Rick Perry vs World

29 December 2010

12/29 Roundup, aka Clearing out my Diigo feed

* South Steps posts Bill White's ~~Christmas~~ Season's Greeting card. How many Sunday School teachers send out Christmas cards without the word Christmas on them?

* Harvard economist Ed Glaeser argues that land use overregulation (strict zoning) explains the Sun Belt's population growth:

In a sense, the anti-regulation crowd is right that the laissez-faire attitude of the South and West explains their recent growth. But the usual argument focuses on the wrong regulations.

Housing regulations, more than those that bind standard businesses, explain the Sun Belt’s population growth.

* Joe Holley at the Chronicle wrote defeated Harris County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia a favorable article. There's also this:

Although some longtime political observers say she lost touch with portions of her diverse district and others say she grew complacent, Garcia insists she was swept out of office in a GOP tidal wave too powerful to withstand.

Obviously the two are not mutually exclusive. The former happened, which made the latter possible. She has $1 million dollars left in her campaign account, and her opponent spent only $20k. By definition, Sylvia Garcia got complacent.

Still, you'd have to think she'd have a chance against Gene Green (or in a new district) with redistricting likely to change the congressional map around, and now she's got nothing to lose.

* This part of a sad article made me laugh:

The Lincoln-Way East High School graduate used his connections as president of the College Republicans at Illinois Wesleyan University to become an active volunteer on the re-election campaign of veteran U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller.

You don't need to use connections to volunteer for political campaigns. Just show up. 98% of political campaigns will use your time completely inefficiently and often completely ineffectively as well, but it's not like they are going to tell you to go away.

* "Quick, without looking it up, rank the following NFL QBs in terms of their 2010 Adjusted Yards Per Passing Attempt through week 15:

A. Drew Brees
B. Peyton Manning
C. Colt McCoy
D. Matt Ryan
E. Sam Bradford"

Colt McCoy is #1, slightly edging out Peyton Manning.

* Stu Rothenberg nominates Bill White for his Most Overhyped Candidate of 2010, saying "I'll never believe Democratic statewide spin about Texas -- at least not until they finally win one."

If you read this blog, you shouldn't have fallen for the spin.

Posted by Evan @ 12/29/10 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

Interesting Texas demographic facts

From this FWST article:

* Texas has doubled in population since 1975.

*"The largest direct migration flow from one state to another is California to Texas."

* 90% of Texas' growth in the last decade came from DFW, Houston metro, San Antonio/Austin, and the Rio Grande Valley.

* Non-Latinos have 1.3 births per death.

* Latinos have 8 births per death.

Llegó ya la hora para aprender comunicarse en el Español. Vamos.

Posted by Evan @ 12/29/10 04:37 PM | Comments (0)

Daily Speaker's Race (Melo)Drama

Warren Chisum sent out a press release:

I am pleased that Representative Taylor has called a Republican Caucus meeting for January 10th. The Democrat members of the Texas House caucused before the last legislative session to elect Speaker Straus and 100% of the Democrats remain pledged to Speaker Straus today. Therefore, when we convene on January 10th, I call on Representative Taylor as the Republican Caucus chair, to call for a vote to determine the Republican preference for Speaker of the Texas House.

Harvey Kronberg called gotcha!

House Democrats never "caucused to elect Speaker Straus." That is a myth manufactured by the anti-Straus faction.

The only thing resembling unity in the Democratic Caucus was opposition to the incumbent. The only document ever signed was a letter confirming that 64 Democrats would not vote for Speaker Tom Craddick.

To which Chisum responded:

Now, it seems to me that when you see a letter with 64 signatures, released by the Democratic Caucus, all taking a unified party position on the Speaker's race, that it just might be fair to say that the Democrats "caucused" and took a position on the Speaker's race. We all know that every one of those 64 Democrats subsequently pledged to vote and did vote for Joe Straus for Speaker. Of course, it is possible that the 64 Democrats never had a meeting, never had a caucus, and somehow just all spontaneously agreed on a position and signed a letter released by the Democratic caucus.

Point Chisum. Unless you want to argue the semantics of caucus, Chisum's original statement isn't unreasonable. Maybe they never had a formal meeting with a formal vote, but they certainly agreed as a "caucus" (there's that word again!) to vote as a bloc.

By the way, I've been predicting for 8 or 9 years that the Texas Speaker (incuding on this blog) would eventually be elected by a caucus vote. Folks argue that the current method is an indication of how Austin works differently than Washington. To a point that is true, but correlation is not causation. The Texas House elects the speaker in a vote of the entire body because, once upon a time, partisan identification didn't mean hardly anything in the Texas House. The label didn't predict very much about how that member was going to vote. Thus it didn't make much sense to elect the speaker in a caucus vote. That has completely changed over the last two decades, but at an increasing pace this last decade.

We currently have a much more polarized membership. Partisan identification means more now than it did even in 2000, much less 1970 when Republicans were a mere fringe of the body politic.

So I don't know whether the Speakership will be decided by a caucus vote this year, in another 2 years, or even this decade. But the Speaker of the Texas House will be decided by a caucus vote in my lifetime. It's just an inevitable fact of life that reflects that the way Austin functions has already changed.

Note: I make no value judgment about that, but it was and is fairly obvious to any political scientist.

Posted by Evan @ 12/29/10 04:06 PM | Comments (0)

22 December 2010

KBH speaks on FCC regulating the internet/net neutrality

Kay Bailey Hutchison's speech on the net neutrality provisions pushed through the FCC on a party-line vote.

If Republicans were to retake the Senate, Hutchison would be the likely chair of the Commerce Committee, which has oversees the FCC. Interestingly, while I know Democrats who get really fired up about this issue, I don't really know any Republicans who do.

UPDATE: On the other hand, John Fund's article in today's Journal might get some of them fired up.

Posted by Evan @ 12/22/10 06:42 AM | Comments (0)

21 December 2010

It's official: Texas to gain 4 congressional seats. 2 more than any other state.

Gaining 4 seats in Congress
Texas

Gaining 2 House seats
Florida

Gaining 1
Arizona
Georgia
Nevada
South Carolina
Utah
Washington

Losing 2
Ohio
New York

Losing 1
Illinois
Iowa
Louisiana
Massachusetts
Michigan
Missouri
New Jersey
Pennsylvania

While the media is reporting that states won by Obama in 2008 lose a net of 6 seats, that understates the impact. Using the 2004 election is probably a better metric for determining the change in electoral votes. By that calculation, Obama loses 12 electoral votes.

Posted by Evan @ 12/21/10 11:44 AM | Comments (0)

A discussion of approval ratings and their application

Paul Burka writes:

#1 Kay Bailey Hutchison 56% favorable, 25% unfavorable (+31%)
#2 John Cornyn: 43% favorable, 21% unfavorable (+22%)
#3 Bill White 41% favorable, 32% unfavorable (+9%)
#4 Rick Perry 42% favorable, 38% unfavorable (+4%)

Hutchison has regained most of what she lost in her primary race against Perry, which she began with a favorability in the 60s. As for Perry, this tells you that the voters don't really like him; he barely has a net positive favorability rating. Remember, this poll was taken right before an election during which he spent bazillions of dollars, and the best he could do was +4%.

The biggest news is Hutchison's recovery half a year after getting drubbed by Perry. Perhaps she is a viable candidate for reelection in 2012 after all.

1. Hutchison's favorability rating. I'm nonplussed that Paul thinks this is news. I consider it expected.

Hutchison is the state's most popular politician, in that she is the Republican candidate who has the maximum votegetting potential in a statewide race versus a generic Democrat. Put another way, she has the broadest base of possible support, moreso even than George W Bush, who is more polarizing after 8 years as president.

On the other hand, her base is pretty shallow. Consider all the people who voted for Perry: when you ask them now, 10 months after the primary, if they have a favorable rating of Hutchison, what will they say? The vast majority of them will say favorable, despite 70% of those folks having chosen another candidate in the most recent electoral test of her popularity.

2. Is Hutchison a viable candidate? To answer Burka's question, I think you'd need to define the word viable. Any incumbent senator is a viable candidate, in my opinion. Does KBH have more than a 50% chance at winning? Probably not. If Texas didn't have runoffs, I think you could easily make her a favorite. But Texas does have runoffs and it certainly appears that several 'viable' (there's that word again) candidates will run against her if she runs. Can she avoid a runoff? Unlikely. Can she win a runoff? Not impossible, but not something I'd even consider betting on at 50/50 odds.

3. Perry's approval ratings. Between KBH and Bill White, about $50 million dollars has been spent in the last 12 months attacking Rick Perry, so it's hardly shocking that he has pretty high unfavorables...especially after 10 years as governor.

But that's also part of the natural cyclical tides of Texas politics. Perry's fav/unfavs ratio will wax in Perry's favor after the legislature goes out of session and before campaign season. Then the fav/unfavs will wane as campaign season starts, maybe recover a little afterwards into the start of the legislative session, only to fall again when the tough decisions have to be made by the Lege.

Posted by Evan @ 12/21/10 05:10 AM | Comments (0)

Slater needs to get a hold on those horses

Wayne Slater speculates:

There's been some mystery around state Rep. Aaron Pena's party switch from Democrat to Republican. Why would he do it?

That Brownsville/maybe McAllen district could be drawn in a way that's tailor-made for Pena, an Edinburg lawyer. Fact is, Republicans believe there are enough Republicans in the Valley to do the job, if the lines are drawn just right. And while promising Pena he'll get a new Congressional district drawn for him might be wrong, that's the word among some political insiders at the Texas Capitol.

First, notice that liberal bloggers have made it a point to always use Pena instead of Peña. What word did Slater use repeatedly?

Second, notice that Slater doesn't mention actual sources. It sounds like Slater is letting the horses in his imagination run a little wild. Color me skeptical that he has actual sources, because it sure sounds like he's just passing on gossip from Austin lobbyists who get paid to be information sources...so they make stuff up. Every conversation I've had with Republicans, including some at a high level, does not point towards any promise being made. Why? Because they don't think that drawing a congressional seat like that is possible.

Rep. Peña has said that he switched parties to be true to himself. I'm pretty inclined to believe him, because that's the story that best fits the facts. Given his background and resume, it would have been relatively easy to keep being re-elected to his House seat and wait for an opportunity to run for Texas Senate or Congress, si se le diera las ganas a el. Switching to the Republican party is way riskier for both higher office and staying in the Texas House.

Posted by Evan @ 12/21/10 12:08 AM | Comments (0)

19 December 2010

Ghosts in the machine

There's a reason Cory Crow's Noise Machine is a daily morning read. And that doesn't even include what follows about my post taking Chris Bell to task for playing hard and fast with the facts:

Advantage Evan. There's a reason he's my favorite Texas political pundit. That some major media outlet hasn't offered him money for his analysis is one of the State's great political crimes.

Ooh...that might make me spend more than 10 minutes writing a post. And I might even have to self edit occasionally.

Posted by Evan @ 12/19/10 11:03 PM | Comments (0)

Chris Bell, investing in Texas Democrats, and why his examples support NOT investing in TX Dems

Chris Bell wrote a piece for the Texas Tribuned this last week called, "Why you should invest in Texas Democrats" in response to Ross Ramsey's column that asks "why anyone (read: trial lawyers) still invests in [Texas Democrats]?" Bell's answer:

[for] exactly the same reason that folks like George H.W. Bush, Robert Mosbacher Sr. and H.L. Hunt continued to invest in Texas Republicans when they were in "the basement" and didn't seem capable of winning a statewide race: because they believed in the Republican Party and what it stood for, and they knew that if they stopped investing, their candidates, instead of just being underdogs, would stand absolutely no chance whatsoever.

That's a pretty flawed metaphor. Texas' political ideology is and always has been rightward of center on the political spectrum. The Texas Republican Party is rightward of center and has always been to the right of the Texas Democratic Party. For historical reasons, Republicans weren't a viable option during the timeframe that Bell references, but they had a huge advantage: the same ideology as Texans.

Really. Bad. Example. Texas Democrats have long been a viable option, but they are a center-left party in a center-right state. Bell's example is the diametrically opposed situation, and in fact argues against investing in Democrats.

Bell continues in his second paragraph with some banalities that don't deserve comment. On to the third paragraph:

Perhaps the media has failed to notice, and perhaps we as Democrats have done a less-than-stellar job explaining, but there are significant differences between the two major parties.

Given that Republicans repeatedly win every single one of a ridiculously long ballot of statewide offices, it's a reasonable assumption that Texans have noticed quite well that there are significant differences between the parties.

Most Democrats believe we could be doing much better at educating our children and providing opportunity for the less fortunate; we believe in equality, abhor racism and think our God wants us to take care of the planet he has blessed us with. Meanwhile, Republicans . . .

Chris Bell not very subtly insinuates that Republicans are racists. Yeah. Next step: involving Hitler in the argument somehow.

With today's media, it's quite likely that Ronald Reagan would have been pilloried and ridiculed and reduced to such a level that he would have never stood a chance of actually winning.

This is LOL bad for anyone who has ever read any presidential campaign history. He was ridiculed, pillored and...he emerged completely unscathed through it all to become the Teflon president.

Despite Bell's poor attempt at persuasion, I tend to agree that a competitive Democratic party is in the best interest of Texas. Unfortunately, to this point, Democrats are not a particularly competitive party because they fail to understand why Republicans win in Texas: Republicans are more fundamentally in tune on the issues that Texas voters care about. If Democrats want to win -- and be worthy of investment -- they have to move to the center and become competitive. It's not exactly rocket science, and if they want to know how to do it, they only need to study how Republicans win gubernatorial election in uber-blue Massachusetts. To date, Democrats haven't learned any of those lessons.

Chris Bell certainly hasn't learned those lessons. But then again, he's the guy who said that any Democratic nominee could be a corpse and get 31% percent of the statewide vote...and he got 29.8% of the vote.

Posted by Evan @ 12/19/10 05:36 AM | Comments (0)

16 December 2010

Speculating about Cornyn's tweet, because we can do that on a blog

John Cornyn tweeted:

Ever notice how dangerous it is for an elected official to publically change their mind on an issue?

The Hill thinks it is about the omnibus spending bill:

It is unclear to what Cornyn (Texas) is referring, but he did catch flak from some for requesting millions of dollars in earmarks in the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill, which he said came earlier this year.

The first thing that jumped into my mind was the KBH flips on Dream Act and earmarking, but that's just speculation. As NRSC chairman, he encouraged her not to resign in the last cycle, but he doesn't really have any stake in her decision this cycle: whether she retires or not, it is very likely that there will be a competitive Republican primary this year.

Figuring out what Cornyn meant is a fun parlor game. I really have no idea, maybe it was the earmarks.

Posted by Evan @ 12/16/10 06:10 PM | Comments (1)

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