07:56 PM
Politico Off the Kuff

Created LJ feed for Off the Kuff, Houston blogger, talks about local and state politics and other stuff.

My former boss, Bill White, is running for Mayor of Houston this year. He was also in the Clinton administration, deputy Secretary of Energy, iirc, during Clinton's first term. My mom is really interested and wants us to work on his campaign....I'm not even sure if I'd vote for him! He's not a bad guy and he's not rabidly liberal, he's more of a "making free enterprise and capitalism work for everyone" kind of guy and he's really intelligent and very good at building coalitions of the most unlikely people and he really is honest and ethical.

But the momentum has really been building here to have our first Hispanic mayor. Lee Brown, the current outgoing Mayor was our first black one (and first black Chief of Police some years before that). The last three campaigns or so have been close for Hispanic and other black candidates and this year looks very likely. Plus Bill is sort of real middle of the road guy and he's very bland and colorless looking too so it's gonna be an uphill battle to get him out in front.

And my mom! My goodness, just knocked me over that she wants to work on his campaign, I don't think she's done that in years. But hey, one of the goals me and my therapist set was for me to get out and get involved in some things, I had in mind some volunteer work in more liberal areas where I'd meet some like minded people. I'm not sure I'll see many of those on Bill's campaign, while he's not a real fancy type, I think it'll be very cluttered with wealthy people, most of whom I couldn't figure out a thing to say to. I kind of wonder if Bill will even want many volunteers, mainly it's going to be a media blitz to get him lots of name recognition.

Some of the news articles about him and the owner of the company I used to work were very interesting. Bill was president and ran it day to day, the owner is Lebanese and is now the #3 guy in the government there, representing the Christian party (he's Greek Orthodox). If you're interested, read the Local Politics page on the Kuffs blog and click on the various news articles links, especially the one to the Houston Press article (the Press is our version of the Village Voice in New York, liberal, alternative lifestyle oriented).