Rick Perry vs World

27 November 2006

Dan Patrick made me laugh

Laylan Copelin in the Statesman:

Dan Patrick's recent purchase of a Dallas radio station -- and rumors of more to come -- fuels speculation among Austin's political crowd that Patrick wants to run for governor.

"That was never on my radar," Patrick says. "Until they started talking about it."

Yup. Austin made him do it!

Copelin turns out a pretty balanced profile. Good take on this session's entertaining story in Austin.

Posted by Evan @ 11/27/06 10:31 PM | Comments (1)

Cornyn and Hutchison

Del Rio paper:

Texas' pair of U.S. senators informed Del Rio Mayor Efrain Valdez last week that he may be invited to tell Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff directly and exactly why border mayors loathe the idea of a fence along the Rio Grande.

On November 20, Valdez was notified by Beto Cardenas, chief counsel for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, that his boss, and Sen. John Cornyn, had appealed to Chertoff for a meeting with the border mayors "to hear your comments as they relate to the enactment of the Secure Fence Act and other border security measures."

...

"Senator Cornyn promised they would not put in a single inch of physical fence until they have heard all our concerns in Washington," a jubilant Valdez told LIVE! during his return trip from McAllen in October. Texas Border Coalition's Immigration Committee is chaired by Valdez who presented the problem to Cornyn at the early fall meeting.

Good for our Senators.

Posted by Evan @ 11/27/06 10:06 PM | Comments (0)

Conaway for Reyes

Midland Reporter-Telegram:

[Midland GOP Congressman Mike] Conaway hopes the Blue Dogs will join Republicans to oppose the stated intention of new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco to nominate Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings to the House Select Committee on Intelligence chairmanship.

He said he will fight the appointment because Hastings was impeached in the House and removed by the Senate from his south Florida federal judgeship in 1989 for taking a $150,000 bribe in return for leniently sentencing and returning the assets of Thomas and Frank Romano, who had been indicted for 21 counts of racketeering.

Conaway much prefers Rep. Silvestre Reyes of El Paso, or Rep. Jane Harmon of California for the sensitive intelligence post. "We believe Texans can do things better than anyone else and I would like to see Silvestre in there," he said.

I'm pretty sure it's Harman, but I'm a pedant sometimes.

I thought it was interesting that a Republican was commenting, since he doesn't have a vote. Attacking Pelosi for nominating an impeached former federal judge is one thing that might score points, but expressing an affirmative preference? Might hurt Reyes's chances slightly, if it has any effect at all.

Posted by Evan @ 11/27/06 10:01 PM | Comments (0)

25 November 2006

Rice goes to bowl game!

Rice just beat SMU to clinch a bowl berth on the strength of Jaret Dillard's three TD catches. Unless something crazy happens, he'll finish the season #1 in the nation for TD catches. It's Rice's first bowl berth in 45 years.

Meanwhile, am I the only one who thinks ESPN College GameDay's Chris Fowler looks a lot like Rick Perry?

Posted by Evan @ 11/25/06 06:00 PM | Comments (0)

Cornyn to be on Late Edition tomorrow

John Cornyn will be on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer tomorrow. The show airs at noon.

[Can you tell it's a little slow, and I'm trolling for things to post?]

Posted by Evan @ 11/25/06 02:24 PM | Comments (0)

Express News editorial board knocks Ciro Rodriguez

SAEN:

The limited time frame makes it imperative for the candidates to get their message to voters quickly.

Rodriguez is claiming the short window for campaigning is a "Republican scheme" to disenfranchise voters.

Instead of complaining, Rodriguez should make good use of his time to get his message out. The candidates knew the runoff would be on a short fuse and pushing the election closer to Christmas would further inhibit turnout.

The pair had agreed to a Dec. 1 debate. Regrettably, Rodriguez has since balked, claiming a scheduling conflict.

If Rodriguez hopes to represent the district in Congress, he should be willing to debate Bonilla on the date both chose.

A debate offers free name ID for Rodriguez. Considering that Rodriguez needs the debate much more than Bonilla does, he should really be willing to debate Bonilla.

Posted by Evan @ 11/25/06 02:06 PM | Comments (0)

24 November 2006

Shelley CD22 2008

How much has short-term Congresswoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs hurt herself for 2008?

My guess is quite a bit. In case you haven't been paying attention, Shelley's first week in Congress was marred by 1) very widespread rumors that she was upset that Bush and Cheney didn't show up to her swearing-in, 2) a quote she gave that made her sound like she was going to be able to accomplish lots of things, and most importantly, 3) she managed to run off her staff en masse, and then 4) call for a silly, unnecessary investigation.

Still to come, she's got 5) the negative reaction when the City of Houston has to spend a few million bucks to hold a special election for her seat. Yikes!

Even though she did pretty well in getting over 40% of the vote as a write-in, she's hurt herself quite a bit. [Quick digression: her strategy was to educate the voters on writing her in. It worked in getting to 40%, but never had a chance of getting to 50%. She didn't give people a reason to write her in if they didn't already want to She still gets to run as Congresswoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, but chances of her winning the primary are less than 50%.

There was never that good a chance that she was going to escape a serious challenge. Sure, lots of people passed in 06, but that was to run in a precinct chair campaign, or later, for a write-in race.

The question is who decides to take her on. Paul Bettencourt has already announced, via a Kristen Mack Houston Chronicle column, that he's planning on running. He's hoping to scare other candidates off, so that he gets her one-on-one. Bettencourt is definitely popular among the Harris County activists, and polls pretty well in Harris as well. Once upon a time, he was even the Houston Press' favorite Republican. But will he be successful in clearing the field?

I don't know. Certainly Kyle Janek would have to take a strong look at running. He was up for re-election to the state senate in 06, so he chose to pass on this year. But he is the one candidate who can probably unite the regional factions, as a guy who lives in Houston, was born and raised in Galveston, and represents half of Fort Bend County right now. He can also certainly raise the money. There are rumors that he's waiting for Dr. Paul to retire in CD14, however.

Harris County Judge Bob Eckels would also certainly be a heavyweight who will consider running. You'd expect that he could raise the money.

There was a time when state Rep. Talton was thought to be running in 2008, but those rumors have cooled a little bit.

Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace might want to run, but he probably didn't help himself with this year's primary posturing.

If we end up with two Harris County candidates, it'll be interesting to see if a Fort Bend candidates gets in. It'd be easier to rally Fort Bend support if the other two serious candidates are both from Harris. Wallace might see that as a chance, as might Fort Bend County Commish Andy Meyers. Myers was one of Shelley's biggest backers, so my guess is that he'll stay out. Sugar Land State Rep. Charlie Howard might also think about getting in, as well as '04 DeLay challenger Tom Campbell.

My prediction is that Shelley will draw a serious challenger, and that she has an uphill battle to get the nomination. And hey, the primary is only 15 months away!

Posted by Evan @ 11/24/06 06:05 PM | Comments (0)

21 November 2006

What now?

I still have a few posts to wrapup from the election, but now that the gubernatorial election is over, the question is: what do I do now?

Should I keep the name? Quit blogging? Move to a different site?

I haven't quite decided, although very soon (possibly today) I'm going to launch a new blog-related project I'm working on, and I think it should be interesting.

Posted by Evan @ 11/21/06 06:04 PM | Comments (2)

Cornyn challenger rumors

The Hotline blog has some rumors about possible Cornyn challengers:

Despite Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's (R) resounding '06 win, one TX Dem insider says Dems are hopeful that a strong challenger to Sen. John Cornyn (R) will still emerge. The Dem claims Cornyn "has significantly lower approval rating" than Hutchison and that Gov. Rick Perry's (R) plurality win shows the TX GOP base is only 40% of voters. However the Dem concedes that a credible challenger would have to start raising money right now for what could be a $12M campaign.

Already mentioned as possibilities are '98/'02 LG nominee/ex-Comp. John Sharp (D) and Houston Mayor Bill White (D), but ex-Rep. Jim Turner (D) still has over $1M CoH left over. There are "rumblings" about Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-28) running, and '02 nominee/ex-Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk's (D) name gets batted around occasionally too.

Posted by Evan @ 11/21/06 05:34 PM | Comments (2)

20 November 2006

Tom DeLay posts at RedState

I hadn't seen this mentioned anywhere, so I thought it was interesting to note that Tom DeLay posted at RedState. And then he followed up.

Quite interesting, and not really that surprising to anyone who has followed his career.

Posted by Evan @ 11/20/06 05:51 PM | Comments (1)

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