Mayor-Elect Parker Roundup

Here are some of my favorite things I've read since Annise Parker's victory Saturday night:

I like this the most -  a quote from my friend Robert Shipman in the New York Times:

Robert Shipman, who is gay and worked long hours for Ms. Parker, said: “The diversity in this room, it’s not just gay people, it’s gay, straight, black, white, Jew, Christian, Muslim, every kind of person. It took all of us to get to this point.”

Obviously, this was from Election Night. Robert is a new friend I made through Parker's campaign. He said so eloquently, what I've had a hard time putting into words. It really did take all of us doing our little piece!


The Chronicle has the video of the entirety of Annise's first press conference as Mayor-Elect. Wow. I couldn't be more impressed. Everything she says is congruent with what she said on the campaign trail, but she's even stronger, more direct and more forceful - with some humor thrown in. For Parker fans, it's definitely worth kicking back and watching the whole thing. If you volunteered to help get her elected, you will be so proud! 


David Ortez has an excellent article in The Houston Press, recapping why Parker won and Locke lost. My favorite part is about the social media strategies of the two campaigns:

Behind the scenes on the Internet, the story was not that much different. Locke failed to create an online presence that rivaled Parker on Twitter and Facebook. Anyone that participated in those social networks would have quickly realized that it was one-sided. The reason it was one-sided was because the Locke campaign lacked a genuine blogger coalition. In mid-July, the Parker began organizing a blogger coalition to spread campaign news after the mainstream media failed to take interest in the election.

This small coalition of bloggers created a lot of buzz and analysis for potential voters to pass around on Twitter and Facebook. Parker was slowly building her base that would live on the Internet.

Locke never took advantage of this new communication tool and by the time the runoff election rolled around, it was bloggers who were digging up the dirt on the candidates. It was a blogger that broke the story that Locke was a lobbyist. It was a blogger that reported on the Hotze-Locke connection. It was bloggers that reported that Dave Wilson had donated money to Locke.

The list goes on and on but at the end of the day, there was no blogger coalition to fight back for Locke. In fact, the Locke campaign made the mistake of creating fake accounts on Twitter to attempt to inflate their online clout.

I gotta agree with Erik. The support and Parker campaign was a huge step forward in campaign-blogger relations. Things got more transparent and open as time went by, after bloggers showed they could be trusted. If something was "internal", "off the record", "confidential" . . . you didn't see it in our blogs. Thank you, Jeri, Justin, Sue, Adam and Ward!


This Politico recap of Parker's win is an excellent read. This is the money quote:

"Houston is your post-racial, post-ethnic future of America," said demographer Joel Kotkin. "It's a leading-edge place."

Scenes from the victory party are here (from David Ortez), here (Hair Balls), and here (TPM).


There is a plethora of media stories on the victory. My daily google alert on "annise parker' is jam packed. Tons of national news outlets - TV, print, online, radio - have stories on the historic win. Some get it right and realize Annise was elected because of her competence and experience. I learned today that international media has come calling, asking Parker for interviews. If she's an international sensation, then that's great news for Houston!


If you have a favorite post-election link, please leave it in the comments. Me, all I can say is I'm still proud, still excited, and even still a bit emotional - winning feels good!