Rick Perry vs World

05 December 2010

Tea Party Caucus Update

Rather than 70, rumor is that the number of Tea Party Caucus members in the House will come in at half the Republican caucus, so more in the 50ish range.

Posted by Evan @ 12/05/10 10:07 PM | Comments (0)

04 December 2010

South Steps of the Capitol

South Steps writes about me:

I've been reading his blog since 2005, and I can sincerely say that he is one of the most insightful politicos in this state. He's certainly better at this than any member of the press. If I were running for office and he were available for hire, I'd enlist him over just about any campaign consultant in Texas.

I don't know who South Steps is, but he or she has a new friend for life.

Beyond that, I think the posts have been insightful. Check it out.

Posted by Evan @ 12/04/10 10:20 PM | Comments (0)

03 December 2010

Happy Six Year Anniversary to Rick Perry vs World

By chance, I flipped through the blogspot archives and I saw that today is the 6 year anniversary of Rick Perry vs the World. ﹔ue los cumplas feliz!

My first post still holds up pretty well six years later.

Posted by Evan @ 12/03/10 11:26 PM | Comments (0)

Dan Patrick to announce 70 House members in Tea Party Caucus

Rumor has it that Dan Patrick will announce on Monday that 65-75 members of the Texas House have joined his Tea Party Caucus.

Patrick has long had his eye on statewide office, so we'll see if he tries to use this as a base to run a statewide campaign.

Posted by Evan @ 12/03/10 08:24 PM | Comments (1)

The Legislature should enact term limits for governor

Texas should limit the governor to 8 years, and now might be a particularly good time to pass it.

Traditionally, governors of Texas have not served for a long time. Until Rick Perry, the longest continuously serving governor in Texas' history was Allan Shivers' 7.5 years as governor. Bill Clements later served 8 years, but spread over two terms (78-82, 86-90). Texas has historically had a relatively weak executive, and that has helped constrain government. After 10 years in office, Perry has strengthened executive powers, both formally and informally. Republicans haven't minded, but are probably still cognizant that a stronger executive branch can increase the reach of government in the future.

36 states have some form of term limits for the governor. Two of the 14 states without term limits elect their governor every two years, which is almost as effective -- and how Texas used to do it until 1972.

Right now is probably a unique moment where most factions have an incentive to pass term limits.

Democrats -- Most Democrats would vote for it just because they are unhappy with Rick Perry.

Republicans -- Most Republicans are still in favor of term limits in most cases, as a curb on the power of government, so they'd vote for it.

Rick Perry -- Although he might be tempted to see it as a rebuke, term limits would make it awfully hard for anyone to ever supplant his record of 14 years as governor of Texas (assuming he finishes his term).

Posted by Evan @ 12/03/10 01:20 PM | Comments (2)

02 December 2010

Thank you to all

It's been a tough week. I'll probably start posting again tonight or tomorrow, but I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has been kind enough to email, chat or comment. I appreciate it, and if I haven't returned your email yet, I apologize and will do so soon.

In the meantime, I was amused that this blog has the number one search result for Republicans who can beat Obama. I've been on record for the past year or so that I think Obama will be quite difficult to beat, and Republicans need to nominate their strongest nominee. Candidly, I don't think any of the current Republican candidates are likely to beat Obama*, though part of the primary process is to put candidates through the fire to see who is refined into a potentially winning candidate.

To my mind, the Republican who can beat Obama is Marco Rubio.

* Obviously this is in part dependent on the economy, though Obama's economic policies certainly haven't helped economic recovery.

Posted by Evan @ 12/02/10 05:05 PM | Comments (0)

27 November 2010

Black Friday

I guess I spoke too soon. We lost our daughter today. RIP Zoe. We love you.

Although stranger things have happened, I doubt I'll be posting much for awhile.

Posted by Evan @ 11/27/10 12:28 AM | Comments (4)

26 November 2010

Moving Public Integrity away from Travis Co DA should be a no-brainer

Paul Burka writes:

Will the DeLay verdict spell trouble for the Travis County District Attorney's Public Integrity Unit, which receives state funding? In a blog post dated April 15, 2009, I wrote that amendment number one to the appropriations bill was a proposal by Wayne Christian, then and now the chairman of the conservative caucus, to shift the Unit's funding to the attorney general's office.

It makes way more sense to put Public Integrity in the Attorney General office. It's frankly a no-brainer and shocking that the state entrusts such a unit to county government. It makes zero sense to leave the unity in the Travis County DA's office.

1. The Attorney General represents all Texans, and is elected statewide. By contrast, the Travis County DA is elected by a mere 4% of the Texas population.

2. Travis County is not representative. It underrepresents black and Latino voters. If you were moving Public Integrity from the AG's office to the Travis DA's office, you would arguably have a Voting Rights Act violation.

3. Putting Public Integrity in the AG's office increases accountability to voters. The Travis County DA race is effectively decided in the Dem primary, and it will be that way for the next few decades. Texas as a whole already has more competitive elections between Republicans and Democrats than Travis County does, and Texas' elections are likely to be more competitive on a partisan basis than those of Travis County.

To argue that Public Integrity should be under the Travis County DA is to say that Austin Democrats should get to decide who runs Public Integrity. That makes no sense from a practical or theoretical perspective.

Posted by Evan @ 11/26/10 01:12 PM | Comments (5)

If Republicans want to beat Obama, they can't nominate Romney, Palin, Huck or Newt

I've said for a long time that Obama will be much tougher to beat than people seem to realize. Here's a data point: PPP just did a poll of North Carolina and found these results in a ballot test:

Obama 44
Romney 44

Huckabee 48
Obama 44

Palin 43
Obama 48

Obama 46
Gingrich 45

The poll is only of 517 North Carolina registered voters, and PPP's results sometimes lean a bit Dem.

The point isn't the individual numbers, but that the ballot test numbers are close. That says it all. While Obama eeked out McCain in NC in 2008 by .4% if memory serves, North Carolina is a state that must be red if the Republican nominee is to have a chance in 2012 (W won by 12-15%ish in 2000 and 2004 if I recall). With the economy as bad as it is and distaste for Obama's policies as high as it is, if none of these candidates can be solidly beating Obama in North Carolina right now, then they are very clearly not the right choice against Obama.

If Republicans want to win in 2012, they must look beyond the four current frontrunners.

Posted by Evan @ 11/26/10 01:01 PM | Comments (0)

If Republicans want to beat Obama, they can't nominate Romney, Palin, Huck or Newt

I've said for a long time that Obama will be much tougher to beat than people seem to realize. Here's a data point: PPP just did a poll of North Carolina and found these results in a ballot test:

Obama 44
Romney 44

Huckabee 48
Obama 44

Palin 43
Obama 48

Obama 46
Gingrich 45

The poll is only of 517 North Carolina registered voters, and PPP's results sometimes lean a bit Dem.

If Republicans want to win in 2012, they must look beyond the four current frontrunners.

Posted by Evan @ 11/26/10 09:56 AM | Comments (0)

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