In my part of town one of the precinct chairs started a new club a couple of years ago. You can't talk to him for five minutes before he points out what a great job he does "carrying Pct XXX for the Democratic Party." Well, my precinct is next to his and has similar demographics. For years, my precinct chair was an elderly woman who was very ill so she did essentially nothing. (I've lived here ten years and I know the first time any Democratic literature showed up on peoples' doors was 2004 when I started doing it.} Anyway, for my own amusement I looked at the precinct-by-precinct returns going back several election cycles and guess what? My precinct actually voted more Democratic than Mr Slap Himself On The Back's did. Consistently! So, whatever "magic" he was working wasn't having much effect, was it?

Anyway, he started his club and it quickly became apparent that he was not at all interested in running a democratic organization. It was meant to be "his club" and anytime it looked like his control over anything was threatened he would change the rules.Now, I can tolerate a certain amount of ruthlessness if a person is actually accomplishing things as a result. But he wasn't. His club endorsed candidates in last year's city council races and then did... nothing. They endorsed in this year's primaries and did... nothing. Meanwhile, some of my friends and I who had meanwhile put together Keep Austin Blue, worked our butts off for various candidates.

I think it's grand that there are still some folks who helped LBJ stuff the boxes six decades ago out there. And if they're actually contributing to the cause, great. But if the only thing they're doing is feeding their own egos, they need to get the hell out of the way. We are engaged in a war for survival and we cannot afford their bullshit.

As for the neighboring precinct chair... my precinct has now been combined with another. And I'm the new chair. And come November, we'll see what carrying it for the Democratic Party really looks like.