 3,735 people per year on their attitudes toward myriad social issues such as trusting others, marijuana legalization, and approving of police striking a man.

He was just about to pack up his political aspirations when he got something he wasn't completely expecting -- a bid to run in a different race he hadn't even entered. Washburne received enough write-in votes Tuesday, in the same Democratic primary in which he actually ran, to win the party's nomination for mayor in his hometown of Mendham Borough. "I really haven't found an identical situation," the attorney, Fred Semrau, said on Thursday. No Democrats had filed to run for mayor in the primary, and Washburne was asked whether he would accept the nomination if enough voters wrote in his name. Washburne said he would accept, though he hadn't given up on winning the Congressional primary. Sherrill as expected cruised to victory on Tuesday, getting more than 77 percent of the vote in a five-candidate field. Ordinarily, Washburne's candidacy would have been quickly certified, except for the lack of an obvious comparable precedent for a candidate running in a federal primary and simultaneously winning a municipal race. Even if he gets on the ballot, Washburne's chances of winning the race for mayor are not much better than his prospects were against Sherrill. Washburne's national connections are in the running community and he campaigned under the slogan, "Running for Congress." He is president of the U.S Running Streak Association, an organization whose members commit to running at least a mile per day, every day.

Wandsworth: Labour gains but Tories hang on to crown jewel A much-touted Labour attempt to wrestle control of Wandsworth – controlled by the Tories since 1978 – was foiled after the Conservatives successfully concentrated resources in key strongholds amid a significantly increased turnout. Local elections 2018: Tories and Labour both secure limited gains as Ukip vote collapses – live updates Read more However, Labour came close on a night when it gained seven seats on a flagship Tory council that has been known for its low council tax and outsourcing of local services. “Of course we may not win councils but I think winning councillors who are Labour is a fantastic achievement,” he said, when it was put to him by reporters that he and other Labour figures had “talked up” the possibility of winning Wandsworth. Trafford: Greens take Tory seats to make Labour biggest party Labour became the biggest party in Trafford, winning four seats from the Tories to take their total to 30. After a surprise double win by the Green party in the Altrincham ward, the Conservative party was left with 29 seats, down from 33. “I spoke to a number of people in their 80s who said they had always voted Conservative but were going to vote Green for the first time in their lives, and a number of Labour members who said they were going to vote Green this time. Frances Perraudin Swindon: Labour disappointed in bellwether contest Labour suffered a major blow in Swindon, where it failed to force the Tories out of power despite a well-resourced campaign and a string of visits from Jeremy Corbyn and other senior figures. Labour were expecting to take control or for there to be no overall control. Instead the Tories finished on 36 councillors, with Labour gaining just one extra ward to win 13 councillors. “We have piled up votes in Labour-held wards,” said the Labour group leader, Robert Atkinson, saying his party’s gains would be limited because the Conservatives had managed to “frighten out” their vote across the west London borough.

“It’s not the blood sport it is in other places,” Maryland Heights City Attorney Howard Paperner says of local politics in this northwest St. Louis County municipality. The mayor of 16 years, Mike Moeller, is facing his first-ever challenge for the job from opponents Mary Nichols, a state representative, and Sudhir Rathod. And the city’s voters who live in the Parkway School District will help decide a school board race with a candidate who has identified herself as a Confederate. A campaign flyer from Nichols, a former City Council member and Democratic state representative since 2011 who will be term-limited out of office at the end of this legislative session, ticks off a list of dollar amounts she accuses Moeller of spending at eight out-of-town conferences, which Nichols dubs as city-paid vacations. Her tally includes $5,549.08 in Seattle, where Moeller and City Council members attended a National League of Cities conference in 2013. One is from a Cheesecake Factory in Seattle for $249.63, including tip, that includes four gin and tonics and four “ultimate margaritas.” Moeller said Nichols is twisting the facts, and that dollar amounts listed on her mailing include expenses of other city officials who attended conferences with him and whose expenses are to be covered by the city. Moeller disagrees. He said he did so to reveal her personality. Where are your values? The mayor has a part-time position and is paid $1,200 a month.

Six people have announced they are running for mayor in 2018 Wochit Sioux Falls' six mayoral candidates might be pursuing a non-partisan office, but that doesn't mean their political parties don't influence voters. "If partisanship can show us anything in these races it's more so the general disposition toward how active the government is going to be and the use of government to improve people's lives versus leaving people alone," he said. But political ideologies can rear their head on the margins of civic politics. In this year's Sioux Falls mayoral contest, voters will choose between four Republicans - Jim Entenman , Mike Gunn, Greg Jamison and Paul TenHaken - and two Democrats - Kenny Anderson Jr. and Jolene Loetscher. Municipal offices across South Dakota are supposed to be devoid of partisan politics, and candidates don't run as Republicans or Democrats. But more often than not, city councilors and mayors are affiliated with one of the two major political parties. And though party designations aren't as important in local races, political science buffs say voters can glean a bit about a candidate's potential governing style based on the letter that would be next to their name if they were running for a higher office. Some of the candidates are quick to dispel the notion that their political affiliation will have any impact on how the city would be lead should they earn a spot at City Hall. For instance, Loetscher said it's not necessary to consider a party platform when making decisions about the city's future. But when it comes to the essential services government provides, it's not as important.