Rick Perry vs World

20 November 2005

BFFs*

Hurricane evacuees face a new housing crisis unless the federal government abandons its plans to quit paying for their hotel rooms by Dec. 1, top state officials warned Friday.

With the holiday season at hand, Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison separately asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday to extend the deadline. A group of Texas congressmen and various city officials from Texas and around the country, where evacuees have scattered into some 50,000 hotel rooms, are doing the same.

Do you ever get the feeling that maybe...just maybe, Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison aren't best buddies? It would be normal for the senior senator and the governor to write together, but that's probably not going to happen anytime soon.

*My guess is that if you don't understand what the title means, then you're over 30.

Posted by Evan @ 11/20/05 03:48 AM | Comments (0)

Wasted away again in Margaritaville

Jimmy Buffett endorses Kinky Friedman.

Has anyone in the Luckenbach crowd not endorsed Friedman yet? Jerry Jeff Walker and Billy Joe Shaver both have.

Will Pat Green, supposedly "friends for life" with Kinky?

Posted by Evan @ 11/20/05 02:50 AM | Comments (0)

16 November 2005

DeLay

Charlie Bass doesn't want Tom DeLay back as House Majority Leader:

Five-term Republican Rep. Charles Bass said this week his party’s leaders in the House of Representatives are more concerned about their own pet projects than the GOP’s "fundamental principles."

Bass, co-chair of a group of about 35 moderate House Republicans called the "Tuesday Group," is calling for new elections in leadership next year "so we have a fresh slate of officers outside of the speaker for the next session of the Congress."

...

He said he is not interested in running for a leadership post himself and was not specifically calling for anyone in leadership to be "thrown out." He also said he has no specific action in mind to try to force a vote.

"I’m not starting a movement. I’m not leading a revolution," Bass said. "I’m just stating an opinion."

Bass noted that he has expressed concern about the direction of the Republican Party in Washington “all along, but the difference is that Republicans are now down and everyone is listening to this sort of thing."

But he said the House Republican conference "would be healthier and more unified if we had real elections and if (former House Majority Leader) Tom DeLay would step aside for the good of the conference." DeLay, while no longer holding the title of majority leader, has kept his office at the Capitol and "is still very much around," Bass said.

I may update this post, but I thought this was an interesting development.

Posted by Evan @ 11/16/05 11:50 AM | Comments (2)

Zogby Interactive

Since I frequently criticize the "Zogby Interactive" online polling, I thought I'd present the other side.

The Zogby Interactive poll has caught criticism and started a controversy in Arkansas, where there was a double digit discrepancy between the Zogby online poll and a University of Arkansas poll. The Hotline (aka, the best political service ever) got this response from Zogby:

Someone interested in participating signs up through solicitation notices on the company website as well as other websites that cover the political spectrum. For example, the company has used Newsmax. com, a conservative site, and Buzzflash. com, a liberal site. It also accepted referrals from participants who invite others to sign up. The company no longer solicits for participants on other sites because it has enough to choose from."

Participants provide demographic data, including their address, race and party affiliation.

When Zogby does a poll, the company will send questionnaires to a sample of their e-mail database with a goal of having the respondents represent the racial breakdown and party affiliation ratio of the state.

The company verifies at least 2% of the responding sample by making follow-up phone calls. For instance, the poll in AR used 518 responses, so about 10 responses would be double-checked for demographic accuracy and their e-mail poll answers. If many more were called, "it would defeat the purpose of doing interactive polls," Bohnert said. "Unless we found a problem, then we'd look deeper." Such problems would be if the same IP code, which is customized for each contributor through the Internet, shows up on more than one vote. The firm's software accepts only one vote from a single IP address.

The software also has ways to catch participants who forward the e-mail poll to someone else so they can try to vote and each e-mail survey can be replied to only once. Someone could vote more than once, but that person would have to be lucky and go to a lot of trouble, said Bohnert.

Anyone with multiple email addresses who has created aliases for each one could vote multiple times only by using multiple computers and if the firm picked each alias for the sample, Bohnert said. The firm has safeguards to throw out fake addresses if area codes don't match zip codes. And those telephone numbers could be called for verification. More Bohnert: "We sat around thinking about every way someone could manipulate this."

Zogby also contends that telephone polling is becoming less reliable. I agree with that, but I've yet to see indications that online political polls should be taken seriously.

I know that no political candidate would rely on online polls, and what candidates use themselves is the best measure of reliability.

Posted by Evan @ 11/16/05 11:33 AM | Comments (1)

Haggerty to face challenger

One of the interesting stories in Texas politics over the last week or two has been what appears to be a concerted effort to find challengers to those GOP lawmakers who didn't vote the way the leadership wanted them to vote. In this case, it appears that Republicans who opposed the school finance plan will now face a primary challenger. Here's an example out of El Paso:

El Paso's top Republican Party contributors are abandoning nine-term state Rep. Pat Haggerty and throwing their political muscle and money behind his GOP challenger.

Ted Houghton, Texas Department of Transportation commissioner; Rick Francis, Texas Tech University System regent; Woody Hunt, former University of Texas System regent; and Harold Hahn, president of Rocky Mountain Mortgage Co. -- each has given thousands to Republican Gov. Rick Perry and once supported Haggerty.

Now they're rallying behind Haggerty's primary election opponent, Lorraine O'Donnell, because they said the area needs someone who can "play well" with the state leadership.

Despite the big money backing O'Donnell, Haggerty said he has faith his constituents will support him because he supports them.

...

"Is somebody saying we did something wrong by voting to not raise taxes?" Haggerty said. "I'll argue with that all day."

...

When asked whether Republican state leaders asked them to find an opponent for Haggerty, Houghton said no.

O'Donnell appears to be a serious candidate: she's hired Ted Delisi to consult.

I think it's apparent what Haggerty's counter-argument will be.

Enforcing party discipline for both parties is a tricky thing that often leads to unforeseen ramifications, but it's also part of the political process in this country.

Posted by Evan @ 11/16/05 11:13 AM | Comments (0)

KBH challenger formally announces yesterday

KBH challenger Barbara Radnofsky announced yesterday:

In a speech Tuesday at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Radnofsky challenged Hutchison on veterans issues and said she wants to see the United States return to the value of selfless sacrifice exhibited by World War II veterans.

"This world was saved for democracy by men and women, teenagers really, ordinary men and women in extraordinary times doing extraordinary things," Radnofsky said. "It is my passionate, firm belief that we can return to that kind of extraordinary service."

...

Hutchison spokesman Bryan Eppstein declined to discuss any of Radnofsky's specific challenges to Hutchison's record, saying there would be time for that in a general election. Eppstein said polling consistently shows Hutchison to be the most popular politician in Texas and a strong contender for re-election.

Radnofsky, 49, a mediation attorney with Vinson & Elkins, has been running a low-key campaign for Senate for more than a year.

But her battle likely will be uphill. Texas has trended Republican for a decade. And as of Sept. 30, Radnofsky had $382,000 in the bank while Hutchison had $7.3 million. Radnofsky said she raised $30,000 more last week at an event hosted by Democratic U.S. senators in Washington, D.C. "I foresee it changing. The reason is a conglomeration of events," Radnofsky said.

Radnofsky said "incompetence and corruption" became apparent in the Bush administration's handling of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. She also chided Hutchison for saying a perjury indictment in the White House spy leak case would be a "technicality."

She has a tough row to hoe.

Posted by Evan @ 11/16/05 11:05 AM | Comments (0)

Friedman fundraising in Hollywood

Kinky Friedman is raising money out in California:

Friedman, who first rose to fame as the singer of satirical country songs in the 1970s, is making a two-hat trip to Los Angeles. At 5 p.m. today he holds a campaign "funraiser" at Lucy's El Adobe in Hollywood. And in a non-campaign appearance, Friedman dons his entertainer's hat at 8 p.m. Thursday to anchor an evening of reading, music and conversation as part of the Skirball Cultural Center's "From Haven to Home" series on the evolution of Jewish life in America.

The presentation will include music by former members of his band, the Texas Jewboys — Jeff "Little Jewford" Shelby and Lebanese American Jimmie "Ratso" Silman. "We feel," Friedman said, "we represent the last true hope for peace in the Middle East."

...

Friedman's campaign remains a longshot, but a recent Zogby poll placed Friedman third with 21% support, trailing Democratic challenger Chris Bell, a former congressman, with 25%, and incumbent Republican Rick Perry, with 42%.

It was a Zogby Interactive poll! INTERACTIVE. That means done online with people who choose to do polls.

Although the results are believable, I don't believe the media ought yet be quoting Zogby Interactive polls as normal polls without a serious disclaimer.

Posted by Evan @ 11/16/05 10:57 AM | Comments (0)

15 November 2005

Status quo?

April Castro at the AP reports on the school finance commission headed by John Sharp.

Sharp states the obvious: "If the Supreme Court rules 'hey everything's fine' ... then it makes it real difficult to pass something because there's nothing on the other side, no crisis on the other side, no bad thing that happens."

Rick Perry once famously predicted that the Supreme Court would not rule against the state.

Posted by Evan @ 11/15/05 12:22 AM | Comments (0)

14 November 2005

Armbrister to retire?

Chris Elam reports rumors that Ken Armbrister is set to retire.

Armbrister's retirement will open up the district 18 state senate race. Currently there are 3 GOP candidates, with Gary Gates probably the frontrunner. That could change depending on whether other Republicans will decide to run for the open seat.

SD18 is a big seat. The northern border is Washington and Waller counties, while the eastern border is western Fort Bend County and Matagorda County. The district stretches down to Port Aransas and then runs back up towards Austin to Caldwell and Bastrop counties.

If true, it'll be a competitive race. Bush won the district with 67% of the vote, while Victor Carillo got 59% and Scott Brister got almost 65%. The TLC data on the district indicates that the average district wide vote is 65.5% GOP to 36.5% Dem, whereas the whole states was 59.1% to 40.9%. So although Armbrister was a conversative Democrat, this is definitely a winnable district for a Republican or Democrat.

There are a few Republican state reps that live in this district. Will they look to move to the senate?

Posted by Evan @ 11/14/05 05:07 PM | Comments (0)

13 November 2005

Another Kinky Friedman profile

Christy Hoppe has the Dallas Morning News' profile du jour of Kinky Friedman.
There's nothing really new there, except for the picture of a vehicle in Kinky's entourage.

It's all about whether he can get on the ballot. But really, if he can't get on the ballot then he's not a serious candidate anyway.

Posted by Evan @ 11/13/05 03:14 AM | Comments (0)

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