Back Talk Oak Cliff

Wine review: Dufouleur Père & Fils Nuits St. Georges Premier Cru Les Saint Georges 2002

Regular readers know that I don’t put much stock in expensive wine. Even when it’s worthwhile, these wines often fail the 10 times test: Is a typical $100 wine 10 times better than a typical $10 wine?

This red Burgundy (what the French call pinot noir) is from a 400-year French wine family and it does pass the 10 times test. The 2002 vintage, meanwhile, is one of the best in Burgundy in decades. Even better, the wine is only about $30 (available at Goody Goody). This is classic red Burgundy, with zippy tannins and a pleasantly rustic feel and taste. It isn’t especially fruity, so if you drink a lot of New World pinot noir you may be disappointed. Try it anyway.

I drank most of a bottle of this on the porch, enjoying the pleasant fall weather we’ve had lately. The St. Georges will also pair with almost anything you can throw at it for Thanksgiving, and it has lots of aging potential. How often can you say that about a $30 wine?

Ross Avenue: Let's see the council get out of this

First, the City Council considered re-naming Industrial Boulevard to honor Caesar Chavez, the Latino civil rights icon. Then, it was going to re-name Ross Avenue in honor of Chavez, because it had other plans for Industrial. And now, it's not going to re-name Ross, but will find another street to call Chavez.

And people wonder why I call this one of the least sophisticated group of politicians I've seen in my 20-some odd years writing about this stuff.

Elections results, part I

A few quick thoughts until I get chance to examine the numbers:

• U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, who ran 30 points ahead of John McCain in Dallas County, becomes a leading contender for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate when incumbent Kay Bailey Hutchison resigns next year to run for governor.

• Will the Democratic landslide in Dallas County give Mayor Park Cities and his allies on the city council second thoughts about rushing the convention center hotel package through before next spring’s referendum? And don’t you think the anti-hotel people wish they had put the issue on the ballot yesterday?

• Turnout was almost 62 percent –- good, but not staggering. Statewide, it was about 59 percent. This means that early voting doesn’t necessarily translate into more voters, but the same number of voters voting early. This should change the way candidates campaign, putting more of a focus on early voters.

• The race for Dallas County judge in 2010 gets much, much more interesting, since the Democratic nominee would seem to have a leg up on winning. The Democratic incumbent, Jim Foster, may have as many as four opponents in the primary, all well known and respected -– former city councilmen Larry Duncan, John Loza and Chris Luna and ex-mayoral candidate Sam Coats.

• Democratic incumbent Allen Vaught beat Republican Bill Keffer by 1,800 votes for the state District 107 House seat. That’s 700 votes more than he beat Keffer by two years ago, and probably means the end of Keffer’s political career.

• The same is probably true for Republican incumbent Tony Goolsby in the District 102 House race. He lost by 2,500 votes to Democrat Carol Kent after holding the seat in 2006 by 1,500 votes.

Technorati Tags: Dallas County elections,Pete Sessions,Allen Vaught,Bill Keffer,Tony Goolsby,turnout

A.H. Belo update –- and it’s not pretty

The parent company of Dallas’ Only Daily Newspaper lost $17.3 million in the third quarter, and had to borrow $10 million to pay for the costs associated with laying off 400 employees this fall. And that was probably the best news in Friday’s earnings announcement.

Because, frankly, things look like they’re going to get a lot worse before they get better. Some are even wondering about Belo’s ability to continue to operate its three large daily newspapers, the Denton paper, and its ancillary products like the weekly Quick and the almost daily Briefing.

Early voting final tally

How does 477,455 sound? That’s about 125,000 more than voted early in 2004, and almost twice as many as voted early in 2000.

A couple of other numbers to keep in mind: There are about 1.2 million registered voters in Dallas County. In 2004, turnout was 58 percent, and half voted early. If that pattern holds, we’ll have 80 percent turnout tomorrow. I’m not sure anyone, anywhere, has ever had 80 percent turnout. More realistically, I think we can expect early voting this year to account for about two-thirds of the total. Even then, we’d get close to 60 percent turnout, which is about what the national projections are.

Who will all these people help? The county Democrats think it’s going to be them, though their projections on Friday in the Observer are less than the number who actually voted. On the other hand, as I have noted, early voters in Dallas County traditionally favor Republicans.

Finally, after the jump, a few fun facts about just how many people voted early, which you can share if you have to stand in line tomorrow to vote.

Early voting update II

Forget records –- we’re past that. Through Friday, more than 212,000 people had voted early in Dallas County. That’s an astounding number, for several reasons:

• The county averaged more than 40,000 early voters a day last week. At that rate, we’ll have more than 400,000 early voters, double the number in the 2000 presidential election. In 2000, turnout was about 50 percent -– some 600,000 voters. And here’s an interesting conundrum: Early voting, as near as I can tell, often makes up about one-third of the total votes cast. At this rate, if the current average holds, we’ll have close to 100 percent turnout.

Early voting update

All those stories and numbers about how many people are voting early? Apparently, they’re true. I waited in line on Tuesday for the first time since I started voting early, and there were about a half dozen people in line with me at 8:45 a.m. Plus, not only there were more people voting -– about a dozen, instead of two or three -– but twice as many polling workers as well. And it was one of the best-run operations I have ever seen.

The numbers, through Tuesday, suggest a massive turnout not seen in years, if not decades. Monday’s total was a record for one day, and through two days more than 50,000 votes have been cast. That’s about one-seventh of the total for early voting in 2004, and we still have eight days to go. State officials, meanwhile, expected the first day to beat records throughout Texas. And we didn’t do as well, proportionally, as some states -– more than 200,000 have voted early in North Carolina. Also important: We had record early voting in the Democratic primary in March, and the total was 119,885. We’ll probably pass that figure this week.

I long ago stopped trying to figure out whether early voting benefits particular candidates, but what is worth noting this time is that it’s a sign of heavy turnout, and heavy turnout makes polls less reliable. (Polling accuracy throughout the 2008 primary and general election campaigns has been abysmal, and no one is quite sure why.) Another kicker this year is the number of new voters; registration is up more than 100,000 in Dallas County. Again, it’s not as important who the new voters will favor, but that their presence makes the polls less reliable.

Remember, if you want to share your early voting experience, you can do it in the comments.

Technorati Tags: Early voting,presidential election,Dallas County,voter turnout

The Dallas County sheriff’s race

I have been writing about politics for more than 20 years, and this race seemed as easy to handicap as any over the past two decades. Incumbent Democrat Lupe Valdez has more baggage than a 747, and the challenger, Republican Lowell Cannaday, if unspectacular, seems mostly non-partisan with a squeaky clean record.

So why does it look like Valdez might actually win?

"Renegade towing companies"

Friday update: I made a few calls yesterday, and no one wants to talk about this. Or, as one person put it, "Everyone’s acting like Sgt. Schultz." Which, for the younger members of the group, means they're saying, "I know nothing." I'll keep poking around, but since no one wants to talk about this, my guess is there is a good reason: The towing companies are very well connected.

Thursday post: Note to Mayor Park Cities and the rest of the city council: Lone Star Auto, which made headlines last week when it towed cars belonging to Texas-OU fans, has been doing this sort of thing for a long time. In fact, it has even been on TV before.

Lone Star’s “renegade-ness” is not news. City Hall has been trying -– and failing -– to make the company behave for almost two years. You can go here. Or here. Or even here. So, Mayor Leppert, if you’re going to make this one stick, you’ll have to do more than play to the cameras.

Because, you know what this Lone Star business is? A typical example of how the city can’t regulate businesses that it’s supposed to regulate.

Technorati Tags: towing companies,Lone Star Auto,Tom Leppert

A.H. Belo stock heads down again

Go figure –- the stock market went up almost 1,000 points yesterday, a record, and the parent company of Dallas’ Only Daily newspaper lost almost 11 percent. If that’s not enough to roil the 401K of the remaining Belo employees, volume was very heavy, about one-half more than normal. This usually means something is up.

Belo is releasing its third-quarter results in two weeks or so. Have investors already decided the news will be bad and are selling ahead of the earnings?

Yet, no matter how bad those numbers are, they can’t be that bad. For one thing, Belo has no debt. For another, the stock is paying 12 percent in dividends. For a third, if the bosses liquidated the company tomorrow, it would probably be worth more than its market capitalization. The real estate that the News’ building sits on downtown is listed on the tax rolls at $28.2 million, which means it could be worth twice that. And none of this takes into account the possibility that management will take the company private next year.

Hey, even I see an opportunity here, and I’m just a middle-aged ex-sportswriter. It’s time to buy Belo stock, and I’ll probably get 100 shares later today. Of course, this raises the question of whether I’ll have to add one of those disclaimers –- Jeff Siegel owns shares in A.H. Belo -– whenever I write about The News.

Technorati Tags: A.H. Belo,Dallas Morning News,stock price