Rick Perry vs World

10 September 2006

Susan Combs and the City

Is this really the best Texas Democrats can do? Printing the not-that-steamy steamiest scenes from a Susan Combs romance novel from long ago?

What amuses me most is that some of my friends on the left seem to think that this is going to convince voters not to vote for Susan Combs. Or maybe it amuses me most how much these excerpts have failed to live up to the hype. Take your pick.

Posted by Evan @ 09/10/06 10:16 PM | Comments (2)

If the gubernatorial election were held on Facebook...

If you're over the age of 25, it's completely normal for you to not be on facebook or myspace. Don't worry about it; just read about in in Fortune. Besides, Myspace jumped the shark a year ago anyway.

On facebook, you can join groups. What gubernatorial candidate has the most members in his/her group?

"He ain't Kinky, he's my governor" has 10,276 members. I hear that at least 12 of them are actual Texans who are registered to vote. Ok, more seriously, of the folks I know who are in this group, pretty much all of them are white liberals. And I'm pretty sure that of the folks I know, most of 'em aren't registered to vote in Texas. Take from that what you will.

"Texans for Rick Perry" has 665 members, including one of the governor's campaign staffers...his son.

"Chris Bell for Governor" has 50 members. That's actually the Rice group, the global group has less. I think there may be a UTexas group with quite a bit more than 50, but I can't see it.

"One Tough Grandma for Texas Governor" has . . . 12 members.

Let's recap:

10276 Kinky Friedman
665 (yikes!) Rick Perry
50 Chris Bell
12 Strayhorn

I skimmed through the Rick Perry group to see if I knew anyone. Nope. But the group is full of cute girls. Now I'm not saying Republicans are better looking...wait, yes I am.

You might call this a meaningless post. I call it original reporting. I plan to ~~beat this horse~~ update this post several times through election day.

Posted by Evan @ 09/10/06 05:59 AM | Comments (0)

08 September 2006

Back from Austin

I'm back from Austin, just in time to miss the Texas - OSU game. It was an interesting couple days, including lunch with the governor, meeting Ben Barnes in person, and some old friends.

Lots to write about. Unfortunately, I've got lots of work to do. So I may not get to it until tomorrow.

Posted by Evan @ 09/08/06 07:58 PM | Comments (0)

07 September 2006

Tickets

Growl. I got two tickets today.

I go out to my car, and I have a City of Houston ticket. Why? For parking in the same spot for more than 24 hours. I am thoroughly baffled by this. I was parked legally on a very, very quiet cul-de-sac. It's certainly not intuitive to me that you can't park in the same spot for more than 24 hours, and there are no signs. In my area, everyone parks on the street. It's common to leave your car in the same spot (say, you go on vacation), and I'm not sure why moving it should be necessary. My city councilwoman will be hearing from me about this.

I have no idea why the heck any policeman would notice that my car had been parked there slightly more than 24 hours. Unfortunately, it only confirms my perception that Houston Police under Bill White are more interested in generating revenue than in law and order.

Then I got a parking ticket in the City of Austin. I got back to the meter later. Not a good day for me and the parking tickets.

Posted by Evan @ 09/07/06 06:54 PM | Comments (0)

Still whippin' votes

No one is better at whipping votes in the US House than Tom DeLay. Somehow I doubt he can be as good at Dancing with the Stars:

However, that is exactly what the former Republican congressman nicknamed "The Hammer" is doing in retirement according to a letter he sent to supporters today. This time he has his sights set on country music singer Sara Evans' campaign to best the competition on ABC's hit show, "Dancing with the Stars."

DeLay's letter urges his supporters to watch and vote for Evans, who performed at the 2004 Republican National Convention and has a history of supporting Republican candidates. "Sara Evans has been a strong supporter of the Republican Party and represents good American values in the media...we have always been able to count on Sara for her support of the things we all believe in. Let's show Sara that same support," writes DeLay.

This is probably one of the reasons why lots of folks didn't like Delay: he politicized everything. On the other hand, politicizing everything may have been one of the reasons for his success.

Posted by Evan @ 09/07/06 06:23 AM | Comments (0)

06 September 2006

Text of the TV ads

Here's the text of Carole Strayhorn's two ads. They both feature Strayhorn in front of a light background, talking to the camera. You can see "Carole" here. The spots were produced by Alex Castellanos, in DC:

"Carole"
STRAYHORN: "Why am I running for governor? Here's why: I'm 67 years old. My future isn't in politics. It's my grandkids. And I want to protect their future from an Austin that doesn't listen, spnds money we don't have and taxes us when they want more. We have under-funded schools, overtaxed homeowners, foreign-owned toll roads, and a Capitol full of politicians more worried about special interests than about us. I'm Carole Keeton Strayhorn. This Grandma wants to shake Austin up"

"Texans First"
STRAYHORN: "Partisan politics has let us all down. In Austin, they are so busy yelling at each other they've stopped listening to us. Let's remember who we are. Before we were Republicans and Democrats, before we chose sides, we were first and foremost Texans. And we've got to learn to set aside our political differences and get something done. I'm Carole Keeton Strayhorn. This election let's do something serious. Let's make Austin listen. Let's shake Austin up."

This is the text of Perry's ad "Border," done by David Weeks in Austin. It features Perry walking on the border. You can see it here.

"If Washington won't protect our border, Texas will. Here along the Rio Grande we're funding a border-wide crime control effort, led by local law enforcement." ANNCR: "Governor Rick Perry ordered the Texas National Guard to provide border security support six months before the president requested it. And he's fighting for 100 million dollars to stop illegal activity." PERRY: "We're increasing patrols, using technology to stop terrorists from crossing our border. We can't have homeland security without border security." ANNCR: "Governor Rick Perry, Keeping Texans safe"

Posted by Evan @ 09/06/06 05:33 PM | Comments (0)

Friedman on Cavuto

I just watched Kinky Friedman on Fox News with Neil Cavuto. Oh wow.

Cavuto had a little lovefest with Friedman. I'm not sure why Cavuto decided to be so obsequious.

He said his polling was "higher than any independent in the history of American politics, except Jesse Ventura the weekend before the election." That's got to be wrong, because we've had independent governors in Connecticut and Maine in the last few decades. I'm not going to do the research to refute the point, because it's not worth it. Friedman should know better.

Friedman also said that Texas was the "richest state in the country" and had run a budget surplus every year since World War II. He claims the money is "just sitting there." Is he for real?

To top it off, he also called for 10,000 National Guardsmen on the border. Yup, that's not expensive. Sure.

Posted by Evan @ 09/06/06 04:11 PM | Comments (4)

05 September 2006

Searching for gullible journalists

Kristen Mack appends this to a piece on how Lampson will win in CD22.

The race is competitive enough that voters in the district are receiving campaign advocacy disguised as polls, called "push-polling."

State House District 134 includes Meyerland, West University Place, the Texas Medical Center and parts of Montrose.

Marcos Huerta, a Cohen supporter who received one such call, said the initial questions were benign, then took a turn.

"They stopped sounding neutral and started sounding loaded," said Huerta, a graduate student at Rice University.

After asking about statewide races, the pollster began a series of "pro-Martha Wong statements," asking if they made Huerta more or less likely to support Wong.

He recalled that the pollster asked if his likelihood of voting for Wong was affected by knowing that she opposed frivolous lawsuits, or that Cohen defended President Clinton's affair with an intern because he appointed many women to government positions.

Wong said she did not hire anyone to conduct a poll on her behalf. She also said constituents have received push-polling calls targeting her, though she couldn't provide details.

Mack posits that this was a push poll, but only supports her theory with the characterization of an Ellen Cohen supporter.

It is very unlikely that this was a push poll. Mack -- and the Chronicle editors -- should have known better. Saying that something is a push poll is a very loaded term of art. There is almost zero in this article to support the notion that this was a push poll. There's basically nothing in Mack's column that firmly supports the idea that push polling is occuring in district 134.

First of all, it's totally normal to have a poll in the field around Labor Day for a state rep race. It could be a candidate, a PAC, or any other 3rd party organization. Just because Martha Wong's campaign didn't pay for the poll does not indicate that it might be a push poll. Mack's column seems to cast aspersions as Representative Wong.

Second, it's totally normal to be testing voter attitudes and possible messages that might be effective with those attitudes. Reading pro-Martha Wong statements, and then asking questions is completely appropriate. That's not abhorrent (as push polling is considered to be), but normal. It's simply an attempt by political pollsters to learn how they can best sell their candidate (or their favored candidate, if they're working for a 3rd party organization). That's normal politics, and it happens in every campaign.

Third, push polling right now? That's preposterous. Preposterous. Push polls do NOT occur around Labor Day. They occur right around election day. Push polls happen when they can't be noticed, reported, or refuted.

This is pretty bad. While perhaps political journalists (and their editors) shouldn't be expected to understand certain nuances of campaigning, they should do the research necessary to find out when they're wrong. The Chronicle will probably not cover this state house race very much over the next few months, and now one of the few things they've printed is false. The Chronicle should retract and apologize, but past behavior shows that they won't even issue a correction.

UPDATE: As I was writing this, I saw that Nick Lampson has sent an email to his supporters claiming that someone is smearing Lampson in push polling. That is extremely, extremely doubtful...although I'm sure there are some legitimate polls in the field which are testing negative messages against Lampson.

Hopefully there are no gullible journalists who will fall for Lampson's ploy.

Posted by Evan @ 09/05/06 07:15 PM | Comments (1)

Things before this Congress quits

Will Congress amend the Wright Amendment before the session expires? Anybody's guess.

There's also the issue of whether the sales tax deduction will be extended. It's pretty ridiculous for Congress to allow income taxes to be deducted but not sales taxes. Our representatives in Congress aren't doing a good job if they can't get this done.

Posted by Evan @ 09/05/06 07:12 PM | Comments (0)

It's go time!

Labor Day is the historical start of the campaign season, and in Texas it marks the date when high-profile campaigns go on the air in earnest. Both Rick Perry and Carole Strayhorn are going up on the air for the rest of the campaign season.

It's also an excuse for the state's newspapers to do a state-of-the-race.

So here're links to a couple: John Moritz, FWST or Clay Robison, in the Houston Chronicle, and what I thought was the best: Wayne Slater and Christy Hoppe in the Dallas Morning News

Posted by Evan @ 09/05/06 06:01 PM | Comments (0)

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