Ryan Sparks, campaign manager for Lee Kleinman, doesn’t just have his candidate’s early polling lead to be happy about.

“He never got side-tracked by anything,” Sparks said. “He stayed focused on the campaign throughout.”

Here at Mattito’s on Forest Lane, the chips, guacamole, and smiles are flowing. Councilwoman Linda Koop, soon to vacate her City Council seat, is celebrating Lee Kleinman’s early polling lead.

“A lot of people early voted,” said Koop, expressing the usual pattern of District 11 residents.

As for Kleinman, he said he’s feeling “cautiously celebratory.” Stay tuned.

I’ve recognized state Rep. Jason Villalba, DISD Trustee Elizabeth Jones, City Councilman Jerry Allen, and City Councilman Sheffie Kadane.

We have 15 of 45 precints reporting, and Jennifer Staubach Gates has 65 percent to Leland Burk’s 34 percent.

Somebody put fliers highlighting Leland Burk’s sexual orientation in the windows of several publications’ boxes in Preston Royal Village. (Staff photo: Dan Koller)

As I was driving to Jennifer Staubach Gates’ party, I stopped at Preston Royal Village to buy a copy of our current edition. (If anyone here was going to call me out on something I wrote, I wanted it in front of us in black and white.) I was dismayed to see that someone had put an edited version of a recent Dallas Voice cover in the window of our rack, as well as the windows of the adjacent Dallas Observer, FD Luxe, and Paper City racks. That recent cover featured Leland Burk’s face between those of two District 2 candidates, above the headline ”YEAR OF THE GAY?”. That Voice story included a quote from Jennifer Staubach Gates, “Sexual orientation is not an issue in this race,” which is also on this flier. I have no idea how long these fliers have been in these windows. I’d like to think our circulation department would have removed the one from our box if it had been there yesterday when the May 10 edition was delivered. I removed it.

There were 2,872 early votes cast in the District 11 campaign, and Lee Kleinman earned 62 percent of them.

Jennifer Staubach Gates captured 66 percent of the 6,004 early votes cast in the District 13 campaign.

The polls close in five minutes, and I still don’t know where Ori Raphael and his followers will be monitoring results this evening. And it’s not for a lack of asking. Raphael’s opponent, Lee Kleinman, will be at Mattito’s on Forest Lane.

My family and I don’t live in District 13, but we drive through it often. For whatever reason, I once saw a Leland Burk campaign sign and said the candidate’s name in the stereotypical voice of an old-time news announcer. My 4-year-old son/parrot in the backseat thoroughly enjoyed that, and now he does this for Burk and Jennifer Staubach Gates whenever he sees their signs.

Meanwhile, I once pointed out an Ori Raphael sign to him in District 11, and he said, “Raphael? That’s a ninja turtle.”

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