Rick Perry vs World

21 April 2010

Prediction: Kinky Friedman won't be running again soon as a Democrat

Kinky Friedman thinks Democrats have lost their populism in opposing the Tea Parties:

Some in [Democrats] referred to them as "tea-baggers", a rather kinky slang term that titillated a few college students but otherwise accomplished very little. Then they began calling the Tea Party folks ignorant. (Recent polling shows the Tea Party to be better educated and more affluent than most Americans.) The Democrats did not hold their fire, however. It wasn't long before some of the misguided among them began attacking this windmill like a misanthropic, maniacal Don Quixote.

Finally, because the growing crowds of Tea Party people were mostly comprised of whites, they called them racist. They didn't call NASCAR or Jimmy Buffett racists, although their audiences are mainly white. Besides helping me campaign for governor of Texas as an Independent in 2006, the last time I checked, Jimmy was a good little Democrat. Calling the Tea Party racist is like saying that because there are no Orthodox Jews in the crowd at the Grand Ol' Opry, it must be anti-Semitic. The truth is that the Grand Ol' Opry crowd is probably more pro-Israel than the Obama administration.

Posted by Evan @ 04/21/10 06:22 PM | Comments (0)

Shorts

- Boone Pickens has filed suit against the Texas Water Development Board. AP:

Billionaire T. Boone Pickens wants a court to derail state approval of a water management plan that he claims would take $10 million off the value of his groundwater rights in the Texas Panhandle.

Pickens' attorney, Marty Jones, said Tuesday that the oilman filed a lawsuit against the Texas Water Development Board last month.

Leading the story with a loaded word doesn't seem like quality journalism to me, especially when the word isn't relevant to the story.

- Roger L Simon was on hand to hear Perry proclaim, "In Texas, we love our guns, religion and NASCAR!" Not exactly three things you'd associate with the novelist, but he is impressed with Perry.

- A Fort Worth area rancher named Billy Mitchell recently bought some anti-Perry newspaper ads for $2700 saying that the Governor is completely full of excrement, reports Bud Kennedy.

Mitchell's ad included the required disclosure "Political ad paid for by Billy Mitchell." He called the ethics commission to ask whether he needed to file more paperwork. They told him yes. They also told him he was eight days late.
"I said, 'What about my freedom of speech?'" Mitchell, 52, said Wednesday.
"They told me, 'You have to fill out our documents before you get your freedom of speech.'"

- Ross Perot on the Tea Party movement, from the AP:

"Time will tell how effective it is," Perot told reporters Tuesday in Kansas City, where he was receiving a leadership award from the Army's Command and General Staff College Foundation. "Just as a layman looking at it from afar, it seems to me they are pretty well-organized and getting the crowd."

While I read journalists talking about a potential 3rd party, I rarely see any sentiment from those that actually consider themselves Tea Partiers.

Posted by Evan @ 04/21/10 06:11 PM | Comments (0)

Politipinion strikes again!

I was going to criticize Politipinion's latest poorly supported opinion, but Rick v Kay has already given the smackdown.

I really don't get it. Instead of taking substantive factual assertions, Politipinon has appointed itself the arbiter of such things as the meaning of Soviet-style. If you're going to call someone a liar, best to stick to things that non-partisans would agree to.

Posted by Evan @ 04/21/10 05:56 PM | Comments (0)

A quick data point on internet polls

You may recall that I do not favor internet polls, which I wrote about when Texas Tribune decided to do an internet poll without making it clearly obvious that it was an internet poll.

The current outlier in the UK election polls is an internet poll, from the same/related firm that did the Texas Tribune poll. Now perhaps they'll be correct, we don't yet know. But given that the LDs are probably weakest in a demographic that internet polls would likely underrate? It doesn't look good for the internet polls.

Posted by Evan @ 04/21/10 01:22 PM | Comments (0)

That Mark Sanders knows how to pick them

Peggy Fikac reports on one of the folks she likes to quote:

Texas political consultant Mark Sanders is temporarily moving to Arizona to be communications director for GOP former congressman J.D. Hayworth's effort to unseat former presidential nominee John McCain. One Hayworth quote reported by the Arizona Daily Star: "Just like the liberals, John opposes waterboarding captured terrorists like the Christmas bomber."

Tony Sanchez to Carole Strayhorn to JD Hayworth.

Wow. Mark Sanders sure knows how to pick candidates.

Posted by Evan @ 04/21/10 12:19 AM | Comments (0)

20 April 2010

He obviously doesn't care that much

I'm not exactly sure why a few statewides decided to attend the rally of George Pataki ~~for President~~ to repeal ObamaCare when he isn't even doing the one thing (run for Senate) that might actually lead to that result.

But hey, some of our statewides have shown a strange penchant for endorsing strange presidential bids from New Yorkers!

Posted by Evan @ 04/20/10 06:15 PM | Comments (1)

In his own words: Perry not running for President

Gobernador Perry le dice a una periodista de los Eventos Humanos que no va a postularse:

I'm not being coy. I don't want to go to Washington, D.C.," Perry told HUMAN EVENTS in an exclusive interview. "I have great interest in who will be the presidential candidate in 2012, and I’ll be active and I'll be engaged and I'll be helpful and do all of the things that a governor of a major state can do and should do, but it won't be me… I have a great bully pulpit."

I'd submit that the facts conform closer to Perry's explication than they do with a decision to run for president.

Posted by Evan @ 04/20/10 06:00 PM | Comments (0)

Dodd's financial regulation bill is a disaster of a clunker

There's alot I disagree with in Chris Dodd's regulation re-write. He has pretty much gotten it wrong on every point. But maybe the worst parts are the parts requiring venture capital firms to report to the SEC for systemic risk reasons (absolute nonsense!) and the regulation strangulation for angel investors:

A bigger problem is that a section of the reform bill from Senator Chris Dodd (D.-Conn.) has three provisions that, taken altogether, could dampen angel investing far more than the Great Recession did. Currently, fledgling companies can raise money from accredited investors—high-net-worth individuals—without regulatory approval. The Dodd bill would require money-raising startups to register with the SEC, which would get 120 days to review the filing. The wealth and income baselines for angels would also double. The bill proposes revoking the rule that allows angels to follow federal regulations, rather than various state rules, in funding companies.

Let's just regulate anything that actually causes economic growth and new jobs! Sounds like a plan! Seriously, do they even pretend to think these things through?

Posted by Evan @ 04/20/10 05:27 PM | Comments (0)

Cornyn and Crist

Besides being a fascinating race in its own right, it's pretty interesting to watch Sen Cornyn's handling of Crist.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which endorsed Crist over primary challenger Marco Rubio last May as the most "electable" candidate in the race, concluded Monday in a memo sent to party operatives that "there is a zero chance Governor Crist continues running in the Republican primary."

"It is our view that if Governor Crist believes he cannot win a primary, then the proper course of action is he drop out of the race and wait for another day," wrote NRSC Executive Director Rob Jesmer in an e-mail obtained by POLITICO and first reported by CNN. "If the Governor decides to run independent, regardless of any public commitments he makes regarding organization, we will support Marco Rubio in any way possible."

Jesmer noted in the memo that the message has been communicated to Crist's team and would have been delivered to the governor directly, had he returned a phone call from NRSC chairman John Cornyn.

Awhile back recruiting Crist was a big score for Cornyn. Not only was he an extremely strong candidate to keep the seat under Republican control, but he would be able to raise enough money so that the NRSC could use its resources elsewhere. Having recruited Crist, Cornyn endorsed him. Then rose Rubio, and you can track in public comments the waning NRSC enthusiasm as Rubio's poll numbers rise. Now the NRSC is essentially begging Crist to drop out and not run as an independent.

It sure looks like he's going to go independent, but if he does and loses, he's done. As I wrote previously, if I were Crist I would have switched back to the gubernatorial race and ran for re-election. I still might do it if I were Crist, as McCollum isn't exactly the most inspiring candidate.

Crist once had a shot at being president. Now it looks less than likely that he'll ever be elected anything ever again.

Posted by Evan @ 04/20/10 04:50 PM | Comments (0)

19 April 2010

Rasmussen: Perry 48, White 44

Rasmussen, 4/14/2010, 500 LV. Number in ( ) are from 3/4/2010 Rasmussen poll.
Perry 48 (49)
White 44 (43)
Other 2 (3)
Not Sure 6 (6)

Obama Job Approval
Approve 36% (27% strongly)
Disapprove 63 (55% strongly)

Perry Job Approval
Approve 54% (17% strongly)
Disapprove 44% (22% strongly)

Bill White favorable impression
Favorable 54% (25% strongly)
Unfavorable 34 (13% strongly)

79% think voters should have to show ID to vote. 17% say no, 5% aren't sure.

Posted by Evan @ 04/19/10 01:15 PM | Comments (0)

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