A new poll from KHOU-TV in Houston shows the Harris County DA's race is a "dead heat" between incumbent and Rick Perry-appointee Devon Anderson and Democratic challenger Kim Ogg, with an enormous swath of the electorate undecided (46%).
That doesn't surprise me. The incumbent replaced her husband who'd already been diagnosed with terminal cancer before he took office, so the public barely knew him, nor her, despite her having been on the ballot before as a judge (a very different sort of election). That means both candidates remain relatively unknown to the voters, who will judge mainly based on party label. Indeed, many undecideds in that poll may never decide at all but will merely vote a straight ticket, R or D, perhaps not even knowing the DA candidates' names.
So the main tasks for both candidates are to drive turnout among the base and wooing the vanishing number of independents and ticket splitters out there who pay attention to candidates beyond their party labels. Those twin goals explain every one of the candidates' positions, which have been refreshingly populist and reform-minded on both sides. This is an example why I prefer it when candidates must run in competitive general elections. It enforces pragmatism and interest-based centrism that's notably absent in both parties' primaries and leaves the victors more prepared to govern.
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While neither candidate is an optimal choice for party hardliners, Anderson greatly benefits from historical voting patterns favoring the GOP. At this writing, the biggest concern by many regarding Ogg relates to a statement you (Grits) made recently about candidates making promises for things they don't control.
Ogg has stated numerous times in her press conferences that the DA is the top LEO in the county. If it were the job of the DA to only seek convictions, it would make more sense but that is simply not true. Ogg further details all her plans for the office tying most to directing the police agencies what crimes they will fight, how they will do things under her reign, and a host of other choice comments.
It sounds nice that she is going to order Harris County SO and Houston PD, among others, to stop spending so much time on low level drug dealers and go after the cartels instead. It also sounds great that she will make the police write tickets for low levels of pot in order to put cops back on the street. She further claims that she will institute a hard line on burglars so they can't get probation and prosecute every case of judicial or police misconduct.
The problem with those stances involves the reality of situations. If a case is flimsy, perhaps even political in nature, prosecuting indiscriminately is a waste of court time and resources, both against common sense. The small amount drug policies will still have cops taking someone in to live scan their hands for ID, still force someone to take a plea for drugs lest the alternative be to "punish" them for refusing such a good deal, and still require the police to put evidence in a secure facility and write a report; nullifying the alleged time savings of the policy (her primary goal). And it is unlikely that policing agencies are going to direct patrol officers, the source of most small drug busts, to start going after cartels ala a bad Lethal Weapon movie (is that an oxymoron?). And since the DA's office has had a no probation policy for burglars for over 30 years, I'm not sure why she is trying to take credit for it.
Anderson is also flawed, her attempt to help prostitutes likely to backfire, her own drug policy a compromise from Ogg's, and some of her own choices like recusing her office from prosecuting police because most of the staff were friends with the guy rather than have a political showboat trial, lose it, and then blame the jury. If she were to run with the promise of supporting Hill in two years, she'd be light years ahead of Ogg instead of just a slightly better version. As it stands, the "R" will give her the biggest edge courtesy of Abbott and company running in a non-presidential year.
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