Rick Perry vs World

12 March 2010

Sigh, i'm tweeting

I'm on Twitter here as PerryVsWorld.

Posted by Evan @ 03/12/10 01:27 PM | Comments (0)

Factchecking Bill White, part 2

Bill White has been saying that Houston is not a sanctuary city.

The Congressional Reserch Service begs to differ.

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

There is value in a Houston Chronicle endorsement...

... if you're a Democrat?

According to Charles Kuffner, candidates endorsed by the Chron in the Dem primary went 19-7, with 4 in a runoff.

For Republicans, Chron-friendly candidates went 4-8, with 2 in a runoff.

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

RvK's Top 10 of...Rick vs Kay

Rick vs Kay is doing his top 10 races within the race. Worth a read.

Posted by Evan @ 03/12/10 11:57 AM | Comments (0)

11 March 2010

A Note on 2012

Put me in the Anybody But Romney camp.

Posted by Evan @ 03/11/10 04:39 PM | Comments (0)

Even California's politicians like Texas

California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman:

"If your ratings go down, it's OK," [Whitman] said. And: "You will never be popular in a turnaround." Yet her model of an executive-turned-politician is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- and he is popular. And in her mind, California needs a turnaround. After she had been at eBay a few years, Whitman said, the executive staff began to wonder: If we had to start eBay all over again, would we do it in California?

Which state would you pick? I asked. She answered, "Probably Texas."

Posted by Evan @ 03/11/10 04:07 PM | Comments (0)

04 March 2010

Factchecking Bill White

AP (via DMN):

White said during his time as Houston mayor he worked closely with both the Bush and Obama administrations but also wasn't afraid to criticize them.

I just skipped over this as I skimmed the article. And then, when I finished, something didn't sit right. So I went back to reread the article. And aha! there it was.

I don't remember Bill White criticizing Obama. This is, after all, the man who ran this ad:

Perhaps in his own eyes, Bill White is equal to Obama and MLK.

So I spent 20 minutes googling. There are plenty of articles on Bill White criticizing Republicans, including the first result. I found nothing where Bill White criticized Obama. If Bill White has been criticizing Obama, he's been doing it very, very quietly.

Meanwhile, Robert Garrett reports:

[Bill White said he] took "a more aggressive approach" on immigration while mayor of Houston than did counterparts in practically every other U.S. and Texas city.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the majority of other Texascities aren't sanctuary cities. Bill White supported the sanctuary city policy.

That's a more aggressive approach? I'm guessing alot of Texas swing voters would disagree.

Do you think the Statesman and DMN will factcheck this?

Posted by Evan @ 03/04/10 06:19 PM | Comments (4)

Barone on the primary

Michael Barone on Rick v. Kay:

(1)Perry won this not in rural and small town Texas but in metro Houston. This bodes well for him in the general election, since it indicates strength in the home base of the well regarded Democratic nominee, former Houston Mayor Bill White, who was nominated by an overwhelming margin.

(2) Medina, the candidate who wouldn’t disrespect the truthers, did best in the supposedly most sophisticated part of Texas, the Metroplex. Go figure.

(3) Hutchison, supposedly the candidate of urban sophisticates, did best in metro San Antonio and rural Texas. She held Perry below the 50% level needed to avoid a runoff in approximately half of Texas’s 254 counties; unfortunately for her, those counties didn't give her nearly a big enough margin to offset Perry’s advantage in metro Houston.

A few minor observations of my own.

1. Medina won 4 counties. So if Texas elections had an electoral college, she would've actually gotten some electoral votes. That is very embarrassing to me. None of those counties were large -- Medina didn't get four figure vote totals in any of them -- but it is an accomplishment, nonetheless.

2. See bolded above. I feel as if there are lots of Austinites feeling a little wounded. And the Houston establishment is muttering, "But I thought Bill White told us we were world class?"

3. Barone later semi-updated his piece, and included a list of primary turnouts over the years. It pretty clearly shows a long-term trend of Texans voting in Republican primaries rather than Democrats. But that's not too surprising, is it?

4. According to Barone, without metro Houston, Perry would be in a runoff.

5. I am always very suspicious of any analysis that mentions comparing votes received in a primary by the two major candidates. There really isn't much predictive power.

Posted by Evan @ 03/04/10 05:36 PM | Comments (0)