Rick Perry vs World

29 May 2007

It's beginning to look a lot like campaign season

I note that Charles Kuffner has a list of Texas House Republicans he'd like to see targeted. I'll probably put my own list up in the next week or so. On the other hand, I have a history of overpromising and underdelivering on this blog.

I guess that's what happens when I do something for free.

Posted by Evan @ 05/29/07 10:22 PM | Comments (0)

A Culture of Success

I read lots of books. Often, I intend to review them here, but never get around to it because I want to write more than a pithy comment.

Lisa Endlich's Goldman Sachs: The Culture of Success is not one of these. Endlich is a former vice president of Goldman, and she was clearly a happy employee. The book mostly reads as thinly disguised propaganda. She provides a rose-tinted chronicle of the firm's history, but that was about it.

On the other hand, perhaps the fact that a former employee would write a book extolling the firm's culture says more than her book itself. Clearly I need to work in a place like that.

Posted by Evan @ 05/29/07 10:20 PM | Comments (1)

28 May 2007

The myth of the rational politician

Selby says that (doesn't live in) Sugar Land Rep. Nick Lampson is running for re-election and not for Senate against John Cornyn.

Guess it's a good thing I didn't publish the post I wrote that predicted that Lampson was slightly more likely to run for Senate than for re-election.

Posted by Evan @ 05/28/07 10:06 PM | Comments (0)

26 May 2007

Tonight's the night

The long-simmering Texas House is apparently boiling over tonight. A bunch of Dems and anti-Craddick Republicans want to vacate the Speaker's chair, and the Speaker has replied that he is not obliged to recognize any such motion.

Here's the lede on Karen Brooks' developing story:

Speaker Tom Craddick threw the House into turmoil and caused the House parliamentarian to resign on Friday night when he told lawmakers he could shut down an attempt to overthrow him simply by refusing to recognize the request to do it.

He also said, during a series of conversations with critics on the House floor, that there was no way for the House to appeal his decision.

Mr. Craddick refused to explain his decision and abruptly recessing the House for two and a half hours – leaving the chamber, flanked by his closest allies, under raucous jeers and shouts from angry House members. One Craddick supporter, screamed back at them: "This is anarchy!"

I'm following the story at the Chron's blog, the DMN's blog, and Kronberg. A live audio feed is available.

Posted by Evan @ 05/26/07 12:34 AM | Comments (1)

25 May 2007

Simon on Bloomberg

Roger Simon puts the kibosh on Bloomberg running:

I had lunch with a strong Bloomberg supporter last November, and when I asked him how Bloomberg was going to get to 270 electoral votes, the supporter said, "We don't need to get to 270. We just need to keep the others from getting to 270."

Wrong. If that happens, the race would be decided by the House of Representatives, which has a Democratic majority.

Charlie Cook, a very savvy political analyst, wrote recently: "The most interesting scenario would be if Bloomberg were to win a plurality of the electoral votes and siphon off enough votes from the left to push the Democratic nominee into third place. Could a Democratic House really pick a third-place finisher to be president, or might they opt for a politically compatible independent who finished first?"

The simple answer is: Yes, the Democratic House would vote for the third-place Democratic nominee over Bloomberg, because that is what party politics is all about.

Many national pundits seem to think that Bloomberg would draw more from the left than the right. I strongly disagree; Bloomberg running would be a disaster for Republicans.

And would a Democratic House pick a third place Democrat to be president? Yes -- unless maybe Bloomberg offered to switch back to being a Democrat -- and I don't think it would be that much of an issue. If I recall correctly, he used Democratic consultants in his first mayoral bid.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the article, however, was Simon's conclusion that Bloomberg is smart enough to realize that he can't win, and thus won't run. It remains to be seen if Simon is right, or if Bloomberg will listen to the political consultants whispering sweet nothings in his ear.

Posted by Evan @ 05/25/07 01:15 PM | Comments (2)

24 May 2007

Shrum-isms

Perennial adviser to the presidential losers (but Senate winners!) Bob Shrum is out hawking a book, per Michael Crowley in The New Republic:

Shrum went on advising Edwards for several years, including as Edwards was contemplating his vote on the fall 2002 Iraq war resolution. In the one passage of the book already widely leaked, Shrum recounts how he and other political advisers pushed Edwards into a vote for the resolution that Edwards--and, even more so, his wife, Elizabeth--didn't want to cast. The episode didn't make Shrum look great. But the real damage is to Edwards, who comes across as a cipher taking orders from his handlers. As Shrum puts it: "[H]e was the candidate and if he was really against the war it was up to him to stand his ground. He didn't."

(Edwards aides have said Shrum exaggerates the importance of this meeting and wasn't in other pivotal meetings where Edwards deliberated. But, as an aide to a rival campaign recently pointed out to me, in a moment that passed largely unnoticed, Edwards seemed to confirm the basic thrust of this story during the first Democratic presidential debate last month in South Carolina. "I was wrong to vote for this war," Edwards said. "And the lesson I learned from it is to put more faith in my own judgment." It does sound as though Edwards is admitting that he allowed handlers to overrule his conscience.)

Things should always be interpreted in context. Given what we know about John Edwards, this is pretty believable, albeit with a touch of Crowley's artfully put caveat:

It's hard to know for sure. Which is, after all, the essential quality of a tell-all Washington memoir--and especially one from a spinner as experienced as Bob Shrum.

Perhaps they were looking 10 years previous to Bill Clinton? I ain't sayin', I'm just sayin'.

Shrum is still happy with Kerry -- who he picked over Edwards in 2003. At the time, I was quite surprised, because it looked like Shrum was signaling that he was going to go with Edwards.

"When his back was plainly against the wall ... Kerry was bold and decisive. At other times, he tended to second-guess, revise, fiddle, confer with anyone in sight, and try to placate everyone around him. For him, I think the easier days in the White House might have been harder. But in a crisis, I believe Kerry would have shown the right stuff as president."

I think that's probably true, but there was/is also a chance that Kerry would've been a colossal failure as commander-in-chief during a crisis.

But sometimes campaigns give us a certain sense for who people are, and perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that George W. Bush has occasionally accepted military plans too easily. That is, after all, how he campaigned for president. See, eg, post-New Hampshire/pre-South Carolina primary 2000.

Posted by Evan @ 05/24/07 01:24 AM | Comments (0)

Yankee* mayors

Chris Cilizza reminds me of something I meant to comment on:

A recent poll for the New York Daily News asked city residents who was a better mayor -- Bloomberg or Rudy Giuliani. Fifty-six percent chose Bloomberg while just 29 percent opted for Giuliani. Bloomberg's job-approval ratings are similarly sky high -- often breaking 70 percent.

Giuliani turned New York City around. Bloomberg has just been a technocrat who hasn't made any major immediate errors. Ok, slight exaggeration, but does anyone really think Bloomberg would've been able to do what Giuliani did? By most measures, Giuliani was a much better mayor.

Now, I know that part of the reason for the poll result is simply that NYC is in a boom and Giuliani hasn't been mayor for 6 years. But I think the poll does have a valid underlying point: Giuliani gets on people's nerves, and for good reason. He'd be a terrible president.

* Although I may not be a Yankee, I cleave to the etymology that Yankee comes from slang for the American Dutch, and thus I am fond of the word.

Posted by Evan @ 05/24/07 01:02 AM | Comments (0)

23 May 2007

la liga de los campeones

Inzaghi! Kaka! Milan!

Kaka was brilliant as ever. A true marvel.

Posted by Evan @ 05/23/07 11:52 PM | Comments (0)

22 May 2007

"Quotation marks"

Ross Ramsey at Texas Weekly "likes" the name:

The blog titled Rick Perry vs. The World (yeah, really)...

Hey, the governor himself had a pretty good sense of humor about the name.

Also, I tend to put an "ironic" exclamation point at the end of the blog name if I am ever forced to verbalize it.

All the "quotation marks" in this post were inspired by Marc Ambinder, who consistently produces quality journalism.

Posted by Evan @ 05/22/07 07:09 PM | Comments (1)

Whither Dan Patrick?

Paul Burka writes about Dan Patrick's electoral future:

Even before Dan Patrick won his Senate seat, speculation around town was rampant that he would run for governor in 2010. I think it's wrong. He doesn't have the name identification or the money to make that race, and he would be up against a formidable array of political talent. But I think he will be a candidate for statewide office in '10 -- not for governor, but for lieutenant governor. And I think he has positioned himself very well for that race.

Speculation is fun!

I think Burka is right that Patrick probably hasn't irrevocably decided to run for governor. However, I think he's definitely considering it depending on who gets in the race. Picture this: Kay Bailey Hutchison announces a run for governor.* Dewhurst also announces. AG Greg Abbott and Land Commish Jerry Patterson both announce for LG. Where does Patrick go? He runs for governor. Patrick has to think he's got a good chance of getting into a runoff against Hutchison and Dewhurst. Neither the Senator nor the Lieutenant Governor are particularly strong conservatives, in the view of GOP primary voters. Once he gets into a runoff, who knows? Besides, Patrick can run as the conservative outsider much more easily against Dewhurst and/or Hutchison than he can against Abbott and/or Patterson.

Anyway, the precise scenario I described of who enters the race has under a 50% chance of happening, but is probably more likely than any other scenario at this point.

* I know, it's tough to believe, given how many times KBH has flirted publically with running for governor. But she's really serious this time...right? Actually, I think she is. She realized that she had an uphill run against Perry in a GOP primary, and she decided to stay in the Senate. But now, you've got to think Hutchison starts most gubernatorial scenarios as the favorite.

Posted by Evan @ 05/22/07 03:58 PM | Comments (2)

[Previous 10 Entries] [Next 10 Entries]

SITE MENU

+ Rick Perry vs World
+ About Me

+ Archives

+ Email:
perryvsworld* at *gmail dot com

ADVERTISING

SYNDICATION

DISCLAIMER

Rick Perry vs. World is powered by Nucleus.

Site design and Nucleus customization by Kevin Whited.