Bloggasm

Charles Kuffner: My name is Charles Kuffner and I write a blog called Off the Kuff, which focuses on Texas politics. I’ve been blogging for four years and am proud to say that the Texas progressive political blogosphere has grown considerably in that time.

Simon Owens: Which conservative bloggers do you think create the most spin? And if you had to pick a conservative blogger to label a worthy adversary, which blogger would that be?

CK: I stopped reading bloggers like that a long time ago. Life is too short, and there are plenty of other good progressive bloggers that do a fine job of calling those folks out. Here in Texas, two conservative blogs that I value are Rob Booth’s Slightly Rough and Rick Perry Versus The World.

SO: How long do you think it would take to reverse the damage done by the Bush Administration if the Democrats were to take over congress and the executive branch?

CK: At least one two-term Presidential administration. Where do you start?

SO: Do you think that Democrats will take action to make sure there’s actually a paper trail in the voting results for the next election by forcing Diebold and other electronic counting systems to become more transparent?

CK: I’m going to dispute the idea that adding paper ballots will improve transparency. Let’s not forget, as Paul Lukasiak and others have shown from the Florida 2000 debacle, there were plenty of paper ballots that were discarded because people both checked the box for Al Gore and then also wrote his name in the Write-In Candidate field. The optical scanners rejected them for being overvotes, and they were never counted despite their intent being crystal clear. What we need first and foremost is a commitment to fair and accurate counting, and an attitude that technical violations of this kind should not be grounds for disqualification. Paper ballots have value for redundancy and for audit purposes, but don’t fall for the fallacy that they cannot be monkeyed with.

Having gotten that out of my system, I think the Democrats will have higher priorities than this in the 110th Congress if they’ve achieved a majority. Fixing the budget, the Iraq mess, Medicare, etc etc etc, will and I believe should come first.

SO: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

CK: Sticking with Texas, I’ll give a plug to

The Burnt Orange Report
Greg’s Opinion
The Jeffersonian
Juanita’s
Grits for Breakfast

With sincere apologies to the many other good blogs that I read regularly.