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Five House members appear to have lost
Good morning. Several members of the House lost their primaries, Rick Green could be headed to the Texas Supreme Court and a statewide incumbent was soundly defeated in the Republican primary.
Let’s start with Railroad Commissioner Victor Carrillo, who lost soundly to David Porter, who raised less than $30,000. This appears to once again prove, as Xavier Rodriguez did in 2002, that it’s tough to win a down-ballot race in the Republican primary with a Hispanic last name. Carrillo was clearly the more established candidate and had much more money to spend.
Some House members lost their seats last night. Some weren’t surprises (Tara Rios-Ybarra, Dora Olivo), some were mild surprises (Betty Brown, Al Edwards) and there was one that I apparently took for granted: Tommy Merritt in Longview.
Merritt’s defeat to David Simpson in the Republican primary appears to a victory for tea-party activists. Merritt has had numerous challenges from the right over the years, but he’s always held them off. This time, the turnout efforts of Gov. Rick Perry and Debra Medina could not have helped.
“I believe that this election will possibly set East Texas back for many years. I’m a sitting member of the Redistrict Committee. Representation will be important to our region of the state, and David Simpson will go into Austin, Texas, with no experience with 149 other representatives wanting to shore up their representation,” Merritt told the Longview News-Journal.
Former Rep. Borris Miles beat Rep. Al Edwards by 11 votes in a Houston Democratic primary. Expect some recounting. Miles beat Edwards in 2006, Edwards beat Miles in 2008 and now we’ll see who wins this round.
Rep. Betty Brown has flirted with primary disaster in a couple of times and lost by 183 votes last night to Lance Gooden. Although she wasn’t one of the lawmakers who originally put him in office, Speaker Joe Straus went to Brown’s district to help her and gave her money from his political action committee.
Norma Chavez is headed to a runoff in El Paso. Chuck Hopson won without a runoff. And apparently Todd Smith was in much better shape than many of us realized. He won and covered the spread.
There was a bit of a shakeup on the State Board of Education. Geraldine “Tincy” Miller lost the Dallas-based seat she’s held since 1984, and Don McLeroy lost to Thomas Ratliff. So that’s one moderate (Miller) and one conservative lost (McLeroy).
Linda Chavez-Thompson wins the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor without a runoff.
Rick Green and Debra Lehrmann are headed to a runoff for the Supreme Court.
For those of you who thought the high early-voting numbers were just a sign of more people voting early instead of on election day, nearly 1.5 million Texans voted in the Republican primary, maybe the most ever. That’s about 100,000 more than voted in the 2008 presidential primary. And 677,000 people voted in the Democratic primary. Not a record, but a healthy increase from the 2006 governor’s race.
I guess we should talk about the governor’s race: With all but two of the state’s precincts reporting, it’s Perry 51, Hutchison 30 and Medina 19. I definitely got the sense in the last several days that Perry was going to win without a runoff, but I did not expect Medina to finish as high as she did. She was at 16 in the Statesman’s poll in early February, and that was before the Glenn Beck interview.
Bill White won by a huge margin. Democrats say Perry is weakened and will struggle to get back to the center. Republicans say it’s laughable that this tea-party year would be the time for a Democrat to break the party’s Lone Star losing streak.
Lots of analysis out there on the Republican race for governor.
Here is my column from this morning’s Statesman.
Ken Herman says it’s really, really time to stop underestimating Rick Perry. And that Perry didn’t just beat Hutchison. He beat the Bushes.
Rick Casey says Hutchison made rookie mistakes.
Wayne Slater says Hutchison had too many little messages while Perry had one big one.
Not sure what I’ll do with FR for the rest of the week, but I’ll be back with the usual format very soon.
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Time to vote
There’s really not much to say about the governor’s race, particularly the Republican governor’s race, that I haven’t said in the last few days in the pages of the Statesman.
I will take a broader view and say this: U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison launched her campaign with two bold, impressive moves a little more than a year ago. The first came when she transferred millions of dollars from her Senate campaign to a newly created state campaign in December. Secondly, in January, she released a stout list of supporters and fundraisers that included former Sen. Phil Gramm (Perry’s political mentor), a number of Perry appointees and some of the biggest names in Republican money.
Then the campaign happened.
Gov. Rick Perry rejected federal stimulus dollars for unemployment insurance.
Then he went to the April 15 tea parties and saw the anti-Obama wave that was building. That same day, he expressed a little sympathy with those who wanted to secede.
Then he addressed some of his policy weaknesses by getting a small break in the business tax he created and by getting a largely symbolic eminent-domain amendment to the Constitution put on the November ballot.
Then the legislative session ended with a projected $9 billion ready to pile up in the rainy day fund thanks in part to the federal stimulus dollars that Texas accepted.
Then came Hutchison’s pronouncement that she would resign in October or November.
Then Hutchison changed campaign managers.
Then she made her announcement tour. Soon after, the Internet tubes were filled with a Statesman video that showed Hutchison’s staff trying to manipulate the sparse crowd into looking large and Mark Miner of the Perry campaign creepily sitting alone in the stands wondering where all the people were. One more time, here’s the video.
Then Perry upended the Forensic Science Commission before it heard in a public meeting whether Cameron Todd Willingham had been convicted and executed based on faulty science. Controversy brewed, until Perry angrily pronounced that Willingham was a murderer. The new commission didn’t take up the Willingham matter before the primary.
Then came Hutchison’s pronouncement that she wouldn’t resign.
Then Hutchison launched a television campaign focused on toll roads and eminent domain. Perry hammered Washington, Washington, Washington.
Then the debates came and went and Debra Medina was the only one who got a bounce.
Then Medina stopped her own momentum with a bad appearance on Glenn Beck’s radio show.
Then a poll from the state’s major newspapers showed Perry in control on the eve of early voting.
And that’s pretty much where we are today.
I was with Hutchison on Monday. She campaigned earnestly up until her last event, a brief speech in a conference room at a private air terminal. But it was clear by that point that this was not the campaign that began with such strength when she launched it a year ago. She may well force a runoff, but that appears to be her best hope.
As for the candidates tonight, Hutchison is in Dallas, Medina is in Wharton, Perry is at the Salt Lick and Bill White and Farouk Shami are in Houston.
Stay tuned to the Postcards blog for updates throughout the night, and I’ll post as much as I can about races around the state on my Twitter page.
The First Reading you know and tolerate will return soon.
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Quick thoughts from the campaign trail
Austin weather: Cooler with a touch of rain, high of 57.
Good morning, folks. I’ve spent almost all of the last three days traveling around the state, writing for the paper and reporting for future stories, so the time to give to FR has been very limited, and for that I apologize.
I’m in the hotel in Dallas getting ready to go catch up with the Hutchison campaign at the airport this morning, but did want to post something quickly just to share some observations.
As I hope you read in Sunday’s Statesman, spent all of Friday with Gov. Rick Perry as he started the day in Wichita Falls and then made three stops in West Texas. Perry got very healthy crowds, including many supporters who had already voted for him. He delivered a simple economic message and spent a lot of time shaking hands, taking photos and signing autographs.
Spent Saturday with U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison as she moved around the Houston area. Thousands watched her ride in the Houston rodeo parade, then she spent the rest of the day moving through restaurants and shopping centers shaking hands, taking pictures and all of that. She greeted a lot of folks, though it’s uncertain whether these were actually Republican primary voters, or registered voters. Most seemed happy to see her. She’s trying to keep things optimistic and hope for a runoff, but she’s clearly frustrated by the way the Perry campaign has successfully framed the election as Texas versus Washington.
Last night both candidates appeared at a fundraiser for the Prestonwood Baptist Church’s pregnancy center (The church is in Plano, the fundraiser was in Addison). Guest of honor was George W. Bush.
Press was shut out of the event, but here’s what I know based on talking to a couple of people who were in the room: Perry spoke, Hutchison didn’t, Bush spoke but didn’t address the governor’s race. In fact, Todd Gillman of the Dallas Morning News reports that Bush left before Perry spoke, and that Hutchison was identified as “Kailey Bay Hutchison.” (At least they didn’t say Hutchinson?)
There was typical behind-the-scenes sniping between the two campaigns prior to the event about who would speak and all of that. What we do know is that Perry committed to attending at least days, maybe weeks, before Hutchison. Neither was listed in the program.
Here is our story from this morning’s Statesman, including Corrie MacLaggan’s dispatch from Lakewood Church, where Hutchison was Sunday morning.
Hutchison will of course try to put a happy face on everything today, just as she did over the weekend, but she’s clearly behind. Today she’s in Texarkana, Tyler, San Antonio, Houston, Austin and Dallas. Perry will also end the day in Dallas after hitting Beaumont, Houston and San Antonio. Democratic frontrunner Bill White, who hit three churches in Houston on Sunday morning and also made stops in Corpus Christi and Bastrop, will be in San Antonio and Dallas.
Apparently Dallas is the place to hold your last event of the day.
Time for me to go hop on the plane. Be sure to check out Will Lutz’s post on Quorum Report and Burkablog on what’s happening up in Todd Smith’s House race in the Fort Worth area. Smith continues to appear to be in serious trouble, and Tara Rios Ybarra continues to have a very tough race on her hands. An El Paso Times poll released over the weekend showed Norma Chavez in a tough fight and headed to a runoff. I’ll try to have more in the morning about which House races you should be watching most closely.
I’ll try to post lots of fun stuff on Twitter today, so keep an eye out. @jasonembry.
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The most important soundbites from the GOP primary
Five turning points from the campaign … Are Democrats crossing over to GOP primary? … Perry shares the stage with his foes
Happy birthday to Willie Chapman of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association.
Austin weather from News 8 Austin’s Maureen McCann: Sun with scattered clouds, high around 60.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Wednesday highlights and the day ahead
Everything we know points toward Gov. Rick Perry winning the most votes in Tuesday’s Republican primary for governor. He may even get the majority vote he needs to avoid an April runoff.
Despite the countless press releases, Twitter posts and television spots that have flooded the landscape for more than a year, five critical sound bites have defined this election and put Perry in strong position to retain his party’s nomination:
“I will be looking at what is best for Texas,” Hutchison told Texas Monthly in October 2007 when asked whether she would resign her Senate post to run for governor. Her indecision about resignation, still not resolved to many Republicans’ satisfaction, hindered Hutchison’s message and left many wishing she had stayed put.
“I could not give a blank check for $700 billion to anyone,” Hutchison said on Sept. 30, 2008. The next day, Hutchison voted for the financial rescue package that would come to be known as the Wall Street bailout. Never mind the fact that the package was pushed by the Bush administration with the support of Texas Sen. John Cornyn and other Republicans, or that it wasn’t really a blank check, or that Perry had urged Congress to act. Her Sept. 30 comments, captured on video by Team Perry, gave them the ammunition to say that Hutchison was a disingenuous big spender.
“If Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that,” Perry said outside Austin City Hall on April 15, 2009. The word went out around the world that the Texas governor was pondering secession. He wasn’t, really, but the message was sent that Perry was the insurgent incumbent just as a wave of anti-Obama anger was building among Republicans.
“You say you’d veto it, but Governor, you’ve been there for nine years,” candidate and activist Debra Medina said Jan. 14 during the first GOP debate. It was Medina’s “You’re no Jack Kennedy” moment as she demonstrated that she knew more about a futile-care law than Perry or Hutchison and, more importantly, established herself as a serious candidate who knew a few things about Texas issues. Medina’s performance in the first debate earned her a spot in the second one, making it more difficult for Hutchison to land punches on Perry.
“I don’t have all the evidence there, Glenn,” Medina said when radio host Glenn Beck asked on Feb. 11 whether she believed the U.S. government was involved in the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. The comment slowed Medina’s considerable momentum. While a runoff seemed almost certain three weeks ago, Medina could lose enough support to push Perry to outright victory Tuesday.
And then we’re on to November. I don’t yet know what the defining moments of that race will be. But I’m pretty sure some of them have already come and gone.
• The three Republican candidates for governor all appeared at the same event in Houston last night. Hutchison and Medina spoke first, taking shots at Perry as he sat and waited, but by the time Perry spoke, Hutchison had left her seat, the Statesman’s Corrie MacLaggan reports in this morning’s paper.
• A couple of days ago, I wrote about the fact that more than one in four Republican primary voters so far this year in Travis County had voted in the 2008 Democratic primary. Turns out that’s an unusually high number among the state’s biggest counties.
Through the middle of this week, here’s the percentage of Republican primary voters who voted in the 2008 Democratic primary in each of the five biggest counties. Numbers are courtesy of Democratic pollster Jeff Smith:
Bexar County: 21 percent of GOP primary voters this year voted in 08 Dem primary.
Dallas County: 18 percent
Harris County: 11 percent
Tarrant County: 18 percent
Travis County: 28 percent
OK, so that’s a decent slice of the electorate in each big county. But are these 2008 Democratic primary voters actually Democrats? It doesn’t appear so. Consider the fact that less than 3 percent of this year’s Republican primary turnout in each of those counties voted in both the 2008 Democratic primary and the 2006 Democratic primary.Very, very few of the voters who are taking part in this year’s Republican primary are regular Democratic primary voters.
So who are the people who voted in the 2008 Democratic primary and the 2010 Republican primary? “What you’re seeing are people who are truly switch-hitters,” said Democratic consultant Matt Angle. “These are people who will vote in the race they hear most about.”
Angle noted that these voters tend to be men, which could help Perry. But ultimately, he said, there won’t be enough of them in the primary to have a significant impact on the outcome of the GOP primary.
Some say these are Republican voters who took part in the 2008 Democratic primary to create chaos for the Democrats, just as Rush Limbaugh told them to. But according to Angle’s numbers, less than 1 percent of 2008 Democratic primary voters had voted in the three previous Republican primaries.
• Hutchison has said that she will resign her Senate seat whether she wins or loses the primary. There are a number of Senate aspirants in Texas who hope she sticks to her word, but there are plenty of insiders who doubt that she will.
One reason for skepticism is the fact that Hutchison will face pressure from her GOP colleagues in the Senate to stay until 2012 and finish out her term so the party doesn’t have to spend money to retain the seat (not to mention risk losing the seat). Fellow Texan John Cornyn told The Hill on Wednesday, “My hope is that she’d stay on and serve the remainder of her term.”
Cornyn is especially interested in what Hutchison does not only because they’re fellow Texans but because he heads the committee that is supposed to go out and win more Senate seats for Republicans.
What’s unfortunate for Hutchison is that she won’t exactly be able to quietly slip back into the Senate if she loses. She will immediately and consistently face questions about if and when she will carry out her resignation plan.
• Remember last session, when the House took a 131-12 vote for legislation that exempted someone from the state’s sex-offender list, or reduced the amount of time spent on the list, if they have consensual sex with someone who is between 13 and 17 years old and the age gap between the two is less than four years. The Houston Chronicle’s Rick Casey wrote at the time that the bill would “almost certainly be demagogued as being soft on pedophiles.”
As I reported yesterday, the author of that legislation, GOP Rep. Todd Smith of Euless, is locked in a very tight re-election fight against Jeff Cason. And the sex-offender legislation is playing a role in the race. Aman Batheja reports in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that Cason has sent out a mailer that reads, “Todd Smith authored a bill allowing CONVICTED SEXUAL PREDATORS to live in our neighborhoods without registering on a sexual predators list.”
Countdown
5 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White joined former state Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos on Wednesday evening for a pachanga, rally and push to get voters to the polls. Austin American-Statesman
Gov. Rick Perry today accepted the endorsement of Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minutemen Project that the governor back in 2005 said he had “no desire” to see in Texas. Texas Tribune
At least one invited guest will not be coming to Saturday’s Dallas Tea Party anniversary rally. The conservative group challenged Keith Olbermann to come to Dallas City Hall after the liberal talk show host questioned the racial diversity of Tea Party events on his MSNBC talk show. He had noted photos of overwhelmingly white crowds at rallies. Dallas Morning News
Taking a page from the playbook of social conservatives, the “tea party” movement is trying to change the Republican Party of Texas from the ground up. Houston Chronicle
A statewide increase in child abuse and neglect-related deaths resulted in 280 fatalities last fiscal year, a 31 percent increase compared to the previous fiscal year and the highest since the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services began keeping records in 1998. San Antonio Express-News
Rob Curnock’s former campaign manager claims the Waco Republican U.S. House candidate owes him $16,000 from his 2008 race for the office, an accusation Curnock sharply disputed Wednesday. Waco Tribune-Herald
Congressional Democrats are already looking beyond the White House health-care summit, reckoning that Thursday’s session will amount to little more than political theater and focusing instead on a final round of intraparty negotiations that are likely to determine the fate of President Obama’s top domestic priority. Washington Post
Last fall, a woman went to court in the Bronx to testify that she had been violently assaulted by a top aide to Gov. David A. Paterson, and to seek a protective order against the man. In the ensuing months, she returned to court twice to press her case, complaining that the State Police had been harassing her to drop it. The State Police, which had no jurisdiction in the matter, confirmed that the woman was visited by a member of the governor’s personal security detail. Then, just before she was due to return to court to seek a final protective order, the woman got a phone call from the governor, according to her lawyer. She failed to appear for her next hearing on Feb. 8, and as a result her case was dismissed. New York Times
Everything else
Men’s basketball: Texas 69, Oklahoma State 59
Baylor 70, Texas A&M 66
Women’s basketball: Oklahoma State 73, Texas 72
Rockets 92, Orlando 110
Spurs 95, Oklahoma City 87
Mavericks 101, Lakers 96
Women’s figure skating wraps up on the Olympics tonight, while the U.S. and Canada will play for the gold medal in women’s hockey.
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Five House incumbents in jeopardy
These lawmakers could lose on Tuesday … Straus helps Republicans through new PAC … Some info on turnout so far in GOP primary
Happy birthday to Mona Taylor of Ross Communications and to Alexis DeLee of DeLee Consulting.
Austin weather from News 8 Austin’s Maureen McCann: Becoming mostly sunny. Warmer with a high around 53.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Tuesday highlights and the day ahead
With the primary elections just around the corner, it’s time to take another look at the five Texas House incumbents who are most likely to lose on March 2, based on conversations with political pros, financial reports, past voting patterns and news coverage. Remember, these are just incumbents who are at risk in the primary. We’ll get to the general election soon enough.
(5) Rep. Chuck Hopson, R-Jacksonville. When Hopson first switched to the Republican Party, I figured he would win the Republican primary without much trouble. But if nothing else, he could be headed to a runoff. The Tea Party movement, plus the turnout efforts of Gov. Rick Perry and Debra Medina, could bring out voters who don’t warm to someone who was a Democrat a matter of months ago.
(4) Rep. Delwin Jones, R-Lubbock. Jones has held off a number of primary challengers before, but the same kinds of voters who could work against Hopson could work against Jones. Lawyer Zach Brady appears to be the stronger of Jones’ two challengers, and Brady and Jones could well be headed to an April runoff.
(3) Rep. Tara Rios Ybarra, D-South Padre Island. This one has turned into quite a little fight between Texans for Lawsuit Reform, which supports Rios Ybarra, and the trial lawyers, who back J.M. Lozano. The district was drawn to elect someone from South Padre Island, but until the last election, the voters had come out on the north side, Lozano’s side, of the district. Again, we don’t know how much of an anomaly 2008 was because of the high-stakes presidential primary.
(2) Rep. Todd Smith, R-Euless. Smith has plenty of money, but there may not be enough money to save him from a voicemail he left for the head of the Tarrant County Republican Party during last year’s heated debate over voter ID. Smith said, “I’m doing the work of the League of the Republican Women, and some of them are too stupid to realize it, and it’s pissing me off, so bye.” It could be bye, indeed, for Chairman Smith.
(1) Rep. Terri Hodge, D-Dallas. OK, this one is kind of a gimme. Hodge has entered a guilty plea, and part of her agreement with prosecutors was that she would not seek office again. She’s not seeking this office any longer, but her name is still on the ballot, which means that challenger Eric Johnson still needs to get more votes than Hodge before he can start measuring the drapes for E1 or E2. Johnson, who has been at the top of this list since last year, is likely to seal the deal, but stranger things have happened. A number of Austin lobbyists and political action committees got behind Johnson soon after Hodge entered her plea. “Let’s face it,” Johnson said Tuesday. “Lobbyists are professional oddsmakers. They’re not true believers.”
Others who almost made the list : Dora Olivo, Al Edwards, Norma Chavez, Vicki Truitt.
Who am I missing?
• Speaker Joe Straus hasn’t spent a lot from his own campaign account to help House incumbents. But he has helped Republican incumbents in a number of other ways. He has appeared at fundraisers in Austin and in the districts of a number of lawmakers. He also has sent five-figure contributions from a new PAC he leads, the Texas House Leadership Fund, to Hopson, Jones, Smith, Truitt and Charlie Geren.
• As I reported on the Postcards blog Tuesday, almost 28 percent of Travis County residents who cast votes in the Republican primary during the first week of early voting also voted in the 2008 Democratic primary, suggesting that the Perry-Hutchison-Medina election has drawn a decent number of independent voters and at least a few Democrats.
But that trend isn’t showing up everywhere. Republican operative Chris Elam sent me some figures from Fort Bend County (Sugar Land, Richmond, Rosenberg), and so far just 9.7 percent of the GOP primary voters there voted in the 2008 Democratic primary.
• Medina was on CNN on Tuesday and again faced questions about 9/11. She asserted that she does not believe the government was involved, but then vaguely said that the 9/11 Commission report raised questions. Watch it here.
This Glenn Beck issue persists. Medina’s campaign manager on Tuesday told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “We believe most Texans resent the fact that a talking head from New York City has involved himself in this race.”
Look, I’m no fan of talking heads from New York. But Medina agreed to go on Beck’s national radio show. And then he asked her a question, she answered it, he reacted and the Texas media covered it. Now it’s up to voters to decide whether they’re bothered by it. If Medina didn’t want Beck involved in the race, perhaps she shouldn’t have agreed to go on his show.
Countdown
6 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
As Texas leaders call for more discipline in state spending, one area of the budget has been stubbornly resistant to their demands. Health insurance costs for state employees and retirees are expected to continue rising 8 to 10 percent a year, according to estimates from the state’s two largest health insurance plans. Austin American-Statesman
One candidate in the crowded race for the Republican nomination for the state House of Representatives seat in District 20 has spent almost four times as much as two of his rivals. Charles Schwertner dished out more than $123,000 from Jan. 22 to Feb. 20, according to campaign finance reports. Austin American-Statesman
A bent to conservatism and family makes Hispanics a promising pool of votes for Republicans, but the party’s targeting of illegal immigrants has withered its attraction. Regardless, Gov. Rick Perry has fared relatively well, perhaps because of his anti-Washington rhetoric and his careful immigration stance, a recent poll indicates. Dallas Morning News
With just seven days left in what was expected to be the marquee primary fight of the 2010 election, Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) remains stuck behind Gov. Rick Perry (R) in a campaign that even her most ardent supporters acknowledge has been decidedly disappointing. Washington Post
Hit with accusations of spreading “cronyism” throughout state government, Gov. Rick Perry waited until the last week of the primary to swing back. Associated Press
These days, the Majestic OST is an abandoned hulk. Its denizens are drug addicts, prostitutes and the homeless. Borris Miles, candidate for the state Legislature from District 146, contends the theater symbolizes the neglect and inattention the district gets from the incumbent, longtime House member Al Edwards. Houston Chronicle
But three of the biggest messes of Perry’s 10-year tenure — two of which spurred U.S. Justice Department investigations — have been noticeably absent on the campaign trail. While U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Perry’s chief Republican primary opponent, has hit the airwaves on toll roads, immigration and education, she has largely steered clear of these high-profile social services debacles. Texas Tribune
Politically genteel Plano is witnessing a testier brand of politics this year. The GOP campaign to represent West Plano in the Texas House of Representatives is emerging as one of the city’s most cantankerous races in years. Candidates are trading barbs over everything from resume discrepancies to charges of tax evasion. Dallas Morning News
After rising from obscurity to become a significant factor in the three-way Republican race for governor, candidate Debra Medina appears to be losing ground after her remarks in a national radio interview about the 9-11 terrorist attacks, according to two public opinion surveys released Tuesday. Fort Worth Star-Telegram
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For now, White has healthy cash lead
Democrat has more than $5 million … Still straightening out what happened with stimulus dollars … Dallas Tea Party calls out Olbermann
Happy birthday to former Rep. Glen Maxey, Brent Annear of the Texas Medical Association and Statesman Features Editor Kathy Blackwell.
Austin weather from News 8 Austin’s Maureen McCann: Morning rain, transitioning to wintry mix and snow midday. Accumulations of a dusting to one inch possible, with greater amounts toward Temple and Waco. Highs in the mid to upper thirties, falling to near freezing in the afternoon.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Monday highlights and the day ahead
The eight-day-out fundraising reports should start showing up online today.
Gov. Rick Perry will report that he raised $852,000 in the last month and has $2.5 million on hand.
U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison will report that she raised about $1.1 million and has about $2.3 million.
Meanwhile Democratic frontrunner Bill White raised $2.2 million and has $5.4 million on hand.
So among the major candidates, White has an unusually healthy lead at this point. And it’s not as if he’s been spending all his money — he’s been advertising heavily over the last several weeks. This doesn’t mean that he will have more money in the likely event that he makes it to the general election. Perry and Hutchison can raise a ton of money in a hurry. But, clearly, so can Bill White.
• Gov. Rick Perry talked about the use of stimulus dollars in the state budget during a Sunday campaign stop in Montgomery County, according to the Courier of Montgomery County.
Perry said, “We saw a government that was not only bailing out greedy Wall Street bankers, but laying out stimulus bills that were building up debt at monumental levels. They (state legislators) knew that to take those stimulus dollars and put them into long-running programs was wrong and they said no. Instead we took a look at how to live within our means.”
I will go ahead and point out here that, according to the Dallas Morning News, Legislative Budget Board Director John O’Brien said in August that about a third of the $14 billion in stimulus dollars that Texas accepted is likely to translate into ongoing obligations. That’s a couple billion toward Medicaid and a couple billion toward public education formulas, and the state is going to have to make that money up with general revenue in 2011.
• MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann recently criticized the Tea Party movement, in typically harsh terms, for lacking diversity. The Dallas Tea Party has punched back, inviting Olbermann to an upcoming event and noting — accurately — that MSNBC’s lineup of hosts isn’t exactly a picture of diversity, either. Watch the video here.
• Willie Nelson has cut a radio ad for Kinky Friedman’s campaign for agriculture commissioner. You can listen to the spot here.
Countdown
7 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
More unusual by Houston — and Texas — standards, White touts initiatives undertaken during his six years as mayor to reduce the amount of toxic chemicals emitted by Houston’s petrochemical industries. But now Farouk Shami, White’s leading Democratic opponent, is trying to use an energy issue against the former mayor, touching on concerns among residents and officials about the environmental and health effects of drilling in populated areas of the Barnett Shale, a natural gas field that stretches west and south from Dallas and covers more than 20 counties. PolitiFact Texas
An Austin lawyer threatened to pursue a new federal lawsuit Monday after learning that some newborn blood samples in Texas went to the U.S. military for potential use in a database for law enforcement purposes. Austin American-Statesman
What the Tea Party movement has done right is let Washington know that there is a limit to how big the government can grow and how much debt the country can take on. It’s hard to overestimate just how damaging our $12.5 trillion-and-growing national debt will be to our economic growth if we don’t start correcting it soon… Yet there’s also an illogic that flows from the pushback against government. You can see it playing out in the Texas governor’s race, as well as in GOP primary races for Congress and the Legislature. William McKenzie
Texas expects a shortfall of at least $12 billion when lawmakers meet to write the next budget, but major candidates for governor have few specifics on how they would exert their leadership to close the gap. “The silence is deafening,” said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville. “None of the candidates are really coming out with a plan or even an awareness of how bad the situation is.” Houston Chronicle
Rick Perry is poised to win Texas’s Republican primary for the governorship—for the third time. Where might that take him next? The Economist
Republican National Chairman Michael Steele is spending twice as much as his recent predecessors on private planes and paying more for limousines, catering and flowers - expenses that are infuriating the party’s major donors who say Republicans need every penny they can get for the fight to win back Congress. Politico
Everything else
Mavericks 91, Indiana 82
Longhorn guard Dogus Balbay suffered a torn ACL and is out for the season.
The once-great LaDainian Tomlinson, a graduate of Waco’s University High, was cut by the Chargers on Monday.
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Local GOP turning out more than Dems so far
Republican turnout especially strong … Medina suggests government shares some blame for Austin plane crash … Obama to unveil his own health-care plan
Austin weather: Sunny this morning, increasing clouds in the afternoon. High of 58. (Spoiler Alert: Possible snow Tuesday!)
Happy birthday to school finance guru Bob Popinski of Moak, Casey and Associates.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Weekend highlights and the day ahead
Turnout for early voting remains strong in the state’s 15 biggest counties. Through the first three days of voting in those counties, 70,895 turned out in the Republican primary, which was a 172 percent increase over the 2006 gubernatorial primary. In fact, Republican turnout threatens to top the presidential-year turnout of 1.3 million in 2008, which would be quite unusual.
Democratic early voting in the big counties through the first three days was 49,774. That’s 62 percent higher than the comparable period in 2006.
I should have updated numbers from the weekend today and will post on Twitter as soon as I get them. We already have weekend numbers from Travis County: Through the first six days of early voting in Travis County, Democratic turnout is 5,992. Comparably, Democratic turnout at this point in 2006 was 2,577.
Republican turnout through the first six days in Travis County is 7,821. At this point in 2006, it was 2,368.
The parties were roughly even at this point in 2006, and yet Democratic turnout ultimately exceeded Republican turnout in Travis County by about 4,000 votes. So recent history here shows that Democratic primary voters are more likely to wait until election day, which is what I’ve always heard.
Still, it is interesting that GOP turnout is up so much here in our blue little county. Most likely it’s simply a result of the high-profile governor’s race drawing out more Republicans. We could also be seeing that some Democrats and left-leaning independents are voting in the Republican primary. Perhaps the Tea Parties and/or Debra Medina have turned non-primary voters into primary voters. Will be interesting to see the statewide figures today.
• From Fox 4 in Dallas/Fort Worth, Debra Medina was asked about the Joe Stack plane crash over the weekend and suggested that the government bears some blame. She said, “They are criminal acts and we can never excuse them. But nor should we wash our hands and say, ‘Oh well, the government didn’t have anything to do with that.’ People are hurting and they’re tired of abuse at the hands of their government.”
• The governor of Texas is no fan of the National Governors Association, hasn’t been for a long time, and so it stands to reason that he is skipping out on the association’s meetings with President Barack Obama. On Sunday, “most of the nation’s governors were at the White House for a black-tie Governors’ Ball in the State Dining Room, where crooner Harry Connick Jr. provided the entertainment,” reports Todd Gillman of the Dallas Morning News, who had White House pool duty Sunday. “Texas Gov. Rick Perry was not among them, though lots of GOP bigwigs were. Minn. Gov. Tim Pawlenty got to sit next to the First Lady, and if he was measuring the drapes, he did it too discreetly for the press to notice during the 10 minutes we were in the State Dining Room for the president’s toast. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist was waaaay in the back of the hall, well out of presidential hugging range, and probably glad of it.”
• U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison will campaign in Houston today with Windy Sitton, who was one of those Texas Tech regents told to resign because she supported Hutchison over Perry.
• Hutchison has a new TV spot that touts her endorsements from newspapers across Texas. Watch it here.
• POLL WATCH, from CNN and Opinion Research Corporation: 86 percent of people questioned in the poll say that our system of government is broken, with 14 percent saying no. Of that 86 percent, 81 percent say that the government can be fixed, with 5 percent saying it’s beyond repair.
• Obama is set this morning to release his own health-care proposal, including new power for the federal government to curb big rate hikes. Politico reports, “The proposal for new federal power to rein in premium hikes wasn’t included in the versions of health reform that passed the House and Senate last year, though the rest of Obama’s bill is likely to cherry-pick some of the most popular parts of those bills to craft a compromise proposal that can unify his fractious party, liberals and moderates alike.”
• Colin Powell is not among the independents abandoning Obama, saying on “Face the Nation” that he has no regrets about voting for the president.
• Maybe the Perry People will Tweet this today: No Texas cities made the Forbes list of the 10 most miserable cities in the U.S. The top five: 1. Cleveland, 2. Stockton, Calif., 3. Memphis 4. Detroit 5. Flint, Mich.
Countdown
8 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
The Republican candidates for governor have spoken with varying levels of detail about what they’d like to do over the next four years if they actually get the job. Austin American-Statesman
Two days after a plane was slammed into an Austin office building in an apparent attack, Gov. Rick Perry said this afternoon he still does not favor installing metal detectors at the Texas Capitol. Austin American-Statesman
But the political winds have shifted for Ms. Hutchison in the last few months, and she now finds herself far behind in the polls, as Mr. Perry has managed to surf a wave of anger here over President Obama’s policies. Never has a race for governor in Texas so clearly defined the difference between the country-club wing of the Republican Party, where elite business leaders sit astride the financial engines of Dallas and Houston, and the populist Reagan Republicans, talk-radio-fueled voters who are upset about issues like budget deficits, gun control and legalized abortion. New York Times
Happy birthday, little stimulus. It seems like it was just yesterday that Congress was enacting you. You aren’t so little, of course, and you never were. But $787 billion and a year later, you’re so…invisible. Loren Steffy
50 things you need to know about the candidates for Texas governor. Dallas Morning News
Texas voters are about to get a say over how to teach evolution in public schools or what historical figures to put into new textbooks. San Antonio Express-News
Often superintendents are hired in hopes that they will be a district’s “savior.” But while national averages show it takes about five years for a successful new superintendent to turn around a troubled district, urban superintendents are only around for an average of 3 1/2 years. Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Everything else
Team USA stunned Canada with a 5-3 win in men’s hockey Sunday. And today is the 30-year anniversary of the Miracle on Ice.
Spurs 101, Detroit 109
Rockets 94, New Orleans 102
Let’s welcome college baseball to FR: Texas lost 3-1 to New Mexico on Sunday and lost the weekend series two games to one.
Weekend box office: 1. Shutter Island 2. Valentine’s Day 3. Percy Jackson 4. The Wolfman 5. Avatar
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A rather predictable resignation
I don’t have a whole lot of new stuff for FR this morning and I’m running slightly behind, so I’ll just take you around some of the key stories in the news today.
The big talker yesterday was the resignation of top aides to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Farouk Shami, a story broken by the Statesman’s Corrie MacLaggan. Former campaign director Vince Leibowitz, who was among the departed, told MacLaggan, “We had a major difference of opinion on strategy for the campaign moving forward. Clearly, (Shami) will not accept political strategy from the people who are there to provide it.”
That explanation sounds an awful lot like what was said by the last round of staffers who left the Shami campaign.
The effort to remove Judge Sharon Keller of the Court of Criminal Appeals resumes, the Statesman’s Chuck Lindell reports: “Seeking to revive their case against Judge Sharon Keller, prosecutors argued Wednesday that Keller deserves to be reprimanded or removed from office for refusing to accept a late execution-day appeal in 2007. In documents filed Wednesday with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which will weigh Keller’s fate, prosecutors objected to a special master’s conclusion that Keller was not to blame for failures that resulted in death row inmate Michael Richard being executed without his final appeal being heard in court. Dismissing the findings by Special Master David Berchelmann Jr. as irrelevant and misguided, prosecutors said Keller’s conduct in Richard’s case ‘was clearly inconsistent with the proper performance of her duties … and cast public discredit on the judiciary.’”
The Texas Public Policy Foundation today will release a report on how cap-and-trade legislation could affect Texas, and the Houston Chronicle’s Tom Fowler has a preview: “Proposed U.S. climate change laws could cut Texas’ manufacturing output by more than 5 percent and increase electric prices by as much as 52 percent by 2030, according to a study to be unveiled today by a conservative Texas think tank. The state’s energy-intensive industries — including oil and gas producers and chemical plants — would be hit particularly hard by laws aimed at putting a price tag on greenhouse gas emissions, said Margo Thorning, one of the authors of the study done for the Texas Public Policy Foundation. It will be released at a Houston news conference.”
The resignation of President Gretchen Bataille at the University of North Texas remains a mystery, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: “University of North Texas students and faculty members voiced frustrations Wednesday after meeting with UNT System Chancellor Lee Jackson and other officials, who would not answer questions about why President Gretchen Bataille resigned suddenly last week. Some also wondered whether Provost Wendy Wilkins, who received a standing ovation during the forum, will stay at UNT.”
The Texas Tribune’s Brian Thevenot looks at the Houston school district’s venture into teacher merit pay: “The new policy, passed in a 7-0 vote with two members absent but close to 1,000 angry teachers in attendance, represented the culmination of years of trial-and-error attempts in the state’s largest school district to connect test scores to pay and job security. The Houston Independent School District already uses the data to dole out some $40 million annually in teacher bonuses, ranging from token amounts to more than $13,000. HISD now moves into the even more controversial territory of basing terminations on so-called ‘value-added’ data, developed by educational statistician William Sanders, that purports to measure every student’s improvement in one school year’s time — regardless of his or her academic starting point — and amalgamate all the scores into one grade for a teacher or teachers.”
Finally, a couple of new items from PolitiFact Texas.
First, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White said he helped the Houston area lead the nation in job growth. But his claim was false, the team finds: “Some 244,100 jobs were added in the Houston area during the period, compared to 156,800 in Washington, the state with the second-highest increase in jobs. Texas was first with 943,000 new jobs. We confirmed those numbers — and found a wrinkle the White campaign overlooked. It turns out that Dallas, which gained 265,800 nonfarm jobs from 2003 through 2009, led the country in job growth.”
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst fared better with his claim that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a very expensive, taxpayer-funded trip to Copenhagen for a climate summit. The PF team says the Dewhurst claim was true.
12 days until the March 2 primary.
I’ll be back with a full version of FR tomorrow.
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More signs of voters backing away from Medina
A Tea Party group distances itself from Medina … new ad from Bill White … Chaos at the Shami campaign
Happy birthday to Rep. Harold Dutton, April Castro of the Associated Press, Elise Hu of the Texas Tribune and John Moritz of the Quorum Report and the Texas Energy Report.
Austin weather from News 8 Austin’s Maureen McCann: Mostly sunny with temps near normal. High of 64.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Tuesday highlights and the day ahead
A tough-to-define group of conservative activists, tea-partiers and others who are trying to make a statement about their unhappiness toward the Obama administration will hold a get-out-the-vote rally at noon on Saturday at the Fort Worth Cowtown Coliseum. A flood of Republican candidates will speak, including some incumbents.
But the nearby Burleson Tea Party has chosen not to participate because the keynote speaker is Republican gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina. Yes, Medina is supposed to be the embodiment of the tea-party movement. But Burleson Tea Party Chairman and Founder Angela Cox told supporters in an e-mail, “The Burleson Tea Party does respect every American’s right, as to their individual choice in candidate. The Burleson Tea Party, as an independent, grassroots organization, however, does not agree with the position that Mrs. Medina has, on the possible instigators of 9/11, or the questioning of who was behind the horrific tragedy, that took place, on that fateful day.”
When Medina was on the Glenn Beck radio show last week, she passed up a chance to disavow the notion that the U.S. was involved in attacking the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Cox told her group that she was worried those who attend Saturday’s event (where U.S. Senate hopeful Roger Williams is also speaking) will be labeled 9/11 truthers.
“The Burleson Tea Party will not sacrifice the cause for which it originated, for any one candidate, politician or group. The Burleson Tea Party will, however, sacrifice itself for it’s fellow Americans and it’s country as a whole, shoulder to shoulder, with our fellow Americans, to take our country back, but not for the one,” Cox said in her e-mail.
In a followup exchange, Cox told me, “I, nor the BTP are not encouraging fellow Texans/Americans to not attend the GOTV rally on 2/20/10. The BTP as an independent, grassroots organization, as a whole, will not be participating. As I state in my email, every American has the right, respectfully so, of their own freedom of choice. The BTP and I are respectful of such.”
• The Nacogdoches Chamber of Commerce is holding a legislative summit over the next couple of days. Gov. Rick Perry will speak. But on the chamber’s Web site, event chair John Ruckel says U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison told the group that she regrettably could not attend because of weather-related rescheduling.
Today’s forecast in Nacogdoches: Sunny with temperatures warming rapidly into the mid to upper 40s. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
• In a brand new ad, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White says his business background will allow him to squeeze the most out of every dollar as governor. And he touts property-tax cuts during his time as Houston mayor. Watch it here:
• How do you know when you didn’t impress an editorial board? When the board endorses a candidate who says he isn’t running any longer.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has endorsed state Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, even though Averitt says he is no longer running for re-election because of health concerns.
From the editorial: “Averitt remains on the ballot. His opponent is Burleson insurance agent Darren Yancy, a former candidate for Congress who switched to this race. Yancy is also a real estate agent. He lost that license for three months last year when the Texas Real Estate Commission punished him for “untrustworthiness” in a contract and for the way he structured his sales commission. Yancy has said he refused to represent a seller who discriminated against a Hispanic buyer. But the real estate commission heard his argument and originally suspended him for a year. He is on regulatory probation. In his campaign, he has said state agents should shoot illegal immigrants trying to cross the border. Yet he says he is pro-life. Yancy shows no indication that he is prepared to serve in the Texas Senate.”
If Averitt wins the nomination but refuses to serve (there is no Democrat running), Republican and Democratic chairs could have the chance to choose new candidates.
• The crew on “Morning Joe” this morning was talking about all the anger toward incumbents out there around the country. Then Pat Buchanan chimed in, “Look at Rick Perry, he’s an incumbent, so he runs out, ‘We’re going to defend the border,’ he mentions secession, all of a sudden he moves ahead of Kay Bailey Hutchison, she sinks, and she’s the challenger down there.”
I would never have guessed it at the time, but I think the April 15 moment when Kelley Shannon asked Perry how he feels about secession may go down as the defining moment in this campaign. And it has completely worked to Perry’s advantage.
• Republican state senatorial candidate Ben Bius recently said state Sen. Steve Ogden was the “driving force behind business income tax hurting small business, crafted the Robin Hood school finance scheme making property taxes skyrocket, wrote a budget that will result in a $14 billion deficit and voted against” gun freedoms. Bius’ claim is false, according to PolitiFact Texas.
Countdown
13 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Farouk Shami and his own campaign staff released conflicting information Tuesday about who is allowed to speak on behalf of the campaign, signaling further turmoil inside a campaign that has already had its troubles. Austin American-Statesman
Students at the University of Texas would be required to complete their bachelor’s degrees in 10 semesters, or five years, under a recommendation announced Tuesday by a task force on enrollment. Austin American-Statesman
Texas fired off another salvo in a struggle with Washington over environmental regulation Tuesday, filing a suit in federal court to prevent regulation of greenhouse gases. Austin American-Statesman
The jobs of nearly 3,100 prison guards, parole officers and other state corrections employees would be eliminated as part of a proposed budget-cutting plan unveiled Tuesday that includes closing some privately run prisons and cutbacks in treatment and rehabilitation programs and medical care. Austin American-Statesman
State agencies offered up potential budget cuts of 5 percent Tuesday, fulfilling a request from state leaders as Texas grapples with a shortfall that could reach $15 billion or more. But their trims amount to a relatively small, initial pebble in a large pool. Dallas Morning News
The Texas Workforce Commission spent nearly $50 million in the last two years subsidizing day care centers and in-home child care providers with troubled track records caring for the state’s neediest kids — including sexual and physical abuse, kidnapping, and leaving infants to suffocate and die in their cribs. Texas Tribune
Sarah Palin is lashing out at the portrayal of a character with Down syndrome on the Fox animated comedy “Family Guy.” Associated Press
Everything else
Utah 104, Rockets 95
Oklahoma City 99, Mavericks 86
Sadie, a Scottish terrier, won Best in Show at Westminster
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Early voting starts today
The two-week march to the election … Straus and his deputies start a new PAC … Announcement coming on EPA pushback?
Austin weather from News 8 Austin’s Maureen McCann: Bright sunshine. High of 60.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Monday highlights and the day ahead
And here we are. The 2010 primary begins with the kickoff of early voting this morning. You all know what this means and who the candidates are, so the best thing I can do is provide this link so you Travis County residents can find your nearby early-voting site.
This is also cool: If you missed the Statesman’s 2010 Voters’ guide on Sunday, you can download a printable copy right here.
As for the two titans in the Republican race, Gov. Rick Perry will hold a press conference with Attorney General Greg Abbott and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples. The Statesman’s Asher Price speculates on his Salsa Verde blog that they could be about to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health.
And U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison will campaign this afternoon in Georgetown at Texas’ first and finest university, Southwestern. Best I can remember, the only politician who ever campaigned at Southwestern while I was there was Victor Morales in 1996. And I think we all know how that turned out.
• Ever heard of the Texas House Leadership Fund? I hadn’t either until a few days ago, but I think we all better get used to hearing about it.
The Fund is a new political action committee run by House Speaker Joe Straus and Republican committee chairmen in the House. Straus, who has already built up a stout war chest in his own campaign, will give money from his campaign fund and from this PAC (in consultation with Republican chairmen) to help Republicans retain their seats and win open seats.
The PAC raised more than $130,000 in the second half of last year. Most Republican chairmen appear to have given $10,000 apiece to get it off the ground, and some lobbyists and professional groups seem to have pitched in some money, too.
The first big fundraiser for the PAC is this Thursday at the Pecan Room at Old Parkland in Dallas. Straus will be there, and the North Texas Republican committee chairmen are listed as hosts. Tickets start at $250 apiece, but the good tickets start at $1,250 per couple.
There are a number of other Republican-related PACs trying to raise money for House races, such as GOPAC and the Texas Republican House Committee. Those folks, unlike the chairmen’s PAC, are going to go after Democratic incumbents. But considering who is directing this newest PAC, it’s going to be tough to compete with it for dollars.
Straus actually started this PAC in the summer of 2008, well before he was speaker, but it just sort of sat there until last year.
• We’re starting to see the practical effects of the order from the state’s Big Three to agencies to cut back on some of their expenses. As I first reported on Twitter on Monday, Gov. Rick Perry’s office has said it will cut back $20 million from the awards it gives out through the Texas Enterprise Fund. Perhaps Perry is trying to send the message that even cherished programs are going to have to see some reductions.
Countdown
Early voting begins today.
14 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has intervened in a first-of-its-kind Travis County same-sex divorce case, arguing that the women involved, who were married in another state, may not be legally granted a divorce because Texas law defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Austin American-Statesman
Gov. Rick Perry has offered a nearly 7 percent reduction of his office’s budget, mainly through a $20 million cut to his cherished deal-closing fund. Dallas Morning News
The Texas Department of Transportation said Monday it could cut $20 million, more than 20 times the amount it was asked to identify as possible trims in the face of a looming state budget shortfall. Houston Chronicle
With early voting set to start today, the main contenders for governor go into the final two-week sprint on decidedly different missions. Dallas Morning News
Kenneth W. Starr, the former independent counsel whose work led to the impeachment of then-President Bill Clinton, was named president of Baylor University this morning, sources said. Waco Tribune-Herald
Evan Bayh’s surprise retirement announcement revealed a common theme among those bailing on Congress this election cycle: even the politicians are sick of Washington.Politico
Everything else
Texas A&M led Kansas for much of the game but ultimately lost to the top-ranked Jayhawks, 59-54.
Letterman: “You know who was at the Daytona 500? Sarah Palin, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. She was at the finish line and she waved her checkered past.”
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More from our poll
Republican women prefer Perry over two women … Medina discusses the fall of Twin Towers … Remembering Charlie Wilson
Austin weather: Breezy, cool and sunny. High of 57.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Weekend highlights and the day ahead
Hopefully you saw coverage Sunday in the Statesman and other big Texas newspapers of the poll commissioned to measure the state of the governor’s race and take the state’s pulse on various issues.
The very short version: Perry 45, Hutchison 29, Medina 17 in the primary, Perry six points up on Bill White in a hypothetical November matchup. In a year when anti-incumbency is all the rage, Perry is benefiting from the fact that 53 percent of Texans think the state is on the right track.
Here are some interesting nuggets that didn’t make it into my story and some of the other coverage on Sunday:
Among likely Republican primary voters, men break down this way: Perry 50 percent, Hutchison 25 percent, Medina 17 percent.
Among women who are likely Republican primary voters, it’s 39 percent for Perry, 34 percent for Hutchison, 17 percent for Medina.
Perry has a wider lead over Hutchison among Hispanic Republican primary voters than among white Republican primary voters.
Among all registered voters surveyed (not just Republicans), 40 percent approve the job President Barack Obama is doing, while 48 percent disapprove. Obama’s 40 percent approval rating is only six points lower Perry’s 46 percent approval rating from all voters.
An overwhelming number of all registered voters — 75 percent — think there should be term limits for governor. Could this be a winning issue for likely Democratic nominee Bill White in November?
Here’s what White spokeswoman Katy Bacon said Friday: “Bill generally agrees with term limits for executive offices because they can keep executives from becoming too entrenched. He’s not sure what they should be for the governor’s office and he wouldn’t distract the state legislature with the issue.”
On issues, 48 percent of Republican primary voters say they would not vote for a candidate who supports the Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal.
In addressing the budget deficit, 41 percent of all voters say cut highway spending, 20 percent say increase state taxes and fees, 11 percent say cut health care for the poor and 7 percent say cut funding for education.
There are a couple of stories below on other issues raised in the poll.
• Debra Medina just can’t seem to shut the door on the possibility that the U.S. government was involved in the September 2001 attacks. Consider the video below from weekend news coverage on Houston’s KTRK, in which she says, “I think the questions that I’ve heard asked are, how those buildings fell? And I’m not the engineer to know that, and I think those are good relevant questions to ask. That’s not saying our government was involved. I don’t know that I think our government was involved. I think there are questions that need to be asked.”
Not exactly the I-don’t-believe-the-government-was-involved written statement she issued Thursday afternoon.
Here’s the clip:
• And speaking of video, follow this link to watch “Inside Texas Politics” from WFAA in Dallas on Sunday. The show features interviews with the two major Democratic candidates for governor, including Farouk Shami’s controversial comments about 9/11 and whites working in factories.
• Statesman columnist, friend of FR and long-ago Lufkinite Ken Herman files this report from Sunday’s memorial service for Charlie Wilson, who died last week at age 76:
A crowd of 800ish, some wearing buttons from campaigns past, packed the Temple Theater at Lufkin’s Angelina College on Sunday for the service that brought both tears and laughter to those who had known Wilson.
First, some of the faces in the crowd: Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, former U.S. Reps. Jim Turner and Martin Frost, ex-Lt. Gov-Ben Barnes, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, Austinite Jack Martin, state Rep. Jim McReynolds of Lufkin, former state Sen. Kent Caperton and Houston businessman Oscar Wyatt and wife Lynn.
The music was very Wilson specific, including “Anchors Aweigh” (Wilson was an Annapolis grad), “As Time Goes By” from Casablanca (Wilson’s favorite movie) and “My Way” (Wilson, a Sinatra fan, indeed did it his way).
Three speakers offered remberances of their good friend Goodtime Charlie. First up was former state lawmaker Joe Christie, who recalled a trip with Wilson to Islamabad during which one of Christie’s jobs was to find entertainment. He remembered reporting to Wilson he had found “the only place in Islamabad where we can get a drink.” Wilson later honored him with a plaque.
Next up was John Wing of Conroe, a businessman who has done well in the aviation services and energy sectors. Wing said Wilson’s life was divided into two parts, Before Barbara and After Barbara (a reference to Wilson’s widow. They married in 1999.)
Last up was former state lawmaker, Railroad Commissioner and unsuccessful 1982 gubernatorial candidate Buddy Temple, a longtime Wilson friend who was driving Wilson home from a meeting last Wednesday when Wilson, who had a heart transplant two years ago, began having problems.
Temple, very emotional, recalled that Wilson was godfather to Temple’s daughter 42 years ago. Wilson was honored, Temple said, but was a bit concerned about a portion of the ceremony in which he would have to renounce the devil and all of his works. Temple said Wilson asked if he could reject the devil “and some of his works.”
• The State Board of Education got some special attention this weekend in the form of the New York Times Magazine cover story. The magazine looked at the efforts by conservatives on the board to emphasize Christianity in history books: “The one thing that underlies the entire program of the nation’s Christian conservative activists is, naturally, religion. But it isn’t merely the case that their Christian orientation shapes their opinions on gay marriage, abortion and government spending. More elementally, they hold that the United States was founded by devout Christians and according to biblical precepts. This belief provides what they consider not only a theological but also, ultimately, a judicial grounding to their positions on social questions. When they proclaim that the United States is a ‘Christian nation,’ they are not referring to the percentage of the population that ticks a certain box in a survey or census but to the country’s roots and the intent of the founders.”
• Want to know how much your favorite state employee makes per year? Check out the Texas Tribune’s new database.
Countdown
1 day until early voting begins.
15 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
In what is arguably the buckle on the Conservative Belt of Texas, Republican challenger Ben Bius’ message is clear: Veteran state Sen. Steve Ogden isn’t conservative enough. Austin American-Statesman
Scan the Texas State Directory and you won’t see very many engineers among the 181 members of the Legislature. There are five, to be exact. State Sen. Robert Nichols, 65, a Republican now in his fourth year representing Jacksonville , is on that short list. And that helps explain why his legislative style sometimes comes off as quirky in the insular world of the Capitol. Nichols seems to have this crazy idea that if there’s a problem and you find a rational solution to it, well, then maybe that ought to become the law. Take the looming fiscal train wreck for transportation. Ben Wear
If she becomes governor of Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison would become the oldest person to get that job for the first time. Hutchison, born July 22, 1943, would be 67 come oath-swearing day. Ken Herman
Highways would be bye-ways if voters were in charge of cutting the state budget. With up to a $16 billion budget shortfall facing the state next year, 41 percent of Texans said in a new poll they would make up some of the deficit by slicing highway spending. Dallas Morning News
More Texas voters think unauthorized immigrants should be allowed to stay in the United States — through either a path to citizenship or work visas — than favor deporting them, according to a new Houston Chronicle/San Antonio Express-News poll. Houston Chronicle
Waco is vibrating with a widespread but unconfirmed rumor that Kenneth Starr, the Texas-born lawyer who became nationally known as the independent counsel who ran Bill Clinton to ground, will be named president of Baylor University this week. Texas Tribune
Some days it is hard to be a neophyte far-right candidate in a governor’s race, even in Texas, where Republicans vying for the party’s nomination try to outdo one another to prove their conservative credentials. Debra Medina found that out when she appeared on Glenn Beck’s radio show last week and fumbled a question about whether she agreed with conspiracy theorists who think the Bush administration was involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. New York Times
Everything else
More than 108,000 people packed Cowboys Stadium for the NBA All-Star Game as the East beat the West, 141-139. A defensive struggle, as usual.
Texas A&M hosts top-ranked Kansas tonight in men’s basketball, 8 p.m. on ESPN.
Weekend box office: 1. Valentine’s Day 2. Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief 3. The Wolfman 4. Avatar 5. Dear John.
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Can Medina recover?
Some supporters stick by Medina … New poll shows Perry and White in command … New Hutchison ad
Happy birthday (Saturday) to Sen. Judith Zaffirini and R.G. Ratcliffe of the Houston Chronicle. And on Sunday, to the Statesman’s Asher Price.
Austin weather from News 8 Austin’s Maureen McCann: A few morning showers or pockets of light sleet, then clearing and a bit warmer. High of 52.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Thursday highlights and the day ahead
Turns out there’s a reason why professional politicians are called professionals. Not just anybody can do this stuff.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina was due for a bad day, and boy did she have one Thursday. As you know by now, Medina took a pass when conservative radio host Glenn Beck asked whether she thought the government was involved in the September 2001 attacks on the United States.
You can listen here:
Is Medina done? You could argue that we’re talking about killing something that was already dead. Even at her peak, Medina was well behind Gov. Rick Perry in the polls and remained a longshot candidate. But there is no question that she had a phenomenal January and was the candidate with the most momentum and most buzz in the race.
She certainly lost some votes yesterday. Steve Dillon, who told me last week he decided to support Medina after the first debate, said Thursday he could not support someone “who holds these fringe beliefs,” and he added that he would support Perry. I spoke to Dillon before Medina issued a statement saying she’s never believed the government was involved in the 9/11 attacks, but who knows whether that will lessen the damage.
Many of Medina’s supporters rallied to her defense. Here are a couple of comments supporters have written on her Facebook wall:
“If Glen Beck is not a Neo Con working for a Neo Con Tv Network, why is he always attacking freedom candidates like Ron Paul or Debra Medina. That is the question EVERYONE should be asking.”
” I would rather elect a ‘Truther’ than a liar.”
Paul Davis, a Medina supporter in Austin, said in an e-mail Thursday night, “Debra Medina showed today one of the reasons why I respect her the way I do… she could’ve easily gone the ‘politically correct’ route and said ‘No, I don’t!’ But she was defiant, from the beginning, to his idiotic line of questioning. That woman has courage, honor and conviction!”
One other note before we move on: Aside from all this Beck stuff, our series of profile packages on the major gubernatorial candidate concludes today with three excellent stories, one by Asher Price and two by Corrie MacLaggan. Read about where Medina comes from and her controversial tenure at the helm of the Wharton County Republican Party. You can find those stories, and our entire series, right here.
• New poll out from the Texas Tribune shows more of the same: Gov. Rick Perry and Houston Mayor Bill White headed for a November showdown in the general election.
Keep in mind that the Internet survey was conducted Feb. 1-7 B.B. (Before Beck).
GOP primary: Perry 45, Hutchison 21, Medina 19, Undecided 16. Margin of error: +/- 5.12 percent.
Dem primary: White 50, Shami 11, Undecided 30, Other 9. Margin of error: +/- 6.02 percent.
Hypothetical head-to-head: Perry 44, White 35; Hutchison 43, White 34. Hutchison’s electability argument is gone.
• Hutchison is launching a new ad today.
• Look this morning for a new sales-tax report from the comptroller’s office. Will the bleeding stop?
Countdown
4 days until early voting begins.
18 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
There is an element of truth to Hutchison’s statement. Taxpayers paid a large portion of the cost of the governor’s trip to Las Vegas — the security detail that always travels with him. And while there, Perry attended a dinner for his son. But Hutchison’s statement in the video suggests that state money paid for Perry’s personal travel and that his sole purpose of visiting Sin City was to party — neither of which is accurate. We rate Hutchison’s claim as Barely True. PolitiFact Texas
It’s a spring-like Saturday evening in San Marcos, the winter sun dipping behind rustic two-story buildings on the Hays County Courthouse square. At Café on the Square, across from the courthouse, a congenial crowd awaits the arrival of a former big-city mayor who aspires to be the next governor of Texas. Houston Chronicle
Home foreclosure filings jumped in the Dallas-Fort Worth area again after falling last month, Addison-based Foreclosure Listing Service Inc. said Thursday. Lenders posted 5,548 homes for forced sale in the March auctions, up 30 percent from the same month last year. Dallas Morning News
In the waning hours of a chilly Wednesday night, the North Texas Tea Party’s Blog Warrior and Talking Head — yes, those are their official titles — sit outside Plano City Council candidate Cathy Fang’s office. They grin as they discuss the money they’ll spend on the battle between true conservatives and the “philosophically pliable” in Collin County. “Maybe we just have delusions of grandeur,” says Talking Head Mark Reid. Texas Tribune
Everything else
Winter Olympics opening ceremony, 6:30 p.m. on NBC.
NBA All-Star Game is at Cowboys Stadium on Sunday.
Spurs 111, Denver 92.
No chance Texas is moving to the Big 10, Kirk Bohls says.
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State’s budget shortfall becoming real
Talk of tuition hikes, program cuts and tax increases … Was that Perry Web video truthful? … Polling numbers on the lieutenant governor’s race
Happy birthday to Hays County Democratic Party Chair Katie Bell Moore.
Austin weather from News 8 Austin’s Maureen McCann: Cold with occasional rain. Slight chance for mixed wintry precipitation north and west of Austin. No accumulation expected, but bridges and overpasses may be slick. High of 40.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Wednesday highlights and the day ahead
We have all known for some time that a budget deficit would hit the Legislature in the 2011 session. That’s because lawmakers passed a giant tax cut in 2006 and didn’t reduce spending accordingly — spending has in fact increased. But thanks to the money that has built up in the Rainy Day Fund, and thanks to federal stimulus dollars, the shortfall has been something off in the future that hasn’t fully hit yet.
But a number of reminders that it’s coming presented themselves Wednesday, driven by orders from the state’s leadership that state agencies identify ways to cut spending by 5 percent a year.
“Doctors, dentists and hospitals would see their Medicaid fees trimmed by at least 1 percent under possible budget reductions offered Wednesday by state Health and Human Services Commissioner Tom Suehs. When treating adults, the caregivers would take a 2 percent hit,” Bob Garrett reported in the Dallas Morning News.
Mike Ward reports in this morning’s Statesman that the budget problem has prompted discussions of closing a prison: “Faced with a projected state budget shortfall of $10 billion or more and a Monday deadline for state agencies to come up with cuts amounting to 5 percent of their budgets, prison officials are faced with looking for perhaps as much as $300 million in cuts. Amid the discussions, key Senate and House leaders say they might seek to have public safety agencies exempted from the proposed cuts, but they agree that closing lockups could be on the horizon.”
The University of Houston moved Wednesday toward a 4 percent increase in tuition for its central campus. Some UH campuses are looking at slightly larger increases. “Regents said they are not optimistic about more state funding, especially considering that all state agencies, including public colleges and universities, have been told to submit plans for cutting their budgets by 5 percent. That amounts to $16 million for the UH central campus. ‘More help from the state would be great, but we recognize we’re all in this together,’ said Welcome Wilson Sr., chairman of the UH board of regents. ‘We can’t lay it all on the taxpayers. Everybody’s got to do their part,’” reports Jeannie Kever of the Houston Chronicle.
And batting cleanup, we have the Statesman’s Kate Alexander, who reported on the Postcards blog that a House committee took a look Wednesday at expanding the sales tax: “The sales tax exemptions for bottled water, Internet access, coin-operated machines and more were examined by the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday, but every exemption will be on the table in coming months, said state Rep. Rene Oliveira, the committee chairman.”
There are going to be more of these kinds of stories as state agencies present their plans to reduce spending by 5 percent a year. And here’s the thing about that: When you consider that public education and Medicaid programs are exempt, a 5 percent cut per year is bigger than it sounds for agencies such as the prison system and universities. Making the problem worse is the fact that 5 percent cuts aren’t nearly enough to close the budget cap that Texas is facing. There will have to be additional cuts, or revenue increases, when the Legislature convenes next year.
Is all of this budget trouble manifesting itself too late to do any good for U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison? More on that in a second.
This may actually be a sign of good news: The Dallas Morning News reports that municipal sales tax collections dropped 6 percent in December, as compared to the previous year. That figure is usually pretty close to the overall state figure for sales-tax collections. It’s good news because a 6 percent drop is a much smaller drop than the state has seen in recent months. Still, it’s going to take some hearty gains in the second half of the fiscal year to meet Comptroller Susan Combs’ projection for flat revenue for the year.
• Gov. Rick Perry was talking about immigration on Wednesday. Writes Guillermo Garcia in the San Antonio Express-News, “Contending the federal government has failed to control the U.S.-Mexico border, Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday he’ll begin billing the government the $13.5 million a month that he says it costs the state to incarcerate undocumented people being held on criminal charges. Whether led by a Democrat or Republican president, “there is a massive indifference in Washington to the Texas taxpayer footing the bill for what is clearly a federal responsibility,” Perry said at a campaign stop in San Antonio.”
The concept is not a new one. In 1994, then-Attorney General Dan Morales, a Democrat, sued the federal government to recover the cost of providing services to immigrants.
• The Perry campaign circulated a Web video last week that chastised Hutchison for taking taxpayer-funded flights when cheaper commercial options were available. The attack was half true, the PolitiFact Texas team found.
• Our series of extended looks at the gubernatorial campaigns continues this morning with Hutchison. Asher Price has an excellent story about where she came from, plus we look at her record in the Senate and her style. Find those stories, and our entire series on the candidates, here.
Poll watch
From the Texas Credit Union League Poll of Texas Primary Voters: The Republican primary stands at Perry 49, Hutchison 27, Medina 19. The Democratic primary stands at White 51, Shami 19 and others in single digits.
Here’s something interesting from that poll: Among Democratic voters, for lieutenant governor, Linda Chavez-Thompson gets 25 percent, Ronnie Earle gets 18 percent, Marc Katz gets 8 percent. But the clear winner is Undecided, which at 49 percent, might win without a runoff.
Is Sarah Palin qualified to be president? 71 percent of Americans say no, 26 percent say yes in a new poll from the Washington Post and ABC News.
Stat of the day
Federal funds used in the state budget have grown from $22.3 billion in 1994-95 to $65.5 billion today — an increase of 294 percent. That growth has been faster than the growth of state funds and the overall growth of the budget. Source: Texas Public Policy Foundation
Countdown
5 days until early voting begins.
19 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
Hank Gilbert and Kinky Friedman are campaigning for the Democratic nomination for agricultural commissioner. But to hear each of them talk politics, you would think they were still running for governor. Austin American-Statesman
University of North Texas President Gretchen Bataille announced Wednesday that she will step down effective Feb. 28. Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Ex-U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson died yesterday. He led a life of widely acclaimed accomplishments and self-acknowledged excesses. They once made a movie about him. They tend not to make movies about folks who led accomplishment-free lives of moderation. Charlie was movie material. I remember, as a rookie reporter new to the mysteries of East Texas, being befuddled about how a hard-drinking, fast-living congressman could be so beloved in a Bible-belt district anchored in a dry county. Ken Herman
The snows that obliterated Washington in the past week interfered with many scheduled meetings, but they did not prevent the delivery of one important political message: Take Sarah Palin seriously. Her lengthy Saturday night keynote address to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville and her debut on the Sunday morning talk show circuit with Fox News’ Chris Wallace showed off a public figure at the top of her game — a politician who knows who she is and how to sell herself, even with notes on her palm. David Broder
Everything else
Women’s basketball: Texas 74, Colorado 50
Men’s basketball: Baylor 55, Nebraska 53
Duke 64, North Carolina 54
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Poll: White well ahead of Shami
Poll shows White has big lead on Shami … A piece of Texas history found in Arlington … The Truth-O-Meter gives Shami a positive review
Happy birthday to former congressional candidate Dan Grant.
Austin weather: Could be some rain in the afternoon. High of 44.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Tuesday highlights and the day ahead
As you’ve seen by now, the North Carolina-based Democratic outfit Public Policy Polling released a poll Tuesday that put the Texas governor’s race at Perry 39, Hutchison 28, Medina 24. If this poll is accurate, the Medina surge has continued, and since the last Rasmussen poll, she has taken more from Perry than Hutchison. Rasmussen showed her taking more from Hutchison.
Brad Watson of WFAA in Dallas takes a further look at the numbers.
But here’s something that didn’t get much discussion: The group shows Bill White leading Farouk Shami, 49 percent to 19 percent. Assuming that a good amount of the undecided voters break his way, or stay home, White looks to be in good position in his effort to win the seven-person Democratic race without a runoff.
The polls were conducted Feb. 4-7, before the Democratic debate. Both the Republican and Democratic polls had small sample sizes and margins of error of almost 5 percent.
• Farouk Shami had some head-scratchers during Monday’s Democratic debate, but the PolitiFact Texas team found at least one of his statements to be true: Houston is the third-most toxic city in the United States.
• Ken Herman, Corrie MacLaggan and I came across something of a Texas political artifact as we headed home from Monday night’s Democratic debate in Fort Worth. Take a watch:
• We pick back up our series about major gubernatorial candidates today with a look at Gov. Rick Perry. You can read those stories and the ones we wrote last week about the Democratic candidates — and look at some fun photo galleries — right here.
Poll watch
Republicans have significantly narrowed the gap with Democrats on who is trusted to deal with the country’s problems and have sharply reduced several of President Obama’s main political advantages, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Countdown
6 days until early voting begins.
20 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
Before being ordered by Gov. Rick Perry not to compete for a chunk of the $4.3 billion “Race to the Top” federal grants for public schools, staffers at the Texas Education Agency had put in more than 800 hours preparing an application. Inquiring minds, including my colleague Ericka Mellon, wanted to look at what our employees had proposed and filed requests for copies of the draft under the Texas Public Information Act. But TEA Commissioner Robert Scott, a Perry loyalist, ordered agency attorneys to appeal to the attorney general, asking that the work be declared a state secret. Rick Casey
When Bob and Jane Cull returned to court last week in their decade-long legal battle against homebuilder Bob Perry, it was like starting all over again. Jane Cull’s “nightmare,” as she calls it, has been bouncing from court to court for years. Wayne Slater
Texas businesses that hire unemployed workers in coming months will be eligible to get $2,000 incentive payments designed to spur the still-struggling economy under a new program unveiled Tuesday. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Texas Workforce Commission officials formally launched the “Texas Back to Work” program in hopes that the Lone Star State — which is still relatively strong compared with other states, economically speaking — can be the first to emerge from the recession if new jobs can be created. Austin American-Statesman
Unarmed Predator drones — sought by Gov. Rick Perry to patrol the border — have been flying over the nation’s Southwest border for the past two years and more are expected, U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes said Tuesday. Perry, a Republican running for his third full term, asked the Defense Department to send one of the drones to Texas during a Monday campaign stop. “It’s nothing new,” said Reyes, a Democrat from El Paso. “The governor is well aware of the stuff we’re doing.” El Paso Times
Insurance giant Allstate Corp. plans to open a customer information center that will employ 600 full-time workers in San Antonio…The new jobs will pay about $13 to $15 an hour, or about $27,000 to $31,200 annually. In addition, employees can earn annual bonuses of $2,000 to $10,000. The average annual wage in San Antonio is $39,000. San Antonio Express-News
Area university officials are proposing tuition increases from 3.95 percent to 5 percent for the next school year, and some schools may increase costs the following year. Fort Worth Star-Telegram
If you’re not tuned into the three-way GOP primary to replace retiring ten-term State Rep. Brian McCall of Plano, you’ll be sorry. The race has it all: the high price of political ambition, reruns of a classic campaign ad, and a bikini-clad beauty — plus a fight over ideological bonafides that’s very much of the moment. Texas Tribune
Inside the administration, in other words, Biden doesn’t have the class-clown reputation that he has on the late-night comedy shows. White House aides speak of him respectfully and regularly mention his role when decisions are made. Among other things, he has emerged as the special assistant for body English — sent to Capitol Hill, Poland and beyond — when the administration needs somebody to hold a hand and show empathy. David Brooks
Everything else
Mavericks 91, Denver 127
Rockets 66, Miami 99
Corrie MacLaggan’s North Carolina Tar Heels meet Deirdre Delisi’s Duke Blue Devils tonight at 8 p.m. on ESPN. I learned something very important about this game last year: Don’t assume that Deirdre watched it live and then text her afterward to harass her about a Duke loss.
For those of you whose interests are right here in the Big 12, Baylor meets Nebraska at 8 p.m. on ESPN 2.
Letterman: “I think somebody monkeyed around with the brakes on my Prius. I’ll tell you why: they work perfectly.”
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In debate, White aims for November
Democrat looks to general-election audience … Barney Frank joins our governor’s race … What happened to the crowd in Grant Park?
Happy birthday to Michael Dole, who works for Sen. Judith Zaffirini.
Austin weather from News 8 Austin’s Maureen McCann: Breezy with morning showers and clouds. Cooler with a high of 53.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Monday highlights and the day ahead
I’ve got some quick thoughts on last night’s debate before I get out of North Texas and head back to Austin. The first thought is, be sure you read the story that Corrie MacLaggan and I wrote for this morning’s Statesman.
Bill White was clearly trying to introduce himself to a general-election audience. He repeatedly talked about trying to build consensus at the Capitol, and he sought to downplay the importance of hot-button issues such as abortion. He also got something of a gift from moderators when he did not get the same question that Shami got about whether the state’s ban on same-sex marriage should be overturned (which is basically politically impossible in the foreseeable future). White positioned himself in the political center by saying he supports the death penalty and by showing reluctance to raising the gas tax.
White did what many Democrats and Republicans do when asked how to solve the looming budget shortfall — he ducked it by saying the budget should be scrubbed. And he had one minor flub, when he said the number of people in group insurance should be decreased, when he obviously meant increased (just to be sure, I checked with his campaign).
I actually thought White’s best line of the night came in the post-debate news conference. He asked why Gov. Rick Perry, in trying to distance himself from now-scrapped expansions at the Governor’s Mansion, would say he was leaving the Mansion plans to the experts, but then he replaced the experts on the state’s Forensic Science Commission as they were approaching a critical hearing on the Cameron Todd Willingham case. In other words, why does Perry listen to experts on expanding his home but not on questions of science and justice?
And then there was Shami. He stood in there and punched away, and he made it out without killing his candidacy. Some voters may have found him refreshing in that Debra Medina sort of way.
But he lacked Medina’s command of state issues, and at times he was all over the place. He said he wants to cut taxes. He said the state needs to bring in more revenue. He said he wants to make community college free. He said he wants to do away with electricity bills (although I’m told this is not as outrageous an idea as it sounds). He said that if the state does not create 100,000 jobs within two years, he will pay the state $10 million, which would be a rather small drop in the bucket for the state budget. Also unexpected was his pronouncement that abortion should be legal only for the first 60 to 90 days of pregnancy.
Here’s the post-debate response from Perry spokesman Mark Miner: “Governor Perry is the only candidate in this race with a proven record of creating jobs, cutting taxes, and upholding fiscally conservative values that have made the Texas economy resilient during a national economic downturn. During this campaign, Gov. Perry has pledged to use his experienced leadership and Texas values to continue the forward momentum our state is experiencing by creating jobs, improving education, and providing the infrastructure needed to meet the challenges of a state that is growing by more than 1,000 people a day.”
• Barney Frank, one of those Washington Democrats that Republicans love to hate, has entered the Texas governor’s race in a supporting role. In a new ad, the Perry campaign likens U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, whom he characterizes as a big-spender, to Frank. In fact, it points out that Hutchison was runner-up to Frank in Citizens Against Government Waste’s Pork Barrel Spender of the Year. It is important to note, however, that this distinction was based on Internet voting, and Team Perry encouraged supporters to go to the group’s Web site and push Hutchison as a big spender.
Watch below:
• One of the best moments for Debra Medina in the second GOP debate came when she knocked Perry for a spending increase in the executive branch. But was her claim true? Turns out it was half true, the PolitiFact Texas team found.
• The Washington Post has a really interesting story this morning. A year after Obama’s inauguration, the newspaper seeks to answer what has happened to those who were so enthusiastic, so emotional about electing him in 2008: “In a series of conversations before and after the State of the Union address, fervent Obama voters and former campaign staffers said they still are committed to the president and support his policies. But many are experiencing what generations of the politically passionate have learned over the years: Campaigning is fun; watching the person you’ve elected engage in the long slog of governing, less so. Some are working for his ideas. Some have struggled to find a way to engage. And for others, their passion was deep but brief. When Obama took office, they went back to their lives.”
Poll watch
For the first time since he took office, a majority of independents disapprove of how President Barack Obama is handling his job, according to a Marist poll.
Countdown
7 days until early voting begins.
21 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
Conservative discontent has spurred a challenger to a Republican congressman representing Central Texas who has not had a primary opponent in 16 years. Austin American-Statesman
And there they were, together again for the first time at a televised debate. The rare: A wealthy, Palestinian-born hair care magnate running for governor of Texas. And the even rarer: A Democrat with an actual chance of being elected governor of Texas. Ken Herman
Gov. Rick Perry called for the use of unarmed Predator drones to patrol the Texas-Mexico border on Monday as he tried to shore up his border security credentials in a campaign stop at the Irving Police Association Hall. Dallas Morning News
In recent days, Houston Black American Democrats have raised eyebrows by hitting up endorsees for thousands of dollars to support the group’s get-out-the vote efforts. Candidates for county-wide races are asked to shell out $2,500. It’s $3,500 for statewide candidates. Lisa Falkenberg
State troopers turned in hundreds of error-riddled accident reports in 2007 and 2008, according to an internal audit report compiled by the Texas Department of Public Safety last year. Texas Tribune
If Eric Johnson goes on to win the District 100 race for the Texas House, he will have done so because of his courage. Gromer Jeffers Jr.
This weekend’s Tea Party convention did little to unite or advance the fractious populist movement, but it did mark the debut of Sarah Palin as the movement’s spokeswoman, if not leader, and perhaps the beginning of a new phase in her political career. Politico
When Republicans take President Obama up on his invitation to hash out their differences over health care this month, they will carry with them a fairly well-developed set of ideas intended to make health insurance more widely available and affordable, by emphasizing tax incentives and state innovations, with no new federal mandates and only a modest expansion of the federal safety net. New York Times
Toyota says it is recalling about 437,000 Prius and other hybrid vehicles worldwide to fix brake problems — the latest in a string of embarrassing safety lapses at the world’s largest automaker. Associated Press
Everything else
Top-ranked Kansas marched into the Erwin Center on Monday and beat the reeling Longhorns, 80-68. Kirk Bohls said Rick Barnes needs help: “What he has now is barely a Top 25 team despite Top 10 — and some might say Top 5 — talent. Some 24 games into the season, Barnes’ team is searching for any semblance of consistency and well-defined roles beyond the free-lancing, if explosive, J’Covan Brown, who went off for 26 of his 28 points in the second half.
Mavericks 127, Golden State 117.
Spurs 89, Lakers 101.
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Crowd goes wild for Palin
For Palin, a welcome as big as Texas … KBH team mocks Perry team in spot … Democratic debate tonight
Austin weather from News 8 Austin’s Maureen McCann: Cloudy with scattered showers likely. High of 63.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Weekend highlights and the day ahead
The biggest rock star in the Texas governor’s race is neither Texan nor running for governor. Discuss!
(It helps to have watched “Saturday Night Live” in the early nineties if you want to get the jokes around here.)
The rock star of the weekend was Sarah Palin, who stumped with Governor Rick Perry in suburban Houston on Sunday before a crowd of roughly 8,000. You can read all about it in my story from the print edition of this morning’s Statesman.
Also, before you go any further, be sure to watch Ken Herman’s video from the Palin event.
Some additional quick impressions from the event and conversations with those in the crowd:
This was about as close as you’ll see to a Hollywood-like event in a Texas governor’s race. Perry and Palin entered down a center aisle like a couple of fighters walking to the ring, the lights turned down and George Strait’s “Heartland” blaring through the speakers. (The song was a welcome break from the overplayed “God Bless Texas.”) Team Perry was crowing about the size of the crowd as compared to the much smaller audiences that came out for Hutchison’s kickoff and her Houston event with Dick Cheney (neither of which was on a weekend). Perry and Palin didn’t fill the joint, but the joint was pretty big.
The VIPs on the stage included Texas GOP chairwoman Cathie Adams, former chair Tina Benkiser, David Barton and Railroad Commissioners Michael Williams and Victor Carrillo. Palin’s young daugher Piper was also on stage. The juxtaposition of Benkiser and Ted Nugent, who played the national anthem on his guitar right in front of her, was quite something.
This was of course a Perry crowd, but several people I talked to in the audience said they wished Hutchison would just stay in the Senate. Could there be a critical number of Republicans who vote for Perry because they want Hutchison to stay?
“We need the Republican seat in the Senate,” said Jerusha Fields of Katy.
Her father, James Simon, was there also and is a big Perry fan. But, interestingly, he said he would not vote for Perry because he believes Perry allowed for the execution of an innocent man in Cameron Todd Willingham, who was put to death in 2004. Major questions have been raised about the investigation that led to Willingham’s conviction.
Back to Hutchison. Kara Carroll of Plano said she wished Hutchison wasn’t running. “If she was the only one running, it would be different. But I don’t think she should divide the party,” Carroll said.
Now would be a good time to point out that Palin also said over the weekend that contested Republican primaries are good for the party, and to point out that Palin herself took on an incumbent in the Republican primary in Alaska.
Nonetheless, Team Perry put together an impressive event that will likely dwarf any other rally in this gubernatorial campaign.
• Hutchison turned some heads during the Super Bowl with the Austin debut of a new TV ad that pokes fun at the Perry campaign team. The ad features three fictional Perry staffers: Mark (Miner?), Rob (Johnson?) and Mike (who is Mike?)
Watch it here:
The ad is a pretty good little spoof for those of us in the Austin bubble. But will it make any sense outside of Austin? On my way from the Palin event to Fort Worth for tonight’s Democratic debate, I was watching the Super Bowl in Houston when the commercial aired in Austin. (I know because I quickly got calls and texts.) The spot didn’t air in Houston at that time. The commercial slips in some nice licks about the Perry administration seeking federal bailouts and Perry writing a letter the day of the Wall Street bailout asking Congress to approve a financial rescue plan. Kind of makes you wonder why Hutchison didn’t hit those issues in her earlier spots.
• One more video. Remember on Friday how I posted the Perry video knocking Hutchison for the taxpayer money spent on travel costs. The Hutchison campaign produced its own making fun of what it calls Perry’s “life of luxury.” Here it is:
• The first and likely only televised debate of the Democratic primary for governor is tonight at 7 p.m. For a good preview of the debate, you can listen to the Statesman’s W. Gardner Selby and Ken Herman and KUT’s Ian Crawford in the Texas Political Parlor.
Very interesting to see what Bill White does tonight. Does he try to ignore Farouk Shami and aim his fire directly at Gov. Rick Perry? White appears to be on his way to the Democratic nomination, so his No. 1 objective has got to be to make it through the night without major gaffes. As for Shami, he is entirely untested in this format. Can he talk about anything other than job creation? He’s got to find a way to knock White off his game. Won’t be easy.
Check out our preview from the print edition to get ready for the debate and find out where you can watch/listen to it.
• Perry said in the second Republican debate that his 2007 order for school girls to get the HPV vaccine was not mandatory. The PolitiFact Texas staff looked into this claim and found it to be “barely true.”
Countdown
8 days until early voting begins.
22 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
A call to eliminate property taxes might resonate with many taxpayers, beleaguered by the demands for more money from schools, cities, counties, emergency districts and more when their wallets are thin. But critics say the freedom Medina promises would come at a huge cost to local taxpayers because they would lose a critical element of control over the governments closest to them. Austin American-Statesman
Lawmakers in firearm-friendly Texas are embroiled in a debate over how to make the state Capitol safer: get rid of guns or encourage even more. Wall Street Journal
The two main Democratic candidates for governor are punching hard. But Bill White and Farouk Shami are attacking Rick Perry as much as each other - particularly on education. Dallas Morning News
She wanted to practice law. Instead, she became a television reporter, then one of the people reporters cover. But ask U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison about her life’s turning points — as we have all the major candidates for governor — and she starts with her 8-year-olds. Peggy Fikac
Now, questions about who might replace him aren’t idle: Wentworth is a contender for chancellor of the Texas State University System, for which he was a regent in the 1980s. Greg Jefferson
Texas has no rules about who can perform laser teeth-whitening. Holmes is a licensed cosmetologist, but she doesn’t need any type of license to operate the light machine. And because there are no state rules, if anyone complains about teeth-whitening practices at a clinic, spa or any other place (like a mall kiosk), state officials have no choice but to turn them away. Fort Worth Star-Telegram
President Obama said Sunday that he would convene a half-day bipartisan health care session at the White House to be televised live this month, a high-profile gambit that will allow Americans to watch as Democrats and Republicans try to break their political impasse. New York Times
Everything else
Head Coach Sean Payton made a number of gutsy calls — most notably an onside kick to begin the second half — and the Saints won the Super Bowl, 31-17. Austin’s own Drew Brees was a deserving MVP.
Women’s basketball: Texas 81, Texas Tech 51
The reeling Texas men’s team hosts top-ranked Kansas tonight at 8 on ESPN.
Weekend box office: 1. “Dear John” 2. “Avatar” 3. “From Paris With Love”
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Here comes Sarah Palin
Controversy precedes Palin’s visit … Perry team knocks Hutchison on travel … Farouk Shami’s pants are on fire
Happy early birthday to Justin W. Williamson (Saturday), Southwestern Class of ‘12, and Sherry Sylvester of Texans for Lawsuit Reform (Sunday).
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
BREAKING: Nationally, for the month of January, the country lost 20,000 jobs. And the number of jobs lost in December was adjusted upward, from 85,000 to 150,000. For January, unemployment rate fell from 10.1 percent to 9.7 percent, Erin Burnett reports on MSNBC.
Thursday highlights and the weekend ahead
Sarah Palin’s appearance at a Sunday campaign rally with Gov. Rick Perry in suburban Houston on Sunday could be the single biggest event of the 2010 Republican race for governor. This is not a campaign marked by big crowds or raucous events for any candidate, but the Palin event could well draw several thousand people just a few hours before the Super Bowl.
But the run-up to the event has not been good for Team Perry. After Palin harshly criticized White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for his use of the word “retarded,” it came to light that Perry strategist Dave Carney has used the same word. And aging rocker Ted Nugent, who is going to perform at the Perry/Palin event, has quite a history of using the word also. Aman Batheja has a good wrap-up of all this today in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Here’s something that has received less attention: Perry has built his campaign around criticizing Kay Bailey Hutchison’s vote for the financial rescue package in the fall of 2008. But while she was running for vice president and afterward, Palin voiced support for that package also.
In October 2008, Palin told CNN, “Now, as for the economic bailout provisions and the measures that have already been taken, it is a time of crisis and government did have to step in playing an appropriate role to shore up the housing market to make sure that we’re thawing out some of the potentially frozen credit lines and credit markets, government did have to step in there.”
Then after the election, in November 2008, Palin had this exchange with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer:
BLITZER: What about the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry? Was that the right thing to do with hindsight, based on what you know right now, or the wrong thing to do?
PALIN: I still believe it was the right thing to do to be able to propose this rescue package, certainly in the home mortgage industry, because with foreclosures up 71 percent compared to where we were last year on foreclosures, this is bad ultimately for our entire economy. And it doesn’t do any neighborhood, or any community, any state, any good to see the rate of foreclosures that we have. So with home mortgages and overall with the general bailout plan, yes, I think it was the right thing to do. The federal government had to take some action. But it cannot be assumed again that taxpayers can be looked to for all of the bailouts as more and more corporations, companies, entities come forward with their hand out for government to continue to bail.
Brad Watson of WFAA in Dallas asked Perry about Palin’s bailout support a couple of weeks ago. Here is Watson’s story:
Will be interesting to see if the Hutchison bailout vote is part of the critique that Perry and Palin offer on Sunday.
• Here’s the message that Team Perry will push today: Hutchison has spent thousands of taxpayer dollars to reimburse lobbyists, corporations and donors for providing use of their planes. The Perry campaign also says Hutchison has often billed taxpayers for private planes when she could have used commercial air.
Here’s a video the Perry campaign has put together on all this:
• PolitiFact Texas gave Democratic gubernatorial candidate Farouk Shami a “Pants on Fire” rating Thursday for his claim that former Houston Mayor Bill White “is discriminating. He’s taking jobs from African Americans and giving them to his friends.”
Also, while campaigning in San Antonio on Thursday, Shami took offense to the fact that White mentions in his television spot that he was born in San Antonio. “I take that as a racist comment,” Shami said, according to The Associated Press. White spokeswoman Katy Bacon called the Shami assertion “ridiculous.”
Stat of the day
Texas has spent $3.7 million to weatherize just 47 homes through December under a program set up by Congress a year ago in economic stimulus legislation. This amounts to a taxpayer cost of $78,000 per home. Source: Texas Watchdog
Countdown
11 days until early voting begins.
25 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
Like much of the rest of the nation, Texas has gotten tougher on teen drivers in recent years making them prove they are staying in school, restricting their late-night trips and limiting how many other kids they can have in their cars. Now, Gov. Rick Perry says he wants to bump up the requirements to reduce the number of high-school dropouts in Texas. Austin American-Statesman
For 2010, however, Rose faces a first in his political career: an opponent in the Democratic primary, the winner of which will face Republican businessman Jason Isaac in the November election. Next month, Rose squares off against Andrew Backus, a Driftwood hydrogeologist and rental property owner and manager. Backus is also a candidate with a political ax to grind against Rose. “I’m running because of my personal experience trying to deal with (Rose) on groundwater issues and the disingenuousness I’ve experienced with him on this issue,” Backus said. Austin American-Statesman
About a month after filing a $58,000 tax lien against state Rep. Charles “Doc” Anderson, R-Waco, for unpaid personal income taxes, the Internal Revenue Service took further action against the veterinarian for failing to pay taxes withheld from employees’ paychecks for the final two quarters of 2008. Waco Tribune-Herald
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has blasted Gov. Rick Perry in recent debates and television ads as driven by the desires of lobbyists, but at least 23 former Hutchison aides have gone onto lucrative lobbying careers in Washington, according to Senate records. Dallas Morning News
The Texas Department of Public Safety is planning to use federal stimulus dollars that Gov. Rick Perry begrudgingly accepted from Washington to plug a hole in the border security budget. Texas Tribune
The Texas Ethics Commission fined state Rep. Abel Herrero $2,800 for improperly reporting his political spending in filings made between 2006 and 2008. The Robstown Democrat was the last of seven people fined for violations of campaign finance laws by the commission in January after hearing complaints at its Dec. 2 meeting in Austin. Texas Watchdog
The president of Toyota apologized at a hastily arranged news conference Friday night for the quality problems that led to the recall of more than nine million vehicles worldwide, and pledged the Japanese automaker would soon announce steps to address brake problems on the 2010 Prius. New York Times
Everything else
Portland 96, Spurs 93
I really don’t have a good feel for who’s going to win the Super Bowl, but I will go ahead and predict that the Colts prevail 31-27.
New in theaters: Dear John, From Paris with Love, The Yes Men Fix the World.
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Shami plays electability card against White
Shami uses familiar line … New Hutchison ad hits Perry hard … One lawmaker still supporting Hodge for re-election
Austin weather from News 8 Austin’s Maureen McCann: Occasional rain, letting up late in the day. Cool with a high around 50.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Wednesday highlights and the day ahead
Democrat Farouk Shami’s campaign sent out an e-mail Wednesday night titled, “Attention Democrats: Bill White Can’t Win in November.”
The message cited head-to-head questions in the latest Rasmussen poll that showed White, largely considered the Democratic frontrunner for governor, trailing hypothetical matchups with the three Republican candidates.
A few points to remember here: Yes, it appears this is going to be a tough year for Democrats, but White has hardly begun to mount a full-force campaign for general election voters. The poll was conducted the same day that White’s first TV ad in the gubernatorial race hit the airwaves. I’d also point out that polls conducted around this time last year showed U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison with a major lead on Gov. Rick Perry. And as we all know, that’s not how things stand today. So let’s not get too excited about polls conducted well before a race begins.
Also, the Shami release included this line from Shami himself: “It is time to end politics as usual. This poll is proof positive that the Texas Democratic establishment couldn’t lead a silent prayer, much less designate our party’s standard bearer.”
“Couldn’t lead a silent prayer” is a good line. It was especially good when Chris Bell used it over and over again, in regard to Perry, in 2006. With all due respect to the former congressman, any irony in the fact that a guy making an electability argument is channeling Chris Bell?
• Hutchison has a new ad out, and those who say she hasn’t taken the fight directly to Perry enough could like this one. It highlights the movement between Perry’s office and the lobby. Watch it here.
Or, here’s the ad itself:
• State Rep. Terri Hodge, D-Dallas, entered a guilty plea on a tax-evasion charge Wednesday, ending her pursuit of elected office. She pledged to never seek public office again, and the Dallas Monring News has the story.
A number of Dallas-area members of the Legislature who had endorsed Hodge publicly switched Wednesday and backed Eric Johnson, the only Democrat actively seeking the nomination (no Republican signed up). But Rep. Barbara Mallory Caraway, D-Dallas, told Johnson on Wednesday that she still supports Hodge. Even though her deal with prosecutors requires her to never seek public office again.
• CNN reports that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who is coming to Texas this weekend to campaign with Perry, condemned language allegedly used by Perry’s chief strategist, Dave Carney.
Hutchison campaign manager Terry Sullivan says that Carney, in a conference call about the debates, said during a debate-negotiating session that it was “retarded” that a candidate’s holding room be in a separate building from the debate itself. Palin offered a harsh rebuke recently when it was reported that White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel used the same term.
Palin spokesman Meg Stapleton condemned the language as “disrespectful,” but did not say that Carney should lose his job.
“While it seems few can comment on the veracity of the conversation, Gov. Palin believes crude and demeaning name calling at the expense of others is disrespectful,” Stapleton told CNN in an e-mail.
Countdown
12 days until early voting begins.
26 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
This isn’t the governor’s race we thought we were going to get. The GOP primary between Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison was supposed to be a clash of the two biggest political titans in our state, a years-in-the-making fight for the soul of the Republican Party. But the insurgent candidacy of political activist Debra Medina has fundamentally changed the race. Austin American-Statesman
What stands out about Hodge is that her price was so pathetically cheap. In exchange for her endorsement of lucrative tax credits for their housing projects, Hodge let developers Brian and Cheryl Potashnik pay her rent and utilities. They bought her new carpeting. It came to about $27,000. Hodge pleaded guilty Wednesday to not reporting the income on her federal tax return, there not being an official tax form for the declaration of sleazy graft. Jacquielynn Floyd
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood blamed Texas officials Wednesday for the state’s failure to win federal aid for a high-speed rail system linking its major cities. Houston Chronicle
Rarely do Texas senators try to trade in their Capitol Hill clout to become governor of the Lone Star State. Sam Houston made the switch in 1859. Sen. Price Daniel did it in 1957. That’s the entire list. Half a century later, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is hoping to follow in the footsteps of those two Texas legends. But she is learning that her skills in the capital’s corridors of power have been a mixed blessing in the current Republican gubernatorial primary race against incumbent Rick Perry and conservative insurgent Debra Medina. Houston Chronicle
Everything else
ESPN ranks the 2010 college football recruiting classes: 1. Florida 2. Texas 3. Alabama 4. Auburn 5. Oklahoma. Texas A&M came in at 17.
Mavericks 110, Golden State 101.
Spurs 115, Sacramento 113.
Men’s basketball: Texas A&M beat Missouri, Baylor beat Iowa State.
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Signs of trouble for Hutchison
Rasmussen poll shows Perry in mid-40s … Is Medina peaking? … Medina hooks up to the Truth-O-Meter
Austin weather: Chilly and breezy and it’s going to rain — heavily at times. High of 50.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Tuesday highlights and the day ahead
By now you’ve probably heard about the Rasmussen poll released late Tuesday afternoon. Conducted Monday among voters who say they’re likely to take part in the Republican primary, it showed 44 percent for Gov. Rick Perry, 29 percent for U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, 16 percent for Debra Medina and 11 percent undecided. As compared to the Rasmussen poll taken two weeks ago, Perry is up a point, Hutchison is down four points and Medina is up four points.
While there are legitimate questions to be asked about an auto-dial poll like Rasmussen, these numbers are consistent with what I’ve heard from some operatives (including some who don’t work for Perry), and it is instructive to look at this Rasmussen poll compared to previous Rasmussen polls.
It is also important to look at the poll in this context: it comes after a period in which Hutchison has spent more money than Perry. She spent $3.4 million in the first three weeks of January, Perry spent $1.9 million. But Rasmussen shows that voters’ view of her is increasingly unfavorable.
In the Rasmussen poll conducted Nov. 11, 75 percent of likely Republican primary voters said their view of Hutchison was very favorable or somewhat favorable, whereas 23 percent said their view of Hutchison was very unfavorable or somewhat unfavorable.
In the Rasmussen poll conducted Monday, 67 percent of likely Republican primary voters said their view of Hutchison was very favorable or somewhat favorable, whereas 31 percent said their view of Hutchison was very unfavorable or somewhat unfavorable.
Perry’s favorable/unfavorable number has improved from 75/24 in November to 80/19 on Monday.
Medina’s favorable/unfavorable number was 50/29 in Monday’s poll, with 21 percent of voters still not sure about her. Her favorable/unfavorable number was not tested in November.
Obviously, Medina is having a greater impact on the race than we expected, and could well push it into a runoff. However, this question remains: How much higher can she go? There won’t be any more televised debates. She doesn’t have the money to mount a serious advertising campaign on television. At this point, Medina is relying on buzz, media attention and whatever kind of grass-roots organization her campaign can afford to build. The more Republican primary voters see Medina, the more they like her. I’m just not sure they’re going to see her much more.
I spent several hours last night talking to Medina supporters around the state, and I’ll have much more about what they said in my column in Thursday’s print edition. My general impression, and this is entirely unscientific, is that some of Hutchison’s punches are landing on Perry. But those attacks, whether about toll roads or property rights or the HPV vaccine, are pushing some voters toward Medina instead of Hutchison. Anti-incumbent voters see both Perry and Hutchison as incumbents, even though Hutchison is running for a job she’s never had. Medina impressed in the debates, while Perry’s demeanor in the first debate particularly turned off some voters.
Also, the Perry ad that shows Hutchison saying she didn’t want to write a blank check for $700 billion, then shows her voting for the TARP rescue package, was mentioned again and again by voters who said they’re not backing Hutchison.
Anyways, more on that in print tomorrow.
• Our series of stories on the leading candidates for governor continues today with a look at Democrat Bill White. As with all of the candidates, you can read about where he came from, his record in law and government and his personal style. All of these stories, and some very interesting and fun photo galleries can be found by clicking on this link, and, again, I highly encourage you to see the great presentation put together by our photographers and designers in the print edition.
• The PolitiFact Texas team today examines Medina’s assertion that a prank phone call caused “400 children to be taken from their parents… without warrant.” The staff found her claim to be half-true. Find out why.
• Trouble continues for Rep. Terri Hodge, D-Dallas, who is trying to fend off lawyer Eric Johnson in the March primary. I reported last month that Hodge’s end-of-year campaign finance report appeared to overstate her cash on hand, which Hodge reported as $49,000. A corrected report shows her cash on hand at that point was just $12,000.
• Politico’s Mike Allen has an interesting scoop in this morning’s Playbook: “A politically diverse group of bloggers, commentators, techies and politicos this morning will launch an online campaign urging President Barack Obama and the GOP leaders of Congress to hold regular, televised Question Time, modeled on Friday’s Baltimore exchange. Original endorsers include Grover Norquist and Eli Pariser, Joe Trippi and Mark McKinnon, Markos Moulitsas and Ed Morrissey, and many more, including Ari Melber, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Ana Marie Cox and Nate Silver. The steering committee is made up of Micah Sifry, David Corn, Mike Moffo, Mindy Finn, Jon Henke and Glenn Reynolds.”
Countdown
13 days until early voting begins.
27 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
While Debra Medina’s campaign fund-raising cannot compete with the big-money machines of her Republican primary competitors, she has smoked them over the past month in terms of contributions from small donors. Austin American-Statesman
John Bradley, the controversial district attorney appointed by Gov. Rick Perry last fall to head the Texas Forensic Science Commission, did score one victory in Harlingen on Friday while presiding over his first meeting. Rick Casey
Texas could face a $16 billion shortfall in its next two-year budget. The federal spending plan the White House laid out on Monday probably won’t make a dent in that - though Texas and other cash-strapped states could get help later this year. Dallas Morning News
Debra Medina never made it inside. Nor did she deliver a speech. The neophyte candidate, whose demeanor combines the no-nonsense efficiency of an experienced nurse with the zeal of former independent presidential candidate H. Ross Perot, spent nearly three hours talking politics and policy with the people in the parking lot. Without the traditional campaign handler to hustle her along, she talked about property taxes, home schooling, school vouchers, abortion, decriminalizing drugs — talked until most everyone there had spoken to her about whatever was on their minds. Houston Chronicle
Lunch at Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s campaign office in Austin was on the tab of rival Rick Perry’s campaign Tuesday. But the delivered platter of pulled pork sandwiches was no friendly gesture. It was instead a devilish nod to Hutchison’s designation as runner-up in the 2009 “Porker of the Year” poll released Monday by the Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington-based watchdog group that tracks and criticizes budget “pork.” Dallas Morning News
The Cactus Cafe, an iconic music venue and bar in the student union of the University of Texas, could find a new home at the alumni center on campus. Austin American-Statesman
The nation’s top two defense officials called Tuesday for an end to the 16-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, a major step toward allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the United States military for the first time. New York Times
Everything else
Today is National Signing Day in college football. As of Jan. 20, Scouts Inc. ranked the top five recruiting classes like this: 1. Florida 2. Texas 3. Alabama 4. Georgia 5. Auburn. (Texas the only non-SEC school in the top five!) Oklahoma was ranked sixth and Texas A&M 14th.
Rockets 119, Golden State 97
Men’s basketball: BYU 76, TCU 56
Texas A&M plays Missouri in men’s basketball tonight, 8 p.m. on ESPNU.
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Who will vote in the GOP primary?
Campaigns spar over turnout … Hutchison hooked up to the Truth-O-Meter … Statesman kicks off series on gubernatorial candidates
Happy birthday to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn
Austin weather: There’s a 30 percent chance of rain today, 40 percent chance tonight and then it’s really supposed to rain Wednesday. Temperatures won’t get much past 50 this afternoon.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Monday highlights and the day ahead
BREAKING: Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow in Pennsylvania this Groundhog Day morning. Six more weeks of winter.
• Speaking to the Texas Farm Bureau yesterday in San Marcos, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said, “I know that without you I would not be here, that you are sticking with me in a very tough race. I need to ask you to reach out beyond farm bureau members and help bring people in to the polls that don’t usually vote in Republican primaries.”
Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign was quick to say that Hutchison was suggesting that she couldn’t win among Republicans.
But both campaigns have said for months that hundreds of thousands of people who don’t regularly vote in the Republican primary will vote in this one.
Fewer than 700,000 people voted in the 2006 Republican primary. As I reported in December, the Perry campaign expects about 1.2 million people to vote in the March primary. The Hutchison campaign expects a turnout of about 1.5 million. Key players in each campaign said they expect the additional voters to be those who vote for Republicans in general elections and occasionally in the GOP primary.
I don’t see anything in Hutchison’s comments that suggests she wants Democrats to vote in the Republican primary (although Democrats have every right to do so under Texas law). And I don’t see how Hutchison encouraging her supporters to bring along friends who wouldn’t normally go to the polls is any different from the Perry campaign spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on its Home Headquarters program, which is designed to recruit voters who need a little prodding to get to the polls.
As the Perry campaign says about its Home Headquarters program on its Web site, “You’ll be able to use our website to design handouts, e-mails, mail pieces or signs specifically designed for your friends, family and neighbors. You know what information your mother or brother needs to get in order to support Governor Perry. You know how best to get each of your 12 people to vote (maybe you’ll need to drive them to the early voting location, maybe a phone call in the morning before they leave for work or at the office before they head home).”
• Republican Debra Medina is hoping to make a big splash today with her Medina Money Bomb, which encourages small donors to give today. According to the Statesman’s Kate Alexander, the event is pegged to the Feb. 2 anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the U.S.-Mexican War in 1848.
• Check out the latest post from the folks at PolitiFact Texas. They tackle Hutchison’s claims on whether the state is using the e-Verify program to check workers’ immigration status.
• And I definitely encourage you to pick up a copy of our print edition over the next two weeks. Today we launch a series of in-depth profiles about the five major gubernatorial candidates, and we start with some excellent stories about Democrat Farouk Shami. You really need to see the stories and accompanying photos by the highly accomplished Jay Janner in print to get the full effect.
We will tell you about each candidate in three stories. The first is the story of how they got here — their early lives, where they came from, turning points before they got into politics. This story is particularly strong today, as Corrie MacLaggan talks about how a young Shami lost three brothers right before his eyes in a tragedy that no child should have to endure, how his parents threatened to disown him when he said he wanted to work in the hair industry and how a young Shami was told by his parents that he had been engaged for years to someone he considered a sister.
Each profile also takes you through the candidates’ records, whether it be in politics or business or as a political activist. And the third piece is a little lighter, as we look at the candidates’ style — how they dress, how they talk, how they interact with others.
The goal is to tell you more about these candidates than you usually get in lengthy profiles that often amount to laundry lists of their accomplishments and setbacks. We have the Democratic candidates this week and the Republican candidates next week. And each will be accompanied by a photo gallery of the candidates through the years. You can see Shami’s gallery here.
Stat of the day
Many students go to community colleges expecting to pick up some basic courses and transfer to two-year universities. But as Brian Thevenot writes in a very good Texas Tribune story, “the majority of students don’t transfer at all, and only 15 percent who start community college full-time go on to earn four-year degrees within six years, according to the latest available state data tracking full-time students over the long-term. Even fewer earn two-year degrees from two-year colleges: just 11 percent statewide. An additional 5 percent earned professional certificates in vocations that range from nursing to welding. So all told, just three out of 10 full-time community college students end up with any credential after six years. And that figure doesn’t include tens of thousands of part-time students — the majority at many campuses — who experts say are even less likely to finish.”
Countdown
14 days until early voting begins.
28 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
Lobbyist is often a dirty word during elections, and State Board of Education member Ken Mercer has been repeatedly hurling the term at his Republican primary opponent in an effort to sully him. Tim Tuggey, who is mounting a strong challenge to Mercer, deflects that attack with an explanation that he is a business lawyer who must sometimes lobby elected officials on behalf his clients. Austin American-Statesman
Attorneys for the Texas convict whose escape in December led to housecleaning of several top officials filed a lawsuit today alleging that authorities are violating his rights at an Amarillo prison in trying to determine how he got a pistol to make his way to freedom. Austin American-Statesman
Texas lawmakers on Monday hammered home that without a new funding method, the Texas Department of Transportation will be unable to build any new roads beyond 2012 and will not have enough money to properly maintain existing roads within two to three years. San Antonio Express-News
Whether the next governor is a Democrat or a Republican, the greater Houston area will play a major role in deciding that outcome. Houston Chronicle
The Dallas Cowboys didn’t reach the Super Bowl this year, but dozens of government officials from North Texas will make the trip to Florida. About 50 city employees and elected officials are flying to the Miami area this week for the last Super Bowl before the nation’s biggest sporting event comes to Arlington. Most will travel on the taxpayers’ dime, and they’re using a variety of ways - from federal grants to tourism funds - to pay for the trips. Dallas Morning News
House Criminal Jurisprudence Chairman Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, is miffed that the new chairman of the Texas Forensic Science Commission advised one of Gallego’s invited witnesses not so show up for a recent legislative hearing. Commission Chairman John Bradley said he did not interfere. Houston Chronicle
Everything else
Texas picked up a big win in men’s basketball, beating Oklahoma State, 72-60.
Utah 104, Mavericks 92.
The Houston Chronicle reports that Texans’ owner Bob McNair is working on a multi-year extension for coach Gary Kubiak, who is entering the final year of his contract.
“Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker” lead the Academy Awards with nine nominations each, including best picture and director.
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Final thoughts on Friday’s debate
Belo debate put Perry’s record on display … A rocky start for the new Forensic Science Commission … Hutchison meeting with editorial boards
Austin weather from News 8 Austin’s Maureen McCann: Intervals of clouds and sun with a slight chance of a shower. High 58.
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.)
Weekend highlights and the day ahead
We saw Friday night in Dallas exactly why it’s important to have televised debates in a gubernatorial race.
The debate forced Gov. Rick Perry to defend some of the most controversial decisions he has made in office. And Perry didn’t run away from any of them. He defended his order for HPV vaccinations for sixth-grade girls as the product of his pro-life philosophy. He defended his decision to sign legislation allowing in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants as a measure that helped young people who are working hard in the classroom and toward citizenship. He defended the Trans-Texas Corridor as a plan that was needed so that the transportation issue would no longer be kicked down the road. And he vigorously defended the Texas Enterprise Fund, saying it had brought thousands of jobs to the state.
Now, you can decide for yourself whether you like those explanations, and what Texans decide on that question could go a long way in determining whether Perry wins this primary. And we can question whether the format gave Perry’s opponents — U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Wharton activist Debra Medina — ample opportunity to prod Perry on those issues, or whether Hutchison and Medina made as much of their opportunities as they could have.
Yes, whether someone knows the first governor of Texas is probably not a good predictor of how he or she will do in the job, and yes, fortune smiled on Medina when she got the question about whether she would support a state income tax. But I was impressed with the debate as a whole because the panelists made things a little hot under the collar for each of the candidates. Each candidate had to talk to a statewide audience about issues they would rather not discuss.
And that’s why we have debates.
One other point: While she may not have the money to compete on the airwaves, Medina again asserted herself enough that reporters will cover this much more as a three-person race over the next month than the two-person race that many of us expected. I’ve seen some polls suggesting she is pulling support from Hutchison and others suggesting she is pulling support from Perry. I guess we’ll know for sure in a month.
• Rick Casey has an extraordinary column in the Houston Chronicle this morning. While much of the Texas press corps was focused on the Republican gubernatorial debate on Friday, Casey went to the first meeting of the Forensic Science Commission under its new leader, Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley. Remember that it was Bradley whom Gov. Rick Perry named the new chairman of the commission just days before it was supposed to hear a key report from an arson expert about the investigation that led to the conviction and execution of Cameron Todd Willingham.
Casey reports that Bradley tried to keep a film crew out of the meeting, only to be relayed a message later from the attorney general’s office that he could not do so. He also describes how members of the panel rebelled against Bradley’s plan to name members and chairmen of the panels assigned to each case. Give it a read.
• Last week, we broke the news that Perry would not meet with newspaper editorial boards in order to seek their endorsements before the primary. At the time, I noted that Hutchison had not accepted any invitations from editorial boards, either.
She has started to accept them. Hutchison is scheduled to meet with the American-Statesman editorial board this afternoon. Debra Medina met with the board last week.
• Apparently the message hasn’t gotten through yet to politicians and a number of political operatives in this state: If you fail to tell the truth, chances are pretty good that you’re going to get caught.
That’s why the good work done by the good people at the Statesman’s PolitiFact Texas is so important. Their latest catch: The Texas Republican Party claims that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White “presided over” the construction of what may be the world’s largest abortion clinic. The staff also hooked the national Democratic Party up to the Truth-O-Meter after it made claims about Texas’ uninsured rate, homeowners’ insurance costs and tuition increases.
• Today we hit another deadline for fundraising reports due to the Texas Ethics Commission. Donors and political action committees who don’t want the public to know what they’re up to often wait until the day after this report is due to really let the dollars start flying into campaigns. That’s because by the time we get to the next report, early voting will be halfway over and there won’t be much time for any news about where candidates are getting their money to break through and impact the race.
Countdown
Today is the last day to register to vote.
15 days until early voting begins.
29 days until the March 2 primary.
In the news
R. Bowen Loftin gets up every morning at 4:30 and hits Gold’s Gym by 5. “I do the elliptical machine for 35 minutes at a pretty good clip,” Loftin said. “Then I do upper and lower body and abs for 25 minutes. I work out one hour exactly, and then I come home and clean up and go to work.” He might need that discipline, stamina and strength as the next president of Texas A&M University. The school’s governing board named him the sole finalist for the position Jan. 21 and is all but certain to firm up the appointment after a three-week waiting period required by state law. Austin American-Statesman
After the Statesman reviewed five years’ worth of publications — about 5,000 titles — whose rejections were appealed by inmates to the agency’s headquarters in Huntsville and obtained through open records requests, one thing is clear: Texas prisoners are missing out on some fine reading. Austin American-Statesman
The Texas House is Republican-led and about as conservative as any political body in the country. But for some in the state’s GOP, it’s not nearly conservative enough. A wave of anti-establishment fervor — first harnessed last year with the grassroots conservative “Tea Party” movement — has led to a surge of challenges to Republican state House incumbents in the March 2 primary elections. Challengers say the GOP veterans are too moderate and have repeatedly failed to meet conservative benchmarks. Associated Press
Texas motorists charged with certain driving violations owe the state more than $1 billion in surcharges, and many of the 1.2 million people on the unpaid list are driving without valid licenses and at risk of arrest. Dallas Morning News
The White House will predict a $1.6 trillion U.S. budget deficit in the 2010 fiscal year, a fresh record and the biggest since World War Two as a share of the economy, a congressional source told Reuters on Sunday. Reuters
The Obama administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of President Bush’s signature education law, No Child Left Behind, and will call for broad changes in how schools are judged to be succeeding or failing, as well as for the elimination of the law’s 2014 deadline for bringing every American child to academic proficiency. New York Times
White House advisers thought that if they asked that cameras and reporters be allowed in for the usually closed Q. and A. with the president at the annual retreat of House Republicans, the Republicans might say no and look obstructionist. But the Republicans realized what the White House was up to, got irritated and opened up the exchange in Baltimore to show they weren’t scared of the smart, facile and newly warmblooded Barack Obama. And during the next hour and a half, our government did not look quite so lame. Maureen Dowd
The ability of a single e-mail to shape a message illustrates the power of the conservative network — loosely affiliated blogs, radio hosts, “tea-party” organizers and D.C. institutions that are binding together to fuel opposition to President Obama and, sometimes, to Republicans. Washington Post
Everything else
Denver 103, Spurs 89
Phoenix 115, Rockets 111
Texas plays Oklahoma State tonight in men’s basketball, 8 p.m. on ESPN.
Texans’ QB Matt Schaub threw a pair of touchdown passes and was named MVP of the game as he led the AFC to a win in the Pro Bowl on Sunday.
Weekend box office: Avatar, Edge of Darkness, When in Rome.
Beyonce won six Grammys on Sunday night, but Taylor Swift won the big Album of the Year prize. Read more here.
Get more Legislative coverage inside the Virtual Capitol
Latest comments
I should notify my girlfriend about it.
... read the full comment by Amateur Small *** | Comment on Hutchison hits back on earmarks Read Hutchison hits back on earmarks
What is to be proud of Tea Party extremists like Stack and the anti government , anti tax airplane ride that Perry is pandering to? Nothing to be proud of in Perry’sunpatriotic” anti everything “cult movement.
... read the full comment by Demos and independents | Comment on Five House members appear to have lost Read Five House members appear to have lost
In evaluating Bill White’s chances versus Governor Perry, it would be helpful to know what percentage of Texans typically vote a straight party ticket in the general election. White’s challenge is certainly to capture a significant portion
... read the full comment by James Wittmeyer | Comment on Five House members appear to have lost Read Five House members appear to have lost
A vote for White is a vote for freedom, innovation, intelligence, and solutions.
... read the full comment by countdown to November | Comment on Time to vote Read Time to vote
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