Rick Perry vs World

07 July 2006

Interview with Ben Barnes

The Austin Chronicle briefly profiles and then gives a more extensive interview to Ben Barnes. I highly recommend it, though I disagree often.

I read Barnes' memoir on a Wednesday about a month or so ago and took extensive notes. It was an excellent read, and I'd recommend it, but I lost my notes. So I'll wait to give it a fuller review until I reread or find my notes. Instead, I'll excerpt the portions relevant to this year's gubernatorial race:

I'm supporting [Carole Strayhorn] to get rid of a person who gets an "F" on his report card for what he has done as governor of Texas.I don't want to make it personal, but where Texas is today is back with Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. We're No. 1 in public education dropouts, we're No. 1 in prisons, we're No. 1 in children's deaths. We're getting statistics that just make us almost a Third World country. And if Texans really understood that, I don't think they'd be willing to accept that.

The Republicans are going to have a lot of reasons to be mad at me because I'm going to travel the country with this book, and I'm going to talk. And they can't get on me and say I'm out there trying to sell this book to make any money, because the proceeds from my book are going to the Boys & Girls Club [in Austin], and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Jack Kennedy said that sometimes party loyalty asks too much. And man, I like Chris Bell. I think he's a great candidate and a good guy, but he's not going to have the money to have an impact when Perry pulls in the money from the Jim Leiningers and Bob Perrys. [Rick] Perry has unlimited funds. Carole Strayhorn understands government, she's been there, she's comptroller. People have forgotten that Carole will have to have the Democrats in the Legislature to do anything if she got elected governor. And if she was governor, she'd have to be hoping – not publicly – but she'd have to be hoping more Democrats got elected. So it works in my mind that this can be a step in the right direction.

Look, we're not going to elect anybody statewide this time, even if we had the money. I think because of my age that I've become more of a political realist. I'm not Don Quixote as much as I was at one time.

I'm going to continue to support Democrats with my money, my time and energy, but it was very easy for me to see and to encourage my friends that Carole Strayhorn is the only possible person to beat Rick Perry. And I'm sorry Kinky's running. I like Kinky Friedman. But if Kinky was not running, Carole would be ahead right now; there's that much dislike for Perry. So it'll be interesting to see how independents run in Texas. We haven't had an independent governor since Sam Houston.

Barnes is very bright and someone I'd very much like to meet. I don't mostly agree with him, but I recognize his acumen and respect him. It's mildly depressing that at about my age he was Lt. Guv. So, if he ever wants a fair but challenging blog interview, I'd be willing. Heh.

Here's the one thing he said that I agree with:

California has nine flagship universities, and we've got two. U.S. News & World Report ranked them the lowest they've ever been since they started doing the rankings.

I quibble with how many "flagships" he gives California, but I absolutely agree that Texas needs more flagships universities.

Posted by Evan @ 07/07/06 12:04 AM | Comments (2)

05 July 2006

Teachers, teachers, teachers*

I'm a little behind here (what's new?), but all the candidates showed up to talk to teachers:

Challengers to Republican Gov. Rick Perry took turns Friday trying to woo a statewide teachers group by saying they want higher teacher pay and less classroom time devoted to standardized testing.

Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn tried to separate herself from the other four gubernatorial hopefuls, declaring she's the only one facing Perry with enough broad support and campaign money "to take him out."

"Let me tell you, this is a two-person race. You can have four more years of Rick Perry or you can have Carole Keeton 'Grandma' Strayhorn, a teacher in the governor's office," Strayhorn, a former educator, told the Texas Classroom Teachers Association.

She noted the last major campaign disclosure reports showed Perry with $9.4 million in campaign cash to spend, while she had $8.1 million. The other candidates each had far less than $1 million.

"It costs a million dollars a week for TV in Texas," she said, referring to campaign advertising that has become a staple in Texas governor races.

Perry spoke to the teacher group Thursday, when he praised the work teachers do and talked up the Legislature's school finance plan he recently signed into law that included a $2,000 teacher pay raise.

Perry called Democrat Chris Bell his "principal opponent" in the Nov. 7 election and criticized him for wanting to use the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test only for diagnostic purposes, not for promotion to the next grade level or graduation, as it is used now in some grades.

Bell said Perry doesn't have a clue about what's going on in classrooms. He said he believes teachers agree that it's time to move away from "high-stakes testing."

The state's high dropout rate and poor SAT scores show that the emphasis on standardized testing isn't helping and isn't holding schools accountable, Bell said.

"My sense in talking to teachers all across the state is that they've had it. I think parents have had enough, students have had enough and principals and teachers have had enough when it comes to high-stakes standardized testing," he said.

Strayhorn proposed moving TAKS testing from the spring to the fall each school year. She said that would make it a truly diagnostic test and allow teachers and students to spend the rest of the year working on subjects that need the most attention.

Independent candidate Kinky Friedman said he wants to end the TAKS test. He also proposed legalizing casino gambling in Texas, a move he contends would provide $6 billion to $8 billion annually to help fund education.

"Right now we are fueling the economies of five separate states, none of them Texas. It needs to come back to us. We invented Texas Hold 'Em. We can't even play it here," said Friedman. A number of teachers approached him after his speech to wish him well and take photographs with him.

I thought Shannon did a particularly good job with this write-up.

*With apologies to Jay-Z. I'm guessing 90% of the readers don't get the reference.

Posted by Evan @ 07/05/06 10:21 PM | Comments (0)

Gambling?

Thought I'd highlight Peggy Fikac's article on gambling:

Only Gov. Rick Perry, who has favored loosening restrictions on gambling, says he won't try it again, but all three of his major opponents said Friday that they would support expanded gambling efforts.

"It has already been stated that the economy has to grow at least about $2 billion a year just to meet the property tax reduction requirements," said Bill Stinson, president of Let The Voters Decide, a group of real estate developers that favors bringing in casinos. "And that doesn't start to address the needs for school finance and health care and transportation and prisons and all the other areas that the state provides for the citizens.

"The only thing that's left is increasing the sales tax, which is one of the highest in the nation, or an income tax, or to allow the voters to decide whether or not they would like to allow full casinos to come in that generate jobs and bring in revenue to Texas," Stinson said.

Opponents say a gaming expansion would foment gambling addictions and a host of social ills, all for an unreliable funding stream.

"I'm going to oppose it until I have no breath left to oppose it," said Cathie Adams, president of the conservative Texas Eagle Forum. "It would so change the culture of Texas, it would be devastating.

"You (will) have people no longer having a work ethic, but instead an ethic of last chance, spending the family's fortune and not ... providing for the future."

Quite a few of the candidates have been on both sides of the fence (actually, I think they all have flip-flopped except for Kinky, but I'm not going to factcheck it), so it'll be interesting to see if this becomes an issue. Voters can be skeptical of gambling, but are often willing to bite the bullet if gambling is sold as in lieu of taxes. So who knows? Something could happen.

Posted by Evan @ 07/05/06 10:13 PM | Comments (0)

The name game, perhaps with resulting blame (no plame!)

The Express News editorial board doesn't think "Grandma" is a nickname, and urges Sec. State Roger Williams to leave it off the ballot:

Strayhorn, the Texas comptroller since 1999, has campaigned as "One Tough Grandma" throughout the race, and her Web site says she is "One Tough Grandma, watching out for Texas." The Web address www.onetoughgrandma.com links to her campaign site.

Sounds a lot like a slogan.

Meanwhile, Austin's Statesman pontificates:

To show just how serious she is about appearing on the ballot as "Grandma," gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn hired Austin legal legend Roy Minton to represent her. Minton wrote Secretary of State Roger Williams (who, coincidentally shares a name with a famous '50s pianist) urging him to reconsider a decision to deny Strayhorn the use of a nickname.

If you're new around here, the name Roy Minton may not mean much, but he's quite a powerhouse. To illustrate: Minton got on an elevator full of statewide political and business luminaries after lunch at the Headliners Club a couple of years back. Noting Minton's presence, one of the distinguished passengers asked rhetorically: "You know what the headline in the paper would be if this elevator crashed? 'Minton, others killed in elevator accident.' "

...

Ballot name is just as important as ballot position, and given that we've had a Jesse James and a Daniel Boone on the Texas ballot, Grandma doesn't seem all that exotic.

Minton may be a fantastic advocate, but it seems that he should hire a proofreader: his letter to Roger Williams has two errors in the title. One is a minor typo but the other incorrectly labels his candidate as Carol instead of Carole. Given his "Strahorn" mistakes in the past, you'd think that Minton would take particular care to get his client's name correct. We all make mistakes, but screwing up your client's name twice isn't good.

Meanwhile, Friedman has his own letter about being on the ballot as just "Kinky Friedman" instead of "Richard "Kinky" Friedman."

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

04 July 2006

Burka joins the blogosphere

Texas Monthly writer and editor Paul Burka has a new blog. You should check out his commentary on the political consequences of the recent Supreme Court opinion -- it's easily the best I've seen. [Side note: Perhaps it's only me, but am I the only one troubled by the fact that minority Congressmen are essentially protected by law if they are Democrats, but not if they are Republicans? Yes I know it's more complicated than that, but this seems like the nub of it to me.]

I'll let this one go:

I expressed some of these concerns in a column I wrote for our March 2005 issue, about the role of the bloggers in bringing down Dan Rather. It reads a bit too much like the work of an old dog confronted by a new trick, but one of my biggest gripes stands: the anonymity of many bloggers and the inability to hold them accountable.

I'm still semi-anonymous...and heck, I admitted that Evan isn't even my real name!

Levity aside, Burka also has a post on whether Bill White will choose to run for the Senate against John Cornyn in '08 or against Kay Bailey Hutchison for guv in '10. There's little doubt at this point that White is the Democrats' best chance at winning statewide in the next few election cycles. White is a pretty savvy guy, who will probably (as Burka implies) run wherever he has the best chance of winning...so where will he run?

I think White passes on a race against Cornyn. If he runs against Cornyn, then he has to take on more controversial federal issues. That'll make it harder for White to run again statewide if he loses. Also in favor of waiting for '10: potentially there will be a rough, divisive GOP gubernatorial primary. Kay Bailey might make it out of the primary (you'd have to label her the favorite right now), but I don't think it's an absolutely done deal. Plus, if Kay Bailey wins (even if by beating Bill White), you'd have to think Bill White would have a decent chance against whoever Hutchison nominates to replace her in the Senate. If he ran well against Hutchison, he'd have the name ID.

Hence, I think it'd be smarter for White to pass on Cornyn and focus on being mayor instead. Since he knows this, I think White will stay mayor until 2009, when he is term-limited out of office.

One more thing, which I'll go ahead and quibble with Burka about. He implies that a Hutchison Senate departure might be a reason that Texas' political establishment would back replacing Cornyn:

Plus, if Hutchison, who has been superb at bringing home the bacon (most recently in getting funding for Hurricane Rita victims), does indeed quit the Senate to run for governor, community leaders all across Texas will be wondering whether Cornyn has enough clout and respect to attend to the state's needs.

My initial take is the opposite: because Hutchison appears likely to leave the Senate, keeping Cornyn becomes more important.

A few reasons why: 1) seniority, 2) majority, and 3) reputation. First, seniority. Yes, Cornyn doesn't have much of it, but if Hutchison were to leave, would the state really want to have two brand new Senators? I think not. Cornyn serves on Armed Services, Judiciary, Budget, and Small Business. He already chairs two subcommittees; one each on Armed Services and Judiciary. So, Cornyn's advantage is small numerically, but there's a definite learning curve. Texas probably doesn't want two freshman senators at the same time, if it can possibly be avoided.

Perhaps even more importantly, it appears likely that the Senate will be held by Republicans for the next decade. While Republicans appear to lose 2-3 seats right now in the Senate** (Santorum, Chafee/Burns/Talent) I think it's probably more likely that the GOP will have the Senate majority for most of the next decade. It's pretty key to be in the majority (though more so in the House than the Senate).

Last, reputation. Cornyn had more influence early in his freshman term than is normal. Granted, much of that influence was due to close relations with the White House. Granted also that most of that influence was on national issues, not on Texas-specific issues. Yet Cornyn's reputation is more of a hard-working serious legislator than that of a political grandstander. Or, if you prefer the old political metaphor, work-horse instead of a show-horse.

So, all-in-all, I would think that the threat of losing Hutchison in the Senate would probably weigh in Cornyn's favor. But then again, Burka probably has a better sense of the political establishment than I do. So maybe I'm wrong.

** There's still plenty of time for this to change. I'm cautiously optimistic that it will and I think that Republicans actually have more potential sleeper candidates right now (yeah, sorry, I have a hard time taking folks like Jim Webb too seriously), despite the lackluster candidate recruitment by NRSC Chair Liddy Dole.

Posted by Evan @ 07/04/06 07:30 PM | Comments (3)

28 June 2006

Slater on the race

Couple days old, but Wayne Slater has a good look at the gubernatorial race.

Posted by Evan @ 06/28/06 12:39 AM | Comments (0)

Random thought

It's trendy among my demographic slice to bemoan the two party system.

Certainly there are drawbacks to our current two party system, but it means that we get relatively centrist governments in America. Why? With the base tied up, political candidates have to appeal to the political center to win election and have power.

The more candidates, generally the less the center gets appealed too. I think you're already seeing some of that in this election, and you're likely to see more.

UPDATE: On the other hand, the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise doesn't agree.

Posted by Evan @ 06/28/06 12:30 AM | Comments (3)

Tend to the base

Bell hires Maxey:

Maxey recently ran for chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, but attorney Boyd Richie prevailed at the party's convention. In the last presidential election campaign, Maxey led candidate Howard Dean's Texas effort. Pick up a field director and try to help heal any divisions in the party since Bell endorsed Richie for party chair.

Posted by Evan @ 06/28/06 12:22 AM | Comments (0)

24 June 2006

In which petitions are valid and invalid

I didn't really point it out, because I don't think it really means anything, but even though Carole Strayhorn turned in many more signatures, it turns out that Kinky Friedman had more valid signatures. There was a huge disparity in the validation rate.

Clay Robison speculates:

This is just speculation, but perhaps Strayhorn collected signatures from many Republicans who had voted in the GOP primary and weren't eligible to sign. Although she began political life as a Democrat, she has been a Republican officeholder for several years now. Strayhorn also contended that her own campaign had verified thousands of more signatures that Williams did. But Williams had the last official word.

It more likely had to do with the fact that Friedman's signatures were gathered by volunteers, whereas Strayhorn's were mostly gathered by paid canvassers.

Paid canvassers have an incentive to get everyone to sign. It can't hurt, besides the lost opportunity cost while someone signs (which is very small). Volunteers are much more likely to carefully screen potential petition signers.

Posted by Evan @ 06/24/06 06:13 PM | Comments (0)

Strayhorn issues report

Comptroller's office issues a report criticizing executive branch department:

Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn said Friday that about 100 Texas children were treated for poisoning by medications they were given while in state foster care in 2004.

According to her investigation, large numbers of psychotropic drugs are being prescribed to children in the foster care system.

However, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission released a report showing the success of guidelines issued for the use of psychotropic medications for foster care children. More than 30,000 children are in state foster care.

The report found the percentage of children in foster care who were prescribed a psychotropic medication fell seven percent in the five months after the guidelines were released. And there was a 29 percent decrease in the percentage of foster care children taking two or more psychotropic drugs after the guidelines.

Strayhorn blamed Gov. Rick Perry's Health and Human Services Commission for not providing data needed to complete her investigation. State and federal law prohibits HHSC from releasing client-specific Medicaid data.

Something tells me that the Strayhorn campaign might pick this up.

Posted by Evan @ 06/24/06 06:01 PM | Comments (0)

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