Politicians invade the burbs

We were shopping at Costco yesterday - picked up all the essentials for the weekend: bottle of wine, 2 cases of beer, and some solar lights for the backyard - when who should walk past us but Senator John ("box turtle") Cornyn! I was wearing my Obama shirt (shown at right, click to enlarge) that I got at the local Obama Store, and I doubt that he liked it (but should expect that in Austin). Don't know what he was doing here, I think he lives in San Antonio. Maybe he was up here visiting Gov. Goodhair Perry. He got the moniker Box Turtle from the prepared notes of a speech delivered to the Heritage Foundation in 2004 regarding the the issue of gay marriage (although, apparently the reference to box turtles was removed from the actual delivered speech)

[LINK] "It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right. . . . Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife." -- Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), advocating a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in a speech Thursday to the Heritage Foundation.

Sen. Cornyn, one of our 2 right-wing conservative Republican Senators, Kay Bailey Hutchison being the other. Ugh. At least our US Representative is Lloyd Doggett, a person who actually represents my views. He's a rare gem of a politician too. We love him.

Yesterday was also our day to meet other politicians. We attended a meet and greet party at a neighbor's house with Austin Mayoral candidate Lee Leffingwell, and City Council candidates Mike Martinez, Sheryl Cole, and Perla Cavazos. We have 2 very strong left-wing progressive Democratic candidates for Mayor, both currently in City Council: Lee Leffingwell and Brewster McCracken (gotta love that name). I'm leaning toward McCracken and MrB is leaning toward Leffingwell so we may vote differntly, not sure yet. As long as one of them defeats that goofy Republican Carole McClellan One Tough Grandma Rylander Keeton Strayhorn, who goes by a different moniker everytime she runs for something. For Governor it was "One Tough Grandma" and now, since Austin is a young-thinking place, she is going by "Carole". You may know her as the mother of Scott McClellan. She is whacked.

Sheryl Cole is a no-brainer for me. She's a Democrat and current City Council member, running against a Libertarian. I have Libertarian friends but don't want them representing me in government, I just don't agree with the ideology.

Perla Cavazos is a Democrat running against another Democrat, Chris Riley. MrB started out our conversation with the embarrassing question, "I have a Chris Riley bumper sticker. Why should I vote for you?" But she took it in stride and actually chatted with us for quite a while. She and Chris Riley are both alright, and I told her I was undecided in order to redeem the conversation a bit, but I am still leaning towards Riley anyway.

They all liked my shirt, which also got lots of kudos during SXSW too.