Obama Office Open for Business

"I'm glad we're talking about issues again and not Sarah Palin's haircut," Rep. Donna Howard told the crowd of candidates, activists, and volunteers at the opening of the Obama for America Central Texas campaign office last Saturday. With 39 days to go before the election, the event at the Travis County Democratic Party's coordinated campaign headquarters was intended to tap back into the vigor of the primary season. As Rep. Mark Strama said, "This has been going on for a year, so it's hard for people to realize we're down to the stretch run."

The gathering got a little unannounced star power courtesy of Austinite and star of TV's The OC Benjamin McKenzie. He was in town to promote his new film adaptation of the classic anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun, and he was in the building to discuss veterans' rights. But the main topic of conversation on the floor was frustration about the financial-sector collapse and the White House response, a sentiment summed up with a little Sturm und Drang by Congressional District 10 candidate Larry Joe Doherty. "If they're going to nationalize an industry," he roared to applause, "they could at least nationalize one that isn't broken."

The most senior elected Democrat from Central Texas, Rep. Lloyd Dog­gett, set minds at rest about the leg he broke earlier in the year. "It's good enough to walk on, and soon it will be good enough to kick Republicans with," he said, before dismissing Sen. John McCain as a "late-breaking reformer" and laying a good slab of complicity for the economic crisis at the feet of the Keating Five scandal veteran and his party. Unfavorably comparing the speed of the Wall Street bailout to the administration's opposition to fully funding the Children's Health Insurance Program, he noted, "They couldn't find the money there, but they sure as hell could find the money for the businessmen that walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars in their pocket."