It’s waaaaaay past time for our County elections department and the Elections Commission (our Elections directorate - ED for short) to get its act together.  Why, it’s even surpassed the Sheriff’s Office for the most fables and foibles about its leadership or lack thereof.  For that dubious distinction, we can thank our EDs for the SOS (a military acronym for chipped beef on toast) in elections.

Our ED is an interesting group of people - set by statute as the County Judge, the County Clerk, the Tax Assessor-Collector, and the local political party chairs.  Our ED during 99% of this unholy mess was led by our short-timing-crippled-duck-go-along-to-get-along County Judge Doeffler,  County Clerk Queen of Mean (Nancy Rister), Mistress of all Things Taxable (Debbie Hunt), republican party animal (Bill Fairbrother), and the dimocrat party animal (totally irrelevant in a guaranteed 4-1 vote). 

We know what you get when you govern by committee and boy do we ever get what we deserve.

John Willingham was the elections guru for 12 years, which is like forever in Wilco years, when he ran screaming into the night and took cover over in the HR department in 2004.  To replace him, the EDs brought us Cliff Borosky from Bexar County.  A nice enough guy, very knowledgeable, but a big-city, big-picture kind of guy.  His major mistake was in reorganizing the staff.  Uh oh.  From all the bitching and moaning coming from the reorganized staff, you’d have thought he was performing ritual animal sacrifices and marrying queers in his office.  Can’t have people complaining, can we?  Any what’s with this Help America Vote Act?  And how come it took so dang long to count the votes?  You think he was counting them individually or something.   To add insult to injury, some of the wrong people won, and others didn’t win by as much as they should have.  He got the boot after nine months - but since no one else actually knew how to run an election, the EDs had to keep him on as a consultant through the next batch of elections.  Go try and figure that one out. 

Deciding to pour oil over troubled waters, the EDs promoted from within.  On the surface, that seemed like a safe bet.  Debra Stacy had been around for a while and had perfected the art of boot-licking.  Too bad she didn’t know squat about the relationship between the size of ballots and ballot boxes.  Her first management decision was to design a 19 inch ballot, but stuff the ballot in a 17 inch ballot box.  We’re reminded of a story about a person who stuffs a size 18 butt into a size 10 pair of trousers and is somehow surprised when the seat blows out.  Debra wasn’t too good in the math department either, but she could average OK.  To her way of thinking, when the number of votes exceeded the number of voters by 3 to 1, that was OK, because it didn’t change the end result.  It was close enough for gubmint work.  We gotta love this bottom-line kind of woman.  With that kind of tortured logic, she ought to be running for election, not running the election.

So, another one bit the dust.  John Willingham rides in to save the day. Again.  First, he chastises Stacy for *gasp* her management by meat clever leadership style.  Sound familiar??  To make up for that, he got all the elections staff raises.  Heck - if we just pay them more, they’ll be magically able to read a ruler, measure a box, and count higher than 20 (the point at which most humans run out of fingers and toes)??  He  put back in the training that Borosky championed and Stacy trashed.  Then, he turned back time so things were same as they when he was in charge in 2004.  We are seriously impressed with that particular skill of his. 

John Willingham has doth proclaimed all is right in Wilco World.  We have a new Administrator headed our way, Rick Barron, hand picked by Willingham and the rest of the EDs.  Since Barron last worked for a voting machine maker, we figure he knows how to manipulate make them count right - or at least knows enough to plug them in and turn them on.  We can all rest easily, knowing our elections are in good hands, as Willingham will be “mentoring” the new guy. 

Our ED has a new helsman - new County Judge Dan Gattis the Elder.  Nothin’ but smooth sailing from here on out just ‘cuz the third time’s a charm….

If, perchance, you just happen to Google “Williamson County Republican Party” you’ll find a rather disturbing alert posted just underneath it indicating, “This site may harm your computer.”

WTF?

Google tags websites that appear to install malicious software (malware) without a user’s knowledge or permission. This is not an innocuous cookie we’re talking about here. We’re talking some really rotten stuff, especially when the harvester sells this mined information to a nefarious third party. BTW, by nefarious third party, we don’t mean dimocrats - we mean identity thieves, pornsters, criminals, and terrorists that wreck havoc with your credit card information.

We don’t know why it is there or how it got there or even how long it’s been there. That’s irrelevant at this point. It never should have been in there in the first place. It needs to be gone. NOW! Period. Are we clear on that?

Note to Bill Fairbrother & Executive Committee: You have some explaining to do.

Williamson County Republican Party

Williamson County Republican Party

UPDATE   UPDATE   UPDATE:   It’s now safe to visit the Wilco GOP website - at least according to Google.  The malware has been removed and Google took down its alert.  Anybody have any idea what happened?

Who’ve thought that serial adulterer 9-11 Mayor Rudy Giuliani would be playing this hard to get with the ‘08 republican nomination?  Muchos gracias to Political Wire for the link to the  Newsday item. 

I mean, we know he has some *cough* political baggage *cough* in the form of mistresses, former mistresses, and a seriously vengeful wronged, now ex-, wife who once refused to move out of the Mayor’s mansion when he traded her in for a younger model. 

We admire Giuliani for the incredible job he did after osama been hidin’s cowardly minions targeted his city.  He was the leader Cuidad Neuvo York needed and trusted at that horrible time. 

We don’t know if he’s the leader our party needs or trusts at this time.  Apparently, according to Newsday’s review of his FEC filing papers, he doesn’t know either because he left the political party affiliation blank.  His campaign’s reasoning is that since he’s not required to fill it in, he didn’t.  Now, that can make for some pretty interesting political bedfellows - and Rudy sure is no slouch in the bedfellows department.   (Sorry, that one was just too easy to resist.)

Some dimocrats are slobbering all over themselves over this bit of news - hoping Rudy will decide to turn blue and give them a viable option to Her Royal Clintoness.  Pffffft.  Like that’s ever gonna happen.  Another dimocrat delusion is that Rudy runs as an independent, splitting the republican vote and bolstering the chances of Her Royal Clintoness.  Again, pffffft. 

Whether this rises to the Joe Biden level of stoopid mistakes is yet to be seen.  Stay tuned.