OPINION

Re: "Tea Party logic hurts debate," by Charles Elliott, Friday Letters.

Elliott's letter read like a script by the left-wing media and its followers.

He pretty well implied that the people who are in the Tea Party movement are uninformed and not very intelligent and that big government is really good for the American people and economy. Actually, the opposite is true.

I don't believe people on the left are stupid, ignorant or even uninformed. They are simply purpose-driven and desire a socialist-type big government, where the government makes the decisions for Americans and controls our lives.

I doubt if they really think out the consequences.

More than ever, the majority of people are well-informed, with no thanks to the left-wing, mainstream media, and are very capable of making good decisions about the direction this great country should go in.

Re: "Three sentenced in 'betrayal of our city' -- Ex-Mayor Pro Tem Hill gets 18 years -- Wife Farrington Hill gets nine years -- Lee, former planning official, gets 14 years -- Bribery, extortion plot involved $5 million in contracts, kickbacks," Saturday news story.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn has given the people of Dallas justice and the beginning of closure on a terrible time in our city's history.

The headline, "betrayal of our city," says it all. Lynn has given us back our trust in the judicial process by holding those guilty accountable.

Our current city officials should stand proud that the black eye on Dallas is being removed by a judge who is protecting our public interest.

Re: "All I want is the truth in our public political discourse," by Steve Blow, Sunday Metro column.

Blow's column belongs on the front page, above the fold. If there is one thing this country really needs, it is for its politicians to speak with honesty. We, the public, should be reminded every day to demand that our elected officials and the people who speak for them are not to lie or tell only partial truths.

If we do not demand the truth, we deserve to be considered as ignorant as our current representatives seem to think we are.

The truth seems so little to ask.

... and check it out

One sentence in Steve Blow's Sunday column should be emblazoned on every computer: "If you can't confirm it, don't send it." The number of rumors, half-truths and outright lies being circulated over the Internet is alarming. How can intelligent people read such outlandish statements without questioning their accuracy?

If these stories were printed in any legitimate publication, the authors would be facing hefty lawsuits. It is time to take Blow's advice and check out questionable stories on Snopes .com or FactCheck.org. Blindly propagating lies is just plain wrong.

That's an idea that County Commissioner Maurine Dickey is going to bring up tomorrow to other members of Dallas County Commissioners Court.

With the North Texas Tollway Authority near its debt limit, Dickey wants to make sure the county is positioned to advance road projects if it needs to. She points out that NTTA Chairman Paul Wageman said last week that his agency has the financial ability to do maybe one more project; that probably will be the Southwest Parkway-Chisholm Trail in Fort Worth and Johnson County.

Read more and comment on the Dallas Transportation blog.

So, what should constitute success for Texas Tea Party candidates tomorrow?

Obviously, victory will be the biggest indicator. I mean, if Tea Party folks can help elect Scott Brown in Massachusetts, you'd think they'd be able to elect at least someone in red state Texas, including Debra Medina, the GOP gubernatorial candidate that is most publicly aligned with Tea Partiers.

But short of victory, what would constitute success?

Well, first, they already have had an influence by driving the GOP gubernatorial primary to the right. Medina's talking about getting the state out of Medicaid, dismantling CPS and getting rid of the property tax. As she does, Kay Bailey Hutchison's continuing to move rightward, showing she's the real conservative in the race. And Rick Perry, as our Wayne Slater and Christy Hoppe reported Sunday, decided last year to ride the wave of conservative populism in this race. Before the tallies are even counted, the Tea Party folks have influenced the contest.

But they need something more than that to show they are a force for the future. They need numbers to show they have muscle.

This is somewhat arbitrary, but I'd say they'd need to pull at least 20 percent of the vote in their races for governor, Congress and Legislature. The Texas GOP has long had about 20-30 percent of its supporters who would qualify as government-bashing, tax-eschewing, regulation-hating voters. I don't have a poll right here in front of me that says exactly that number, but when you interview folks at GOP rallies, state conventions and candidate gatherings, I'd say about 20-30 percent of Republicans would fit that bill. (I'd say the same about Democratic events. About 20-30 percent of their supporters at such affairs are true lefties.)

If this assessment is correct, Tea Party candidates would need to poll at least 20-30 percent to show they are on a par with the GOP hard-right. And actually, I'd think they need to go beyond that some to show they are expanding the base of conservative populists in the state. Then, they could show they are a growing force.

I guess what I'm getting at is tomorrow will tell whether the Tea Party is more than a worked-up GOP base. I'm actually glad they are protesting the size of the debt and deficit. If they are like the Perotistas in 1992, they may get Washington's attention about the dangers of our deficits.

But how big is this movement in Texas? Tomorrow, we will find out.

You'd think after several failed attempts to offer a realistic timeline of when she might resign from the Senate, Kay Bailey Hutchison might just stop answering the question that keeps getting her in trouble. But for some reason, she took another stab at it on Mark Davis' radio show, moving the target yet again.

She changed her last promise to resign after the primary (which sure sounded like soon after the primary) to "sometime this year before the November elections." Those words had hardly left Hutchison's mouth when a campaign aide offered a clarification, saying that the timing really was dependent on the health care debate. "If it's not finished til next January, she'll be there til next January," Jennifer Baker said.

So, if the health care debate drags on for years, will Hutchison serve another couple terms in the Senate? And doesn't Baker's suggestion that Hutchison might still be in Washington come next year presume that she loses this election?

Just to recap, Hutchison and her aides have pledged that she'll leave the Senate:
1. in October or November 2009
2. after the GOP primary
3. before the November 2010 election
4. whenever health care is resolved, even if that's 2011

I'm generally agnostic about the question of when or if Hutchison should resign from the Senate.I just wish for her campaign's sake that she would stop setting deadlines that she can't seem to meet.

As far as winter Olympics go, the Vancouver Games were some of the most exciting I've watched since the days of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. Kudos to Canada for pulling it off under some extraordinarily difficult weather conditions.

Okay, I got my obligatory positive statement out there. Now for the real issue: Was anyone as annoyed as I was about the over-Canadianization of the closing ceremony? At first I thought they were just getting in a few plugs for tourism in Canada. But as the ceremony droned on and on and on, I started to worry about those people. Are they really that insecure that they need to promote themselves so heavily in front of an worldwide audience of millions looking to celebrate athleticism and international cooperation?

This is not bitterness about the USA's loss in hockey. That was a disappointment, but the last thing I expected from the Canadians was to be bashed over the head with everything Canada during the closing ceremony. I thought the routine by Catherine O'Hara was flat, unfunny and a little pathetic. Likewise with William Shatner. Michael J. Fox did much better than I expected, but they all spoke as if they were attending a Canadian AA meeting. "I'm Michael, and I'm a Canadian." I wanted to respond, "Hi Michael."

Look back at the Turin closing ceremonies four years ago, and you'll be hard-pressed to find a single plug for Italy's tourist attractions. Pavarotti didn't come out and say, "Hi, I'm Luciano, and I'm Italian." The entire ceremony stuck with the Olympic tradition of celebrating an international brotherhood. Why Canada felt that it needed to veer so radically from that time-honored tradition, I'll never know. I'm glad they're proud of their country. I'm proud of their country too, but I don't need them to beat me over the head with it.

Yes, according to Westat, a research company that recently evaluated the program for the Homeland Security Department and found that the voluntary system wrongly clears illegal workers about 54 percent of the time.

I ran across this news today, when reviewing editorials from across the state: The El Paso Times writes about it here.

Meanwhile, here's the news story from last week's Washington Post, which notes that when Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano testified last week in budget hearings on Capitol Hill she said she doubts the 54 percent accuracy rate. Wonder what she knows that Westat didn't?

Our editorial board has been hugely supportive of E-Verify in the past. The employer program is so popular that Republican congressmen have been pressing to make it mandatory. Guess there are still some bugs to work out.

First, a disclaimer: I'm truly lousy at predicting elections. I don't try to be bad at it; it just happens. I'm sure it's some subset of the reason I'm not very good at betting on sports: I let what I want to happen affect my judgment on what logically should happen.

So when I tell you that it appears Rick Perry is about to win the Republican gubernatorial primary without a runoff, your best bet is to assume we're in for six more weeks of runoff campaigning.

I can't help it. That's what the trend lines tell me.

We'll summarize on tomorrow's Editorial and Viewpoints pages the 39 candidate recommendations we've made over the last six weeks or so and urge voters who haven't already early-voted to be sure to get out and do so tomorrow.

In summary, we did 36 sit-down interviews with something close to 100 candidates - plus phone interviews with the candidates in another three contests - as part of formulating our recommendations. We also relied heavily on the questionnaires candidates filled out online for us, as well as on our own independent record checking and ancillary interviews.

Here's a link to our candidate recommendations.

And here's a link to the questionnaires, which, by the way, more than 90 percent of the 134 candidates we invited to complete them submitted. You can read about the candidates thoughts and positions on issues in the candidates' own words - unedited and unfiltered - for free!

Last weekend, we had an election blowout, with letters on page 3P of Points about the governor's race and letters on the community pages about local candidates. I'm looking forward to letters about election results, starting Wednesday.

We still got several election letters today, but I'd say many of our letter writers are moving on to other topics. Health care is still hot, and the letters are passionate.

My favorite letters, though, and we don't get enough of them, are people commenting on local issues. Maybe it's because we don't get many of them that I like them so much.