Reply #9: At this stage in the election, the poll is mainly name id and no one knows [View All]

[Czolgosz]

Bell yet.

By this summer, we'll know who's on and who's off the ballot.

By the end of the summer, Bell's campaign will pick up steam, and his name identification will begin to rise at a faster rate.

By the fall, the school finance bill fiasco will be in full bloom. There are only three possible outcomes: (1) Perry will have failed to achieve anything and there will be further court action which will reflect poorly on Perry or (2) Perry will have passed a shitty school financing bill and there will be blow-back from the underfunded schools and from the people who are paying a new tax (by the way, look for many LLP to switch to general partnerships and many PC to switch to sole proprietorships which will mean the the revenue projections from the franchise tax will be WAY OFF TARGET) or (3) Perry will fairly and adequately fund the schools and no one will mind having to pay the extra taxes (just kidding, there are only two possible outcomes, because Perry couldn't accomplish a positive outcome even if he was Ann Richards).

Also, we're in for a worrisome hurricane season, and Perry has not done anything to fix the problem where people in East Texas have bought both wind and water storm coverage and still they are not getting their claims paid because the two insurance companies are fighting between themselves over which coverage is responsible -- imagine this problem across the Texas Gulf Coast.

By the late fall, if we have a four-way race, someone (probably Bell but maybe c4n3p) will emerge as the top anti-Perry candidate and someone (probably Kinky) will emerge as the fourth-place also ran, and support for the fourth place also ran will migrate to the top anti-Perry candidate.

Unless the three Perry-alternatives somehow all manage to cancel each other out by hovering in the polls at the high teens or low-to-mid twenties as percentages of support, there ought to be an interesting race. Perry will be the favorite and someone, most likely Bell, will be his top challenger. Everyone will know Bell's name by then, and he'll be polling in the high thirties come election time (unless Kinky Naders him) and whether winning 36%, 37%, or 38% will be enough to win depends on how c4n3p and Perry divide the remainder of the vote.