11 December 2015
An allegory of Cruz as senator then presidential candidate
When I worked so hard to put Ted Cruz in the Senate, this is not what I imagined:
Toward the end of the roll call, Cruz strode onto the Senate floor, studied how his colleagues had voted, then voted against restoring the crop insurance.
Cruz was immediately collared by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), and the two talked for a minute or so as Cruz listened intently. He turned to Republican Secretary of the Senate Laura Dove and gave the “just a minute” signal before walking to the cloakroom.
Two minutes later, Cruz approached the clerk and changed his vote.
Posted by Evan @ 12/11/15 07:08 AM | Comments (0)        
09 December 2015
Wendy Davis lies so much that she even lies about lying
Wendy Davis is a liar.
Even Wendy Davis says Wendy Davis is a liar. In fact, she just wrote an article admitting how she lied to Texans when she said she supported open carry.
That article begins:
I am a lifelong Democrat. I proudly boast an “F” rating from the NRA. And, yet during my 2014 gubernatorial campaign in Texas, I supported the open carry of handguns in my state. (emphasis mine)
Lying seems to be a habit for Wendy Davis.
Let's review the evidence:
1. Wendy Davis donated to George W. Bush for President right after she was elected to the Fort Worth City Council.
Until about April 2007 when she started thinking about running as a Democrat for state senate, David had made a variety of political donations, but she'd donated more to Republicans than to Democrats. She was particularly fond of Kay Granger, the Republican congresswoman from Fort Worth.
2. Davis voted in Republican primaries in 1996, 1998, and 2006.
3. The Davis campaign used to happily plant stories in left-leaning media about how Wendy Davis used to be a Republican. Here's one example:
Except… Before she emerged as “a feminist folk hero” and culture warrior extraordinaire, Davis served nine years as a member of the Fort Worth city council. There, in the unglamorous trenches of pothole politics, she earned a reputation as passionate and aggressive—“She’ll bite you if you’re not careful,” chuckles former council colleague Jim Lane—but also as a pragmatic, pro-business moderate with bipartisan appeal. Far from some lefty bomb-thrower, Davis was, in fact, a Republican voter and occasional [sic] donor before she ran for state senate, at which point many local Dems complained that she was not liberal enough.Davis’s party switch wasn’t some grand political drama...
Davis has said that she registered Republican to have a say in local races.
There's also Robert Draper's hagiography:
It’s true that Davis has voted for and given money to Republicans, that she speaks supportively of the Second Amendment (while conceding that she’s a lousy shot) and the death penalty, and that, as she told me, she regarded George W. Bush as a “unifier” during his tenure as governor who “definitely viewed things as a Texan, and I like that.”
Let's review: Wendy Davis voted in multiple Republican primaries, gave the majority of her political donations to the GOP until she started running for partisan office, and even a few years ago was quite happy to be called a former Republican.
Some "lifelong Democrat."
Posted by Evan @ 12/09/15 12:02 AM | Comments (0)        
03 December 2015
If Bill King doesn't win, it would be a surprise
On election night I tweeted:
If I had to set the odds right now, I'd actually make Bill King a very slight favorite to be Houston's next mayor. #HouNews #houvote
— Perry vs World blog (@PerryVsWorld) November 4, 2015
A brief look at recent Houston mayoral elections might make that tweet seem crazy given that the Democratic machine dominates Houston municipal politics.
A couple days later, I started writing a version of this post. I never did finish it, in part because momentum kept shifting to Bill King.
This tweet steals the thunder from the post I keep procrastinating on finishing https://t.co/NDiSuIH9Os
— Perry vs World blog (@PerryVsWorld) November 26, 2015
After a post-election lull, momentum would at the present time appear to be swinging in favor of @BillKingForHou #HouVote #HouMayor
— Mark P. Jones (@MarkPJonesTX) November 25, 2015
Aside: Rice prof @MarkPJonesTX is definitely worth a follow on Twitter:
@KrisBanks @chronsnyder For some, others might prefer some combo of 'intercept shift', 'stochastic term' or 'temporal spline'
— Mark P. Jones (@MarkPJonesTX) November 25, 2015
A few thoughts:
1. Turner has never shown that he can move beyond his base of voters...and the number of votes he's getting is moving in the wrong direction.
In 1991, Sylvester Turner got 114k votes. In 2003, Turner got 88k votes & missed runoff. In 2015...82k votes. #decline #houvote #HouNews
— Perry vs World blog (@PerryVsWorld) November 9, 2015
That's definitely not going the right way for Turner, especially considering how much population the city of Houston continues to add every year.
Have we seen anything in this runoff that would convince a voter to switch from repeated votes against Turner to voting for him, despite Sylvester Turner's ethical baggage?
If so, I missed it. King is getting endorsements and fundraising help from Democrats. Heck, Sylvester Turner couldn't even keep Chris Bell neutral!
2. Nationalize and demonize
What worked for Democrats in the last 2 close mayoral elections between R and D was to make it a partisan election where they could nationalize the election and demonize the opposition.
It was easy to do it to Mosbacher - he was a national Republican figure. And Orlando Sanchez willingly brought in national Republican endorsements from George W Bush and Rudy Giuliani. But Democrats scored a nice blow there when Sanchez's campaign couldn't say that Sanchez and Giuliani had ever met.
They haven't been able to make the runoff a partisan election.
Is Bill King even a Republican? I'm not sure - maybe? His writing over the years suggested he was quite willing to criticize both parties. King calls himself an independent.
3. Turner's campaign looks and sounds desperate
Not quantitative by any means, but Turner's campaign looks desperate. Their messaging is all over the place. They are throwing stuff at the wall and hoping something will finally stick.
Turner's campaign has always been very light on policy, but in the runoff it's just all-out personal attacks.
Early in the runoff, Turner seemed to be trying to turn this into a partisan race, but it wasn't working, so he just decided to try slandering King instead. But the attacks so far are weaksauce. They don't like the name of the boat that he sold years ago?
Bottom line:
All of this adds up to one thing: an unhappy Democratic machine on election night. Maybe they can pull the rabbit out of the turnout hat, but at this point I would bet against it.
Posted by Evan @ 12/03/15 03:42 PM | Comments (0)        
02 December 2015
Houston Chronicle: Vote for Sylvester Turner because he'll raise your taxes
At least they're honest about it?
We've also yet to see a solid proposal that sets Houston on a fiscally sustainable path without raising the revenue cap, which restricts property tax collection combined rates of inflation and population growth. Moody's Investors Service specifically pointed to the trifecta of rising pension obligations, spiking debt payments and the city's revenue cap as threats to Houston's financial well-being. Turner wants to address all three of those issues. King instead continues to falsely equate lifting the revenue cap with a tax hike.
Raising the revenue cap = raising our property taxes. At least the Chron is honest about the fact that Sylvester Turner will raise our taxes.
Posted by Evan @ 12/02/15 10:25 PM | Comments (0)