Looking toward (next) November: Already

Just when you think it's safe to pay attention, the campaigns for next year's Houston municipal elections are already starting to heat up.  This is despite the fact that (officially) candidates cannot raise money (yet).

The early front-runner for most ridiculous campaign ads goes to Mayoral candidate Ben Hall's "The Harrison's" ads. More bitter than insightful they seem to suggest that, instead of just losing to a popular incumbent, Hall really is that inept of a campaigner.

Perhaps the most critical race in 2015 for Houston is going to be the race for City Controller.  I've got pretty strong feelings about who the best candidate is in this race and I think, if Houston votes the wrong way, there are going to be fairly large repercussions in the near future.

Looking outside of Houston for a minute. Leticia Van de Putte proves that success in politics is largely dependent on your ability to lie and then pivot without a hint of remorse or irony. It also helps to have a doting group of unquestioning supporters who don't care that you said "under no circumstances" would you run for San Antonio Mayor as recently as July.

Speaking of politics, Paul Bettencourt has been elected as the State Senator for my home district. When we last saw Mr. Bettencourt in the public sector he was resigning less than halfway through his term as Harris County Tax Assessor/Collector to start a private business which took advantage of the tax appraisal creep issue that he, and current Lt. Gov elect Dan Patrick railed against for years. Once Mr. Bettencourt started his business most of that angry rhetoric against appraisal tax creep went away.

I can't help but wonder if Mr. Bettencourt has promised to not resign again should there be an opportunity to make some money on whatever his pet issues are this time?

Unfortunately he had no opposition to speak of, and his campaign was barely covered by the local media, so these questions were never asked.

Required Blogging: Election Day.

It's finally here.

After months of being subjected to political ads featuring half-truths and dodgy claims, Texas Lock-Step Political Media reporting of questionable accuracy and some truly horrible claims from politicians that they will "fight" for one thing or another, our long national nightmare winds down (temporarily) today.

While around 10% of the Nation will spend the evening hanging on the trickling in returns to see how the Republicans and Democrats fare across the Country, the balance of power in the Senate will be largely ignored by 90% of you who have better things to do.

In Texas, the questions are less about who is going to win or lose than just how bad the beating will be. In order to drive at least some interest, the TLSPM is mining the fields of presumed electoral ash to find a sprinkling of diamonds for Texas Democrats to cling to.

Yes, it's cute that Wendy! Davis is saying that all of the polls are off and she will somehow pull off the upset of the season but, odds are, this is not going to be the case. The better question is just how far behind she as fallen.  For most, the benchmark is 42% which, assuming 56-57% of the remaining vote goes to Abbott would put her at 14-15% behind.

In terms of the effort put forth by Wendy! and Battleground Texas, this would spell disaster because it would mean that, despite their work, they gained exactly zero ground from 4 years prior. I believe that this will be the likely scenario with Wendy! taking in somewhere around 40-42% and Abbott cleaning house. 

If I had to guess, I see things falling like this:

Governor
Wendy!  41%
Abbott    58%

Lt. Governor
Van de Putte 44%
Patrick 55%

Attorney General
Paxton  53%
Houston 46%

Comptroller
Hegar 58%
Collier 41%

Ag Commish
Miller 57%
Hogan 42%

Land Commish
Bush 60%
Cook 39%

Railroad Commish
Sitton 59%
Brown 40%

Prop 1
Yes 65%
No  35%

I think there is something to the "no to Dan Patrick" vote and I think Sam Houston does the best of all the Democratic Statewide candidates on name alone.  George P. Bush should win by the largest margin due to his name ID and I don't see Prop 1 having any trouble due to the absence of any organized opposition.

All that being said, I think tonight is going to be a disaster for Wendy!, Matt Angle and the folks over at Battleground. In a sane political party this would lead to a re-examination of message, platform, leadership and infrastructure but, this being Texas Democrats, I've a feeling not much is going to change. It would be good news for Texas Republicans if the Dems continue to back Angle as a key player in their state party because he has shown himself to be fairly incompetent in the areas of running good campaigns, identifying quality candidates and structuring a winning message for them.

I do think that the lack of impact shown by the folks over at Battleground is going to be hotly debated within the TLSPM for months to come. I wouldn't be surprised to see the National Democratic Party pull their bigger names from the group and leave in place what is basically a shell organization, possibly headed up by Angle, which would be a dream come true for Texas Republicans.

One important thing to watch that's only receiving minimal play from the TLSPM is how all of the candidates fare among Hispanic voters, and in the Rio Grande Valley.  If Abbott, Bush, Sitton, Miller, Hegar and, to a lesser extent, Patrick can contend, and possibly even win in that area it could punch a huge hole in the "demographics are destiny" electoral weather balloon, possibly damaging the hopes of Texas Democrats for years to come.

Over the last weekend, on vacation in Boston, I saw a few ads for Republican senate candidates who did their level best to tie Democratic senators to President Obama. I commented to my wife that most voters in Massachusetts and New Hampshire (the two states for which the races were contested) would probably view this as a feature not a bug.  I think the same thing applies to Texas Dems but in reverse.

I realize that it's political blasphemy these days to suggest anything other than ideological purity but would everything be better if we returned (at least regionally) to the days where liberal Republican and conservative Democrat were more than just museum pieces?  I know that I, for one, would enjoy having two quality candidates from whom to select in the general election, in addition to the primary. It'd make all of this seem just a little more worth it.

Instead of obsessing over ground-games and GOTV and just how bad the whipping is going to be there might be a reason to stay up and watch the returns.  Of course, the person rooting hardest against this is Stan Stanart, the Harris County Clerk who's issues with releasing voting numbers is now legend.

Go get informed and vote. 

How will they govern? The Republican Majority as a whole.

The current Texas election, much the same as recent elections, is expected to be a Republican rout. The brand of the Texas Democrats is so weakened state-wide, their base of support so concentrated, that it will be a major upset should all of the state-wide races and a large majority of the State House and Senate races not tilt the Republicans way.

Amazingly, after 20-plus years of Republican rule, the question "Can the Republicans Govern?"  is still being asked by some members of Texas' Lock-Step Political Media.

Political Monsters. The New Mrs. White, Chron.com

Don't want to vote? So don't. It's the Texan way. Lisa Falkenberg, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)

Abbott says that, as Governor he would 'be like Greg Abbott'. Peggy Fikac, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)

Elkins' conflict. The New Mrs. White, Chron.com

UT/TT Poll: Transportation Amendment on cruise control. Ross Ramsey, Texas Tribune.

UT/TT Poll: Abbott holds a commanding lead over Davis. Ross Ramsey, Texas Tribune

Why Entitlement Reform isn't on the GOP Agenda. Jim Manley, WSJ

Davis ad focused on Abbott's wheelchair raises legitimate questions. Wayne Slater, Dallas Morning News

In the Valley, Van de Putte blasts Patrick, urges students to vote. Christopher Hooks, The Texas Observer


With one exception (the WSJ story) all of the articles that I've chosen carry a common theme: The questions still being raised by the TLSPM as to whether or not Texas Republicans can govern.  It was a question first clumsily asked by a then-relevant Paul Burka in 2003 and it's been repeated as accepted dogma by the TLSPM since that time*.

In 2003, that question made some sense.  Having taken over the entirety of the Texas political process for the first time there were legitimate questions whether or not this group of fresh-faced, politically inexperienced lawmakers could come together, back away from the scary rhetoric and actually create a budget, address the state's issues, and do something besides cut taxes and then wait for the furor to subside.

The good news, if you're a citizen of Texas and not a hard-core partisan, is that they did. The sky did not fall and things pretty much went on as they had for generations.  Yes there were tax cuts, tort-reform and a whole bunch of other things that made Democrats cringe, but the basic functions of government never ground to a halt. (Except for when the Democrats decided to take a vacation in Ardmore, OK)

A much bigger issue is that the Republicans, either through ignorance or indifference, have not done a very good job outlining exactly what they think good government looks like. While "cut taxes" is a mantra that's resonating at the ballot box there's not been an overriding narrative of what cutting taxes looks like in relation to things that citizens expect from their government. When you look at the current iteration of the top of the Republican ballot there's very little to indicate this is going to change.

Abbott, despite his ads speaking about infrastructure and education, has an issues page filled with National red meat for the base Dan Patrick is being Dan Patrick and while he's promoting his vouchers plan for education alongside property tax reductions, he's been off and on that bandwagon for years now and, seemingly, if it does get fixed he's out of campaign material. Glenn Hegar is saying a lot without actually saying anything. And Ken Paxton and George P. Bush are clearly already thinking about a higher office.

Before you shut this down and think that I'm suggesting you should vote against the Republican slate you're mistaken. As a fiscal conservative I think that all of these candidates deserve your vote. The narrative of the TLSPM has been that, especially in the races for Comptroller and Attorney General, the Democrats offer a slate of pragmatic, business friendly candidates who are going to govern against progressive type and not try to bury the state's economy under an avalanche of new business taxes and soak-the-rich policies to make everyone pay their 'fair share'.  This is a happy fantasy, but one that I don't share based on the candidates own statements and legislative histories.

Which brings us back to the narrative. If you only read the TLSPM and nothing else then it's amazing that Texas Republicans can fog a mirror electorally speaking. Part of this is because Republicans such as Perry and Patrick have shown that you don't need the media to win in Texas and part of it is because the TLSPM likes and agrees with the Texas Democrats more often then they like and agree with Texas Republicans. In many ways, those narratives are never going to go away no matter what Republicans do, short of turning to Democratic policies.

Even IF Texas Republicans decided to pivot and support the DREAM Act, fund education beyond the dreams of Avarice, move to change the voting laws to allow for same-day registration and do pretty much everything the TLSPM desires, they would still push for Democrats to be elected because they would still think more would be done if only the right people were in charge.

Clearly the Republican way-forward is with principle. But it also lies in defining exactly what those principles are. What ARE the things that Texas Republicans feel to be 'core government services?' In the linked editorial addressing Rep. Elkin's recent troubles it's a given that the state has the obligation to regulate and eliminate pay-day and auto-title loans.  Do they?  Is it the obligation of the State to clothe, house and properly educate every child regardless of their desire? Does the State have an obligation to provide grants and tax breaks to bring business (and, by extension, jobs) to Texas?

Unlike Lisa Falkenberg, I'm not going to attempt to sit behind my keyboard on a Sunday evening and tell you what you need to think. Nor am I going to belittle you if you think differently than I.  There are, I admit, sound arguments behind both the yes and the no's on all of these positions. Choosing to think yes or no where I think differently is not a sign of mental weakness (as Falkenberg (wrongly) suggests) it's a sign of mental strength.

What I do know is that Republicans need to start doing a better job outlining what are core functions of government and what are not. And Republican voters had better start doing a better job rewarding candidates who take the issues seriously. The second problem will be how to get this message out to the voters, because the TLSPM is not going to be very keen on putting it out there for them.

Finally, Texas Republicans need a leader who's not only solid on the issues, but able to communicate them effectively.  For all of the noise relating to 'demographics is destiny' and Battleground Texas, the sense of inevitability surrounding the two is overblown. To counter this Texas Republicans are going to have to get better at their ground game, in their communications and in controlling their rhetoric. Because, right now, the left is doing a much better job of this and what's really holding them back is a dearth of quality candidates, a national party that's doing whatever they can to blow it and some curious policy positions that are at odds with the electorate. At some point, this is going to change and Texas Republicans will have a fight on their hands.

Conservative Republicans could take huge steps toward winning this fight by clarifying the conservative position now. To do this it's time for conservatives to stop saying what they're against and start saying what they're FOR. I'm not sure if there's anyone in this crop of state-wide candidates that's able to accomplish this however.  I hope I'm wrong.





































*2003 was the first year that Republicans held all of the State-wide offices along with majorities in the Texas House and Senate. In reality Republicans had a strangle-hold on state-wide races for much longer.

Looking to November: The KHOU/Houston Public Media Poll

Last night, on their 10 PM newscast, KHOU released the results of a poll jointly sponsored by Houston Public Media.

Abbott, Patrick command big leads in KHOU, Houston Public Media Poll. Doug Miller, KHOU

Full poll results can be found here including a breakdown between Harris County and Statewide.

In short, the poll has Abbott with a 15 point advantage over Wendy! Davis and Dan Patrick leading Leticia Van de Putte by 12 percentage points. 

Looking over the poll questions (and I'm assuming the questions on the results page are the only ones asked, it's fairly bare-bones focusing just on the races in question and some key issues.

One conclusion by Bob Stein, Houston's bicycling authority, and go-to guy for political analysis for the TLSPM,  puzzled me however:

(from the KHOU story linked above)

The timing of the survey happened to coincide with a period before and after the Davis campaign launched its hard-hitting "wheelchair ad" criticizing Abbott for opposing plaintiffs suing for damages while Abbott himself collected a multi-million dollar settlement over the 1984 accident that left him a paraplegic. As a result, the poll offers a clue about whether the controversial political spot influenced voters.

"It's had no impact on the distribution of the vote," Stein said. "And it's had even less impact on mobilizing people who otherwise, we think, would be supportive of Wendy Davis."

Based on the questions asked, I'm unclear with how Stein is coming up with that conclusion. There is nothing in the poll that addresses the ad, nor is there anything that might suggest the ad's impact. In short, you can't make any inferences on the ad's effectiveness in any area by looking at this poll.

What we're left with is Mr. Stein's personal opinion on how the ad has been perceived, and that's hardly an opinion coming from a disinterested source. These are issues that I have with most Stein polls, not that his methodology is flawed (it's impossible to tell without the cross-tabs and he's not the best at releasing those) but that the fuzzy nature of the responses allow him to make sweeping generalizations regarding results that aren't fully addressed in the mechanics of the poll.

In short, he's editorializing. Injecting his opinion into the poll results because that's the way he thinks things are going. Or, maybe there's something not being released, a question relating to the ad perhaps, that provide some data behind his ruminations?

Who knows?

Looking to November: The history of the Texas Lyceum Poll

The release of the Texas Lyceum Poll is traditionally the high-water mark for Democrats in the run-up to Texas State-wide elections. This year is no different ($) as the current iteration of the poll has revealed that (Gasp!) Wendy! only trails Greg Abbott by NINE PERCENTAGE POINTS!  There is glee in all of the land and Texas Democratic Party Executive Director Will Hailer is reportedly already prepping dozens of tweets with grammatical errors to celebrate the news.

There are some problems however, as today's HoustonChronicle.com article briefly mentions....

Davis Claims Momentum as Abbott touts $30MM in War chest. Patrick Svitek. HoustonChronicle.com ($)

(In respect of the Chron's wishes for their reporting to not be read, I only take a smidgen of their work to reproduce here)

Republicans flagged a number of problems with the Lyceum poll, starting with its finding that 48 percent of Texans approve of President Barack Obama - several points above the national average in a solidly red state.

What the Republicans are saying is true.  A quick review of recent history suggests that the Texas Democrats might want to not start measuring the drapes in the Texas Governor's Mansion just yet.

Let's review:

2010 Gubernatorial Race:

Texas Lyceum Poll: Rick Perry 48%  Bill White 43%

Actual Results: Rick Perry 55%  Bill White 42.3%

In 2010 Lyceum had White close, almost within the margin of error.  There was much celebrating and mocking of Perry in Democratic circles. Talk amongst the InterLeft was of finally getting access to the Texas Governor's Mansion, maybe live-blogging a state dinner from an ante-room, possibly getting an embossed invite to White's Inauguration (but not the after party). As Perry would say....Oops.


2013 Lyceum Poll and President Barack Obama

A 50% job approval rate.

If you honestly believe President Obama has enjoyed a 50% approval rate in Texas then you're not paying attention.  Texas has long trailed the National Average in many polls and remains one of the most solidly Red states in the Country.


2011 Lyceum Poll and President Barack Obama

A 51% Job Approval Rate

It takes a special disconnect with Texas to ever think the President had a majority job-approval rating here.


Based on history I would suggest that the Texas Lyceum Poll is around 7-8% biased toward Democrats. I'm unsure whether they are over-sampling Democrats or over-weighting them to achieve an expected result but, based on the cross-tabs, I'm thinking it's probably a little of both.

For people who don't understand polls and the nature of sampling this is all just a bunch of words that have little meaning. If you do understand polling however I urge you to go look at the Lyceum cross-tabs and make up your own mind.  To their credit, they do provide them for scrutiny free of charge.

This is not to suggest that the Texas Lyceum is biased. Looking over their List of Directors, Executive Committee and Advisory Council it appears that the group is only slightly weighted toward liberal membership. Of course, this is normal of almost any think-tank group that doesn't identify as conservative.

What this does suggest is that the Wendy! campaign, Texas Democrats and the InterLeft are going to be all worked up and (in one case at least) blockquoting the HoustonChronicle.com story with glee. If history is any indication of future results however they're going to do this only to face a margin of defeat of around 17-18 points come the morning of November 5th. 


One additional aside:  One of the reasons polls like the one from Texas Lyceum and the horrible on-line poll from the Texas Tribune are given such weight is due to the fact that most media outlets in Texas aren't running their own polls any longer.  This has really led to a dearth of good polling results and makes it that much harder to identify the outliers or one's with questionable methodology.

Texas Politics & Media: Reporting on the Texas Enterprise Fund - How things are vs. how the #TLSPM wishes they are.

Most of this morning's noise related to the Texas Gubernatorial Debate between Greg Abbott and Wendy! Davis last night relates to accusations of shady goings-on in the early days of the Texas Enterprise Fund.  The audit report did not call out Abbott's office or State Senator Wendy! Davis specifically but that's not stopping the Texas Lockstep Political Media from trying to make this into a Wendy! campaign issue.

Abbott kept dealings of Texas Enterprise Fund under wraps. Wayne Slater, Dallas Morning News

When The Dallas Morning News requested, under the Texas open-records law, a copy of the application of a company seeking taxpayer subsidies, Abbott said no. He ruled that the applications for money from the $500 million job-creation fund might contain confidential corporate information.

The company was Vought Aircraft, which wanted a $35 million subsidy to expand in the Dallas area.

But as it turns out, there was no application, a state audit released last week found.

Had the attorney general responded to the newspaper’s open-records request in 2004 by disclosing that Vought — and other businesses with their hands out — were getting millions in state money without submitting applications or specific promises to create jobs, it might have been an early signal of problems bedeviling the fund.

What Slater is doing here is a classic case of wishing things were as he wants them to be rather than as they were.  In fact, during the audit period, the letter of the law suggested that applications were not required, and that their release could only be obtained under very limited terms.

In short, during the time of the Dallas Morning News' request Abbott's opinion was well within the limits of the law.  What the DMN was asking of Abbot, and wishes he had done, was to violate the law so that they could take additional shots at Rick Perry.  It's important to note that, no where in the audit, was the judgment of Attorney General Abbott questioned. 

These are the things that drive ideological columnists doubling as journalists mad.  What Slater is really trying to do here is generate an issue for his "side".  True, it was Slater who penned the scathing criticism of the Wendy! autobiography, something that he has since backed away from due to the debilitating start it created for her campaign.  I would even argue that this Gubernatorial race is not Slater's main objective.  What Slater is really working to de-rail is Rick Perry's speculated bid for the Presidency.

The thing is I think the TEF is going to de-rail Perry's Presidential ambitions without the help of the TLSPM.

When it passed in 2003 there were several misgivings among fiscal conservatives regarding the need or efficacy of such a fund.  Never mind that funds of this type are always subject to graft and fraud, the way this was set-up, with almost all power for fund disbursement residing in the Governor's office, there was going to be little that could be done (legally) to prevent fraud until well after the fact.

Fast forward 10 years and what many of us said back then is now coming true.  The problem is, most Democrats don't want to eliminate this fund (Wendy! wants to keep it but with her in control while Abbott has suggested it needs to be eliminated) but only have the purse-strings attached to their offices. In other words, keep the corruption and graft but change the name of the beneficiary.

When all is said and done I don't think this moves the needle any in the race for Governor. All of the people who are offended by this are already in the Wendy! camp and Abbott can claim enough plausible deniability to allow his supporters to shrug it off as just another Rick Perry mess that's falling down on the shoulders of good conservatives.

As a matter of fact, I think the only people who will suffer from this are the Texas taxpayers who are now going to have to shell out Millions more dollars to settle the political need for a pound of flesh.

This is just another in a long list of examples where the TLSPM cannot be relied upon to report an issue on the straight and narrow.  There are enough damning items in the TEF audit to allow scalp-takings, it's too bad we have to try and alter past reality to try and get additional scalps from those who have no real skin in the TEF game.

How Will They Govern: Dan Patrick vs. Leticia Van de Putte

Previous Posts:

Introduction
Part 1: How will the Democrats campaign?
Part 2: How will the Republicans campaign?
Part 3: How will the Candidates for Governor govern?


I realize it's been just a bit since I put forth an entry on this but I have a couple of good excuses that you can choose from as to why.

1. It was still a little far out from election night when I started this and this seems like a more reasonable time in which to do it.

2. I just got busy and forgot.

All that said it's time to jump back in the saddle and start taking a look at how the candidates for the (now) 2nd most powerful elected office in Texas will govern.  It might help, before you read this, to go back and at least read the introduction so that you can see what my goals are here.

First up: (In alphabetical order by last name)

Dan Patrick (Republican - Houston)

One thing about Mr. Patrick, he's a very effective campaigner and knows exactly what to say and what time to say it.  He's also more media savvy than most of his contemporaries and he uses that to his great advantage. This is a trait that also infuriate some of his colleagues in the Texas Senate.

With that out of the way it's not all that clear that Mr. Patrick would be a very effective Lt. Gov in terms of running the Texas Senate.  Mr. Patrick's first priority, above all others, would be to repeal and forever rid Texas of the so-called "Rosebush" bill which requires a Supermajority to pass most legislation. This has been a stated goal of his for years now and he has made at least two attempt to have this done.  As Lt. Governor this would certainly be at the top of his list.

It is very clear, by his rhetoric on the campaign trail, that Mr. Patrick does not place much value in the oft-mourned fraternal atmosphere in the Senate. Mr. Patrick has repeatedly stated that he would not seat Democrats as Committee chairs and that his interest in reaching across the aisle is limited to times when they are willing to reach out to him.

In many ways, Sen. Patrick can be expected to run the Texas Senate in the same way that President Obama deals with Congress.  There will be a lot of lecturing and speeches to the media, some calls for bipartisanship and then blistering media interviews where he blames the Texas Democrats for any bill that does not pass.

Mr. Patrick's policy proposals will be to the right of the political spectrum and, based on his stump speeches, will call for school choice through vouchers, further restrictions to abortion and tax credits to businesses.  Mr. Patrick appears to be in favor of maintaining both the TEF and the TETF.  Strongly Evangelical, he led the charge to have "In God We Trust" added to the tote boards above both the Texas House and Senate.

On fiscal issues Mr. Patrick is an unknown. He ran his campaign primarily on the issue of property tax appraisals but, since being in office he has been surprisingly mute on fiscal matters choosing instead to focus on social ones. Mr. Patrick, during the last legislative session, voted twice for increasing school funding but ultimately voted against the budget.  This has been used by his opponent for the office as a sign he voted against increased education spending.  There are arguments for/against this, your feeling as to the validity of such probably depends on your partisan leaning.


Leticia Van de Putte (Democrat - San Antonio)

Since starting her campaign Senator Van de Putte has been talking big.  Her spending proposals for Texas, (should she be elected) include $2 Billion to provide free community college to all Texas children, $1 Billion for Highway funds and an as yet undetermined number of Billions for elementary education.  Clearly, the governance plan for Sen. Van de Putte is a departure from Texas' historical lean government, low spending past.

However, this post is more about her governing style than it is her policy positions, but I do think the two are closely intertwined.

For one, there is no way a Lt. Gov Van de Putte pushes any of her proposals through a strong Republican-majority Texas State Senate.  Because of this she is going to have one of two options:

1. Moderate her stance on issues, place Republicans into committee chairs and work with some of the more moderate members to craft policy that her side finds tolerable.

2. The nuclear option. Freeze Republicans out of chairmanships as much as possible, quash their bills in committee and make sure nothing gets done.  Then blame them in the bully pulpit with the loudest decibel levels hoping that voters take your side.

Under no circumstances would Van de Putte want the Rosebush bill to be repealed since it's the only thing preventing Republicans from running rough-shod over her Party from legislative perspective.  Also, given the combative nature of Sen. Van de Putte I am fairly confident in predicting that her governing style would be very confrontational. I would expect her to try and fight the Republicans head-on for most issues and wouldn't be surprised to see the Democrats be willing to torpedo the budget process hoping to further embarrass Republicans.

Prior to this session, when the Democrats were staunchly opposed to an issue they went to Ardmore Oklahoma where they stayed at a very nice casino and gave the Texas Rangers the raspberry.  This time around I think they stay because they'd have someone in a leadership position to whom Texans would be forced to listen.  From this perspective, for the Democrats, Van de Putte could be a very effective Lt. Gov despite no having any policy to show for it.


Conclusion:  My favorite saying about this race is as follows:  "No matter who wins, the citizens of Texas lose".  I'm afraid that Sen. Dan Patrick is a self-aggrandizing demagogue who will say anything and everything to get elected. I feel that Sen. Van de Putte is a political pugilist who lives mainly to put others down and feel good about herself.  I don't believe that either of these candidates have the best interest of Texas (or Texans) at heart and are only looking to bolster their own powers and ego.

I also don't think that either of these two State Senators has the social intelligence or political make-up to be effective in the role they are seeking.

Looking to November: For a desperate campaign, it's good to have an unquestioning TLSPM on your side.

There will be some jumping up and down over the following story, by both Democrats and the TLSPM:

Internal Survey: Davis trails Abbott by single digits. Patrick Svitek (w/Peggy Fikac). Chron.com

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Wendy Davis is trailing Republican opponent Greg Abbott by single digits for the first time this year in her campaign’s internal polling, according to a copy of it obtained by the Chronicle.The Davis campaign’s latest survey, which was conducted last week, shows her taking 38 percent of the vote to Abbott’s 46 percent.

By 'obtained' the Chron means "given to us by the Wendy! campaign in hopes we'd dutifully report it w/o question."  Fortunately for the Davis staffers, that's exactly the way the Chron TLSPM team rolls.

The truth is we don't know exactly where the gubernatorial race is right now.  We have a pretty good idea that Abbott is ahead, but by exactly how much remains a mystery.

The good news is that there should be some "independent" polling released fairly soon (YouGov is reportedly releasing one) that should give us a better idea.

My gut is that Abbott still has a double digit lead and I think he's going to win fairly comfortably but honestly I don't have any hard numbers to back that up. 

It will be interesting to see if the TLSPM "obtains" an Abbott internal poll soon and if they afford it the same unquestioning treatment as the Wendy! polling.

Looking to November: The Lite Guv Debate.

Breaking news yesterday that the collective IQ of Texas voters is about to be reduced by 10 points....

Patrick and Van de Putte agree on Sept. 24 debate. David Saleh Rauf, Chron.com

This is going to be hailed endlessly as good news for "Texas voters" and as a wonderful example of the political process at work.

In truth, what we're getting is an on-stage snark-fest between Texas number one demagogue and a politician with a fundamental misunderstanding of most key issues moderated by the Ego-in-Chief of the news-ish Texas Tribune.

Hopefully we'll only be subjected to one of these displays. Unless you're living under a rock you know that Van de Putte is going to decry Patrick as "out of touch" with Texas voters and trying to execute a 'war on women' by disallowing them subsidized female hygiene products (meanwhile, ISIS in Iraq is executing a real war on women which makes the Davis/Van de Putte histrionics look silly and petty by comparison) while Patrick is going to seek to paint Van de Putte as a "tax and spend liberal" who is trying to burn every copy of the Bible and outlaw Patrick's The Second Most Important Book You Will Ever Read using both to build shelters and provide heat for disease-ridden illegal immigrants.

One only hopes that Patrick's outsized sense of importance can be reigned in long enough to allow his staff to ignore Van de Putte's request for FOUR ADDITIONAL DEBATES.

I'm not really sure the State of Texas needs to see this.  Instead of our best and brightest the Lite Guv race is shining a light on everything that's wrong with Texas politics. The collapse of the Democrats have led to Republican incumbents not being held accountable which has led to a group of squishy incumbents in leadership roles. The moderation, and downright unlikeable nature, of David Dewhurst allowed Dan Patrick to win in the primary while the lack of bench strength for the Democrats has allowed a candidate with a name that fits the "demographics is destiny" meme to get the nod despite very little evidence of competency, a basic understanding of good governance or any semblance of knowledge regarding what it is the State actually does.

Sept 24th is going to provide Texans with a showdown between a demagogue and a demographic darling.

The Ego in Chief is going to have a field day with this.

Looking to November: When the news cycle slows down, bad media publications get desperate.

The recent story regarding disclosure by private government's and government agencies of hazardous chemical stockpiles is interesting for a couple of reasons.

Abbott says companies must release chemical info but state does not. Lauren McGaughy, HoustonChronicle.com ($)

Confusing headline notwithstanding the story is pretty straight-forward. Abbott has ruled that there are differing standards for private entities in regards to disclosure of hazardous material than there are for state agencies. Private entities, per Abbott, must disclose this information while state agencies need not.

While this sounds vicious and ominous it follows a pattern of law that sets different legal standards for government and private industry in almost all areas.  What's troubling is that Abbott is trying to use public safety in the form of keeping information from terrorists as the primary reason for the state exemption. If public safety really were the primary concern then no entity would be required to disclose this information to an un-credentialed member of the public. Private sector ammonium nitrate is just as dangerous as ammonium nitrate held in government hands after all.

The rest of the story reads like a children's playground exchange with "then sue me" actually being a phrase written by a public official in Texas.  You also have the Wendy! Davis campaign desperately making a mountain out of a molehill and advocacy groups friendly to her campaign trying to suggest that this issue is a campaign killer for Attorney General Abbott.  It's not, and a vast majority of voters are likely to not even care, but it's worth about 24 hours in a news cycle and then it will go away.

Of course, the Davis campaign would like for this to very much not go away and I'm sure that they'll continue to push this as hard as possible as they desperately try to gain some traction before school starts back up and people get distracted by their daily lives.

Election 2014: The Bright and Starry Night of Texas Democrats

Reading news coverage from Houston's former newspaper of record one could be forgiven for thinking it's been the Texas Republicans on a 20-year victory drought and not, as is reality, Texas Democrats.

From glowing opinion pieces about the relative strength of the two top of ticket "sisters" to gushing news/opinion pieces about the star turn of Wendy! Davis to fawning news/opinion coverage of a group of "rising stars" that discuss all things perceived (by the reporters) as "good" about the candidates and fail to mention that they still are traveling along policy paths repeatedly rejected by 55-60% of Texas voters. One wonders why Texas Democrats haven't been dominating the electorate in recent years.

Contrast that with Chronicle coverage of the Texas State GOP convention where even resounding victories are cast in ominous tones and typical policy skirmishes are treated as political disasters and you might wonder how this GOP Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight ever won an election in the first place.

Granted, it's easier to provide fawning coverage on ideas where you're ideologically in-sync and very hard to be neutral when you stand opposed. This has always been proof-of-case for those who claim a "liberal bias" in the media.  Those who oppose the idea of any bias choose to frame the argument in terms of party ID, picking up any story that's moderately negative toward their party of choice as being the ending point in an argument that there is no bias.

Both sides are wrong, of course, because the entire issue of bias in media is more nuanced than a single-issue story here or a anti-party story there.  The issue encompasses ALL media stories and requires viewing them as trends, over a long time frame.

When doing this it is very clear that the Houston Chronicle, both editorially and in their so-called "hard news" coverage of politics, clearly falls closer to the left on political issues than the right. The problem with ALL of their coverage however is that they, and many other members of the Texas Lock Step Political Media, fail to take into account anything even remotely approaching an ideological spectrum.

To the editorial and news-gathering staff of the Chronicle you are either a fire-breathing member of the Tea Party/extreme-right-wing, a member of the sensible GOP establishment, or you are a common-sense, moderate liberal with the State's best interest at heart.  In the world of the TLSPM, there can be no blurring of these lines because that runs against the political orthodoxy which has been established by Burka the Clown, Slater the Rove-Obsessed, Greider the Newly Risen Star and other political wonks who have made a good living pretty much getting it wrong for the last 20 (or so) years.

There are three main reasons the TLSPM is so off-base when reporting on their primary topic:

The TLSPM doesn't have the kind of access to conservatives that they enjoy with Republican moderates and (most) Democrats. Limitation of access leads to reporting by heresy and reporting of this type is typically incomplete. That most, not all, reporters are transcribers rather actual fact-finders (as Kevin Whited of Blog Houston calls them, secretarial journalists) results in too many reporters practicing journalism behind a desk, which most often results in bad reporting.

When you couple ideological homogenization with an incurious reporting mind, you quite often end up with reporting on issues that is incapable of providing proper context. Too often the news gathering organizations focus on diversity of bodies than they do diversity of opinion.  When this is the case reporting on issues becomes blatantly one-sided and opens itself up to criticism. It also leads to shoddy editing, allowing politically charged statements to slip through the editorial net unaltered.

Finally, when you couple lack of access, intellectual laziness and a lack of diversity in perspective with the idea that experience automatically equals expertise, you get a full picture of the failures of the TLSPM. When you hear a reporter suggest that they are an authority because they have "X experience covering" any issue that's your key to tune them out when they start opining about what "should" happen.  I've been watching Formula One racing for most of my adult life. You should not mistake this to mean that I could hop into a F1 car tomorrow and complete a lap at speed without plowing it in to the wall at Casino Square. Nor could I, as a Texas political blogger of almost a decade, tell you how the state education system can best be fixed.  While I have strong opinions on the same and I vote for candidates who support those opinions, that doesn't mean that I consider myself an expert.  Unfortunately, many members of the TLSPM clearly do. This leads to them dismissing potentially workable ideas out of hand and, usually, not giving them proper coverage or column inches.

In a way a lot of the reporting you are seeing today is due to boredom. There is nothing a political reporter wants more than a competitive race with lots of scandal, regardless of who eventually ends up winning. The excitement over King Dan Patrick vs. Van De Putte isn't about a liberal media being hopeful that Van de Putte will win. It's more about the TLSPM (many of them who are rooting for VdP FWIW) hoping beyond hope that controversy, a mild amount of hilarity and some mild demagoguery might make for some easy copy and provide good column inches.

King Dan is an easy target, one that even I can make use of. That it's been enough to create an overarching theme that Texas Dems are on the verge of a comeback shows just how shallow political reporting talent pool is. Right now all we have to go on are the words of a few political journalists who are being very secretarial, reporting the Democratic talking point that "demographics are destiny" despite numbers that reveal no evident trend to support this. Why repeat the lie?  For one, it's what they're being told and they're too lazy to do some digging. (Plus, it just sounds right) Most importantly however this provides them hope that one day they will get to cover one of the larger shifts in political history. It doesn't matter which Democrat wins, just that one does, someday perhaps.

Until then the educated voter is going to have to continue navigating the bumpy swells of Texas politics with little help from the TLSPM. This would suggest a rise in the alternative media but just as it's needed most we're seeing signs that it's on the verge of either falling away or becoming just another one of many party house organs, which does no one much good.

None of the above should be read to say that Texas Democrats should have no hope.  During their convention, when they attempt to put on their best face to the voters, of course they should. I would just say that it's curious to focus on one party singing Kum-bai-yah while suggesting that the party riding the winning streak is falling apart at the seams. Curious and disingenuous, Texas voters deserve better.

Looking to November: Out with a whimper.

Today's news that the Wendy! Davis Campaign is making big changes has set off a flurry of activity amongst the TLSPM (h/t Kevin) trying to explain that it's really not a negative, Wendy! Davis changing out her campaign manager, but a sign that she's "fighting back" and is on the verge of preventing herself from falling into the scrap-heap of not ready for prime time Democratic candidates past.

This is all well and good, and fits the TLSPM narrative that Wendy! is more than just pink tennis shoes, some talk about unrestricted abortion and throwing money at problems in hopes they go away. The reality is we're seeing the first signs that the national spigot of Democratic effort flowing into Texas is about to be shut off.

Remember, the Johnson hire was used as proof national Democrats were targeting Texas in a big way. Between her, former Obama numbers guy Joel Benenson and Battleground Texas hopes were high that instead of being a financial donor, Texas was about to benefit from the largesse of national Democratic donors.  Wendy! Davis was the main cog in that machine.  Hers was a political story that everyone could love. A struggling single mom who, despite a system that worked against her, rose through the ranks to prominence and who would soon be Texas' first female governor since Ann Richards.

What happened next was reality. Many of the heart-string facts in the Wendy! life story were found to be bogus. Instead of a "starving single mother" it was found out that she married rich, used her husband to pay for law school (filing for divorce the day after the last payment was made) and then dumped him. Her campaign has also been a series of missteps, clearly leading national Democrats to decide their time and energy is better spent at home in the North East, watching grass grow.

Oh sure, you'll have the decreasingly public Battleground Texas puttering around for a while longer and there's still the whole "demographics is destiny" crowd who are waiting for everyone to die off but, from a practical standpoint, the 'Turn Texas Blue!" movement is just about as dead as the Wendy! campaign for Governor. Barring a huge error from Greg Abbott, this one is as done as a steak from the buffet at Golden Corral.

Somebody better alert the TLSPM, because they don't seem to have gotten the memo.

Looking to November: How much a political price/benefit on gay rights?

News today from the AP and dutifully reproduced at chron.com suggests that the Texas Republican Party is choosing to double down on the issue of gay rights.

Texas GOP advances reparative therapy for gays. Paul J. Weber & Will Weissert, AP via Chron.com

The Texas Republican Party would endorse psychological treatment that seeks to turn gay people straight under a new platform partly aimed at rebuking laws in California and New Jersey that ban so-called "reparative therapy" on minors.

This comes on the heels of Houston passing it's controversial Equal Rights Ordinance which has lit a fire under social conservatives who feel their "culture" is being slowly eroded by progressive activists who want to see them locked away in re-education centers.

Also today the Chron ran a column by it's curiously nominated Pulitzer finalist interviewing a local gay GOP precinct chairman.

Gay Republican hopes his party does the right thing. Lisa Falkenberg, HoustonChronicle

As with all of Ms. Falkenberg's writing, this column is hidden behind the paper's pay wall so if you don't have a subscription I'm sorry.  I will respect that they want fewer people reading this material and will not blockquote here.

While it's easy to look at all of this and suggest (as many Dems are doing) that it's just the social wing of the party running loose with no collar, a more sober political analyst might wonder why the party leadership doesn't seem too worried about this issue at all.

I will argue that it's a simple matter of demographics. Specifically, Hispanic demographics.

While a recent Pew Research study suggested that a majority (56%) of Hispanics now favor the legalization of gay marriage most of that support is centered around Hispanics with no religious affiliation (71% in support). For evangelical Hispanics, of the type Republicans would target, 66% still stand in opposition to gay marriage according to Pew. Given that 38% of the Texas population is estimated to be Hispanic (with 70% of those being US Born according to estimates) there's a much larger voting opportunity there than with the estimated 3.8% of Texans who identify as LGBT.

In hard numbers: It is estimated that approximately 10MM Hispanics are currently living in Texas, as opposed to approximately 600M who identify as LGBT. If you assume that approximately 70% of those Hispanics also identify as "Christian" (I'm including both evangelical and Catholics) then the targeted voter pool is 7MM versus 180M (30% of LGBT citizens still identify themselves as conservatives, with Democrats getting about 70% of the LGBT vote.)[Source: Gallup]

Analysis of this type is not meant to place value judgments on policy decisions, only to point out the raw numbers behind the thinking that is often omitted from news stories.  As stated before, I am not an opponent of LGBT marriage. I feel that marriage is a contract, and I don't think the government should use it's powers to prohibit 2 consenting adults from entering into legally binding contracts.

Nor do I think churches should be "required" to conduct LGBT marriage ceremonies.

I realize that might seem like a contradiction but there's a very broad First Amendment line between allowing the LGBT community to be viewed as married within the eyes of the State, and requiring them to be married in the eyes of the church.  Issues such as Houston's ERO are much more difficult and are likely to be argued in the same manner as anti-segregation laws were historically.  Trying to establish a "separate but equal" standard for LGBT rights feels like a sticky proposition. I would argue that if you do business in the public realm, you have an obligation to serve the entire public regardless of race, creed or sexual orientation. However, I do feel that the Houston ERO went too far, was too ambiguous on several issues and is an example of bad public policy looking desperately for a problem to solve. As with all things, your mileage may vary.

Regardless, it will be interesting to see what comes out in the Texas Republican platform regarding LGBT issues. I've an early feeling that whatever planks are adopted will be strongly worded and decidedly anti-LGBT. However, I also think that a big reason for this is because (some) Republicans see an opening to increase the Hispanic vote, having decided that the reality of increasing the LGBT vote are slim to none no matter how they choose to react.

I should clarify that the "some" in the Republican Party to which I'm referring are not the staunch social conservatives. In most cases, for both parties, I don't feel that the true believers give all that much thought to how the party is going to do, they just want to "win".

Still, the happy warriors over at Battleground Texas have repeated ad nauseam that "demographics is destiny". By this they are referring to Hispanic voters. If Texas Republicans aren't running almost everything they do through that prism they will be losing ground.

Looking to November: How will they Govern? Greg Abbott vs. Wendy Davis (Part 3 of a series)

Previous Posts:

Introduction
Part 1: How will the Democrats campaign?
Part 2: How will the Republicans campaign?

(Updated: 06/02/14 6:21)

Before talking about how either candidate in the race for Texas Governor will actually attempt to govern it is important to take a look at the office itself. Under Rick Perry, whose long tenure allowed him to fill appointments in almost all areas of the bureaucracy with his friends and political allies, the perceived power of the office grew greatly. Perry also wisely used his office as both a bully pulpit and, primarily through his ability to set the agenda for special sessions, as a tool to drive policy.

Neither Greg Abbott or Wendy Davis are going to have the advantage of appointments under their belts and will need to work with former Perry appointees in key bureaucratic positions which would be more of a challenge for Davis than Abbott due to differences in political ideology.

Dealing with large Republican majorities is going to be an issue for Davis who, should she win, would have to discover the fine line between over vetoing legislation that's politically popular and looking as if she's an inept governor by becoming a rubber stamp who happens to occupy the office. Davis is also going to have to exert serious influence on the entire Democratic delegation (something, due to her rock star status in the party which would grow should she pull the upset, she shouldn't have a problem doing) in order to even get a hearing for her policy priorities.

However, I don't think passing policy would be the primary focus of a Wendy Davis administration. I believe that her primary focus would be to use the bully pulpit of the office in an attempt to plea for Texas voters to change the make-up of both the upper and lower chambers of the Texas legislature. In many ways, she'd be a Texas-lite version of President Obama, constantly campaigning and acting unilaterally where she could to circumvent policies she did not like.

Davis issues page on her campaign website is very heavy on education the issue on which, besides women's health issues and abortion rights, she is trying to base her campaign. It's very clear that a Davis administration would try to increase expenditures for education greatly, and based on past campaign rhetoric she will try to advocate for funding these increases by, at first, eliminating several tax breaks and, eventually, possibly trying to advocate for a full overhaul of Texas' tax code. It is reasonable to forecast that a newly-elected Governor Davis would view her election as a mandate Texas voters want fundamental change and would govern in such a manner.

Greg Abbott's issues page also mentions education although his plans and governing style are likely to be vastly different than Ms. Davis' style. For one, it's very clear that Abbott is planning on continuing the style that he perfected during his time as the State's Attorney General. Rather than pushing a laundry list of policies focused on detail, it appears that a Governor Abbott would leave many of the details of legislation to his ideological colleagues.

Instead, it appears that Abbott would lead through vocalization of key anti-Federal issues and use those to push forward his version of a practical platform.  One thing that Abbott is not, is a conservative in the Tea Party mold. Those on the right hoping to see him act as such are going to be disappointed.  Abbott will act conservatively on the issues of the 10th and 2nd amendments however, and he has shown a willingness in the past to take aggressive stands within this space.

One thing that neither Abbott or Davis seem willing to change is the use of both the Texas Enterprise and Texas Emerging Technology funds which should be of concern to both limited government/free enterprise conservatives and anti-corporate welfare progressives. Rick Perry made very effective use of these tools politically, I would think that Wendy Davis would be the more likely of the two, especially in areas of green energy, to use both of these tools to her political advantage than would Greg Abbott given their range of issues and rhetoric.

(UPDATED) It appears that I missed this but Greg Abbott has made some pretty strong statements suggesting that he would not be in favor of using the two funds mentioned above. Clearly, from a limited government/reduction in corporate welfare point of view this is a good thing. My apologies to the Abbott campaign for missing this.

Despite their similarities on the two economic funds Texas citizens can expect two entirely different governing styles from each of the two main candidates. In summary, Greg Abbott should be expected to try and govern like an advocate for Texas against the federal government, while Wendy Davis would try and govern as an advocate for Texas working with the federal government.

In the next part the focus will switch to one of the most consequential and interesting races, the race for Lt. Governor where candidates Dan Patrick and Leticia Van de Putte would seemingly govern in entirely different ways.

Election 2014: Why Cornyn why?

I have to admit to being at least a little surprised by this:

Alameel threatens Cornyn campaign with Lawsuit. Aman Batheja, Texas Tribune

I'm surprised not because Alameel is threatening a lawsuit, Texas Democratic candidates have been known to do that (and it should be noted, in the case of Chris Bell, win a financial settlement) so there's a financial incentive in doing so, especially when you're looking down the barrel of a 10-20% electoral drubbing.

No, I'm surprised because I can't see any reason for Cornyn to even mention Alameel by name.

Here's a candidate with zero name ID outside of the hard-core Democratic base, who needed a primary run-off to defeat Kesha Rogers, who hasn't shown any ability to mount an effective campaign and you provide him with both a platform and opportunity to cash in with the TLSPM for some free press?

It's not like Cornyn is running against the 2nd coming of Lyndon Baines Johnson here. Think closer to Rick Noriega. (*snicker*) A candidate so bad John Spong of Texas Monthly felt the need to write an article trying to help him win.

In my view all Cornyn needs to do to win comfortably is keep his eye on the "fight the Obama agenda" ball and run a TV ad or three.

Maybe someone can explain this move to me?

Looking to November: How will they campaign? (Part 1 of a series)

Before getting too deep into how each individual candidate will govern I think it's important to first look at how each party will campaign, what their issues will be, and how, from a general point of view, we can expect this to all play out.

Leading up to November I expect three overlying themes to develop.  I'm going to attempt to break them down here by party and (additionally) by ideology since I think there has to be a separation of Republican and conservative campaign talking points for any of it to make any sense.

All that said, let's start with:

Democrats:  The talking points from the Blue team are already taking shape on several different fronts. It is very clear that Texas Democrats are going to form a massive offensive around the idea that today's Texas Republican Party = the Tea Party and are "unfit to lead". I would expect Texas Dems to double down on this point finding what they consider to be onerous examples of Tea Party members behaving badly and doing their level best to associate various Republicans who drape themselves in the Tea Party banner to these closely. Make no doubt about it, the State party is going to go hard negative early and often. You're also going to hear a lot of talk about education and education funding from Democrats who are going to repeatedly reference the $5 Billion dollars in education cuts that they have vowed to restore, and then surpass. Again their casting of Republicans is going to be as spend-thrift old white mean who don't want poor, predominantly minority children to succeed. Democrats will also focus on abortion rights, continuing to push the War on women message as well as the movement to legalize and provide equal benefits to LGBT couples. 

On fiscal issues expect to see increasing calls for common sense tax reform that, I'm guessing here, will not include a State income tax but will include eliminating exemptions for most oil and gas production severance taxes. Democrats will also push for more green energy subsidies, as well as increased environmental standards for both existing and new oil refining facilities, gas processing plants and energy plants. Also, Democrats have long been asking for the gasoline tax to be indexed to inflation and the extra monies diverted to mass transit projects in lieu of new road construction.

Keeping in sync with National issues, Texas Democrats will continue their long-term pushes for Medicare expansion, an increase in the minimum wage to counter income inequality and rolling back Republican lawsuit reform that they say has deprived citizens of their right to redress corporate wrongs.

Expect the Democrats to hammer the Republicans hard on these issues, issues where they believe the Texas GOP has exposure to the voting public, what Democrats have traditionally termed "lunch pail" issues and have used in an attempt to portray the GOP as elitist and out of touch with mainstream society. That this dovetails nicely with their overall casting of Republicans as mean, far right-wing hate-mongers at war with women and minorities is a bonus in this cycle they feel.

I will say this.  While these points are overarching themes I do expect the Governor's race to be campaigned in a slightly different manner.  I'm unsure that Wendy Davis is going to try and paint Greg Abbott as a Tea-Party pocketed sycophant, but will instead hit him heavily regarding his legislative tendencies as Attorney General and then tie those proclivities to the items above.  The most progressive campaigner is almost sure to be Leticia Van de Putte, who is one of the more progressive candidates on this year's ballot.

Tomorrow we'll take a look at what is sure to be the Republican campaign strategy and how they'll attack/counter-attack the Democrats.  I'll also, at that time, talk about whether or not the Democrats will actively defend against Republican charges.

Texas Primary Run-off Post Mortem

This is going to be a long-ish post so bear with me.

In the end there were four things that died last night, The political careers of David Dewhurst and Jerry Patterson, the political relevance of newspaper editorial boards and the political clout of House Speaker Straus and State Rep. Geren.

Dewhurst is perhaps the least surprising. After the loss to Ted Cruz he's been outed as a poor campaigner with little message besides "me too!" when referring to conservative political issues.  While it's true that the media loves them a non-movement conservative Republican in positions of leadership, there's ample evidence that Dewhurst was disconnected from the reality of his campaign and that he let a relatively young and not-battle ready pack of hipsters waste a ton of his money, but also that he just never could grasp what it was that conservative voters found so unappealing in him.

As for Patterson, while his attacks were able to sway some in the Republican-blogger set to take him seriously (There was a robo-call out last night from "Texans for Accountability" that referenced this post specifically in a last-minute attack against Patrick) most Republicans seemed to attack the messenger more than the message which has left Patterson in the unfriendly position of being damaged goods. He's so toxic politically now that I doubt even Van de Putte and the Dems reach out to him in a hope to get a Republican endorsement.

Speaking of endorsements, the only Republican candidate to get a majority of Texas newspaper editorial board endorsements and still win was Ryan Sitton (This doesn't include Abbott and George P. Bush and other candidates who were basically unopposed). I would argue however that Sitton's win had more to do with his campaign, Tea Party support and the fact that Dan Branch was his opponent than did any endorsement in the local fish wraps. If nothing else, we're at a point in history where the gap between the political ideologies of major newspaper editorial boards and Republican voters is so large that an endorsement hurts a candidate rather than helps. I theorized back in 2012 that Rick Perry's strategy of bypassing the Ed boards and speaking directly with voters through his own publicity house-organ was the wave of the future. After this round of primaries I think this theory is strengthened. I wouldn't be surprised to see most Republican state-wide candidates declining invitations to sit and speak with editorial boards as we run up to November.  If I were advising a candidate my reaction would be to pass, or to actively seek my opponent get the nod.

Finally, it was a bad night for House Speaker Straus and his crew as they went 0 fer in four key races where their allies were running for office. Today the spin-mongers are trying to down play the results but what happened was certainly bad for non-movement conservatives and good for the right-wing of the Republican Party. While I don't think this means Straus loses his Speakership (I think there are still enough D's and moderate R's with skins in the game to keep him from getting voted out) I do think the political goings-on in the Texas House will be far more raucous than those in the State Senate.

With the primaries now out of the way we have a short respite until things start heating up for the general election in November. I think the campaigns for some of these races will be better than the actual races themselves.  Here's a quick summary:

John Cornyn vs. David Alameel (US Senate) - This is going to be a snoozer. Alameel was taken to a run-off by LaRouchian Kesha Rogers. Yes, Cornyn struggled in his primary but that's a primary, not a general election against a progressive candidate who would push and back policies against the economic interests of the State. Plus, he did avoid the run-off, something Alameel couldn't do against bad opposition. Alameel has not proven himself to be much of a candidate in the run-up and if he does try to get feisty Cornyn's machine will grind him down. On election day I think Cornyn wins with over 60% of the vote, barring something unforeseen.

Greg Abbott vs. Wendy! Davis (TX Gov) - If we're all going to be honest about this then we have to admit that the heat in this election was extinguished long ago under a wave of Davis gaffes that proved her to be not ready for prime-time. This result will fall under the same 55% (R) 40% (D) range that I discussed yesterday leaving Texas Dems with the same question that they've been asking for the last 20-something years: "When is that demographic change going to happen?"

Dan Patrick vs. Laticia Van de Putte (TX Lt. Gov) - While I think this has the potential to be one of the better campaigns on the ticket I still don't think there's enough of a Democratic base to push Van de Putte over the 45% hump. She'll probably run more on the issues than on Mr. Patrick, especially seeing how the attacks backfired against Dewhurst, unfortunately (for her) I still think the issues of the Texas Democratic Party do not resonate with a majority of voters in Texas.

Ken Paxton vs. Sam Houston (Atty. General) - Despite having a catchy historical name, Sam Houston is relatively unknown by Texas voters. Paxton brings a ton of baggage which is why I view this as the best chance for Texas Democrats to break through. I also think this is going to be among the ugliest of campaigns.  While I still think the Republican structural advantage is enough to carry Paxton through, he is going to have a fight on his hands.

A few more quick thoughts:

In the race for Agricultural Commissioner the Democrats revealed that their problem is still one of bench strength. Their run-off consisted of a politician who's not campaigning and a side-show. The non-campaigner won meaning that in this race, as well as in the races for Land Commissioner and Railroad Commission the Dems are starting in an 0-3 hole in Statewide races. I think they have outside chances in the races for Comptroller (more on that later) and, as I stated above, Attorney General but everything is going to need to break just right for them if they even want to be competitive. If anything, the political buzz surrounding the R run-off vs. the D run-off speaks volumes. Even the media and news-ish sites couldn't get too worked up over the Democratic options.

On the bright side, we should receive a robo-call break for at least the Summer.  That's never a bad thing. And it means that we don't have to sit through endless TV ads breaking into our favorite shows either. People who moan and complain about low voter interest in politics need to take a hard look at the process itself. There are a lot of bad actors in the campaign consulting business. Unfortunately, they are also those who win. For all of the talk about "getting money out of politics" the reality is it has become a large economy in and of itself. Much like casino gambling however it only takes out of society and never puts back in. To begin reform, we need politicians who take hard looks at who they're hiring and stop bringing on the bad actors.

This will happen at about the same time I get elected to public office. In other words, never.

The TLSPM is working overtime to overstate a tenuous connection.

If used selectively, stereotypes can be a powerful political tool. The entire Republican "war on women" is the result of taking the actions of a few, and applying them to many. Used in reverse stereotypes have created the myth that "All Democrats are socialists". These are happy fictions that lead to breathless columns from a group of unthinking political columnists happy to base their career output on what is force-fed to them by political operatives.

Conveniently, this brings us to the subject of today's post.  Peggy Fikac's political column stereotyping Republicans based on the idiotic actions of a staffer for political consultant Allen Blakemore.

It cannot be argued that the act of creating a PAC with the name "Boats n' Hoes" is stupid on a monumental level. We're talking about a 400 year old US Constitution level of idiocy. Even more stupid is using the actions of this one person to imply (directly) that all Republicans are "tone-deaf" when it comes to women's issues.

Clearly the Greg Abbott campaign is not tone-deaf. Despite Fikac suggesting that they are, their proactive call to ChronBlog secretarial journalist Kolten Parker denouncing the action reveals that they're very in tune to the happy mythology she is trying to weave. Were Abbott and Co. truly tone deaf, they'd take a passive stance and let the Davis campaign take the lead.

The rest of the Fikac column is nothing more than a protracted apology for Davis poor performance in recent polls. Again, she's allowing the use of stereotypes by lumping in all minority and young voters into the category of "no home phones".

Political columns such as these do the public a disservice. This is something I've said before and I'll continue to say it as long as it's true. Yes, there are Republicans out there who have a women's issue problem, minority issues problems and economic issues problems. That doesn't mean that all Republicans have the same traits. And it certainly doesn't mean that the Abbott campaign should be defined by State Senator Dan Patrick's consulting firm.

Selective use of stereotypes can run both ways. Back when the Super Bowl was in Houston Peggy Fikac's employer ran breathless coverage of "Pimp n' Ho" balls suggesting that, using the same logic, Ms. Fikac herself might potentially be tone deaf when it comes to issues relating to women and human trafficking.

Taking a broader look, one could use Ms. Fikac's column to assume that all members of the Texas Lock Step Political Media are unquestioning cyphers whose only focus is to regurgitate information disseminated to them by more-intelligent political operatives.

Either that, or we could forgo this entire silly exercise and start looking at each campaign on it's merits.  It involves a significantly larger amount of research and time, but it would certainly be the best way to serve the Texas voting public.

Abbott's "Rough Start"

To understand why Wayne Slater, Democratic/Progressive Dallas Morning News political columnist, has described The Abbott campaign's start as "rough" you have to understand his position on the election Re: Wendy! Davis.

A quick review of Slater's recent writings reveals a pattern of condemning State Republican candidates through guilt by association and defending Wendy! Davis through nuance.  When Slater is critical of Wendy! It's in the form of constructive criticism. One almost gets the impression Slater would be quite happy putting in a little time on the phone banks for the Democratic nominee.

Were Slater confined to opinion columns, I would have no problem with this.  He's a known Democrat and he's entitled to his opinion.  While not an especially talented writer (the man is in dire need of editing most times) he has the benefit of "being around for a long time" which, in the kiddie-pool of the Texas Lockstep Political Media means that he's viewed as somewhat of an expert on many subjects (See: Burka, Paul for more).

This doesn't mean that everything Slater writes is Pro Wendy!  Quite the contrary. It was Slater, after all, who raised questions about Wendy! Davis' autobiography. Of course, he immediately turned around and accused people who had problems with Wendy's narrative of being partisan hacks. 

That's my problem with "reporters" who are allowed to both report "news" and then opine on it the very next day.   They're allowed to set the agenda, and then tear it down at their leisure.  Slater framed the Wendy! autobiography ambiguously, and then used his opinion pulpit to accuse people who seized on it of being political opportunists.

He's now doing the same thing against the Abbott campaign.  It's no secret that the Greg Abbott stumbles meme is something that was first forwarded by Lefty bloggers. This is OK, and it's something you would expect to see from partisans.  In many cases the professional bloggers O' the Right have done the same thing toward Wendy!  This is what political blogs do.

What is unusual is watching the TLSPM go whole-hog for the Abbott campaign is incompetent story line while ignoring the fact that Wendy! Davis has been stepping on her own (famous) tennis shoes as well.

Neither candidate has ran a model campaign to this point.  In my view Abbott has done a moderately better job then Wendy! Davis because he's, at least, focusing on things that would concern a majority of Texas voters.  There's ample evidence that the Wendy! Davis strategy of abortion/big spending on education and....Republicans are mean! is not winning over the hearts and minds of Texas voters, neither are her repeated shots against Abbott's physical disability. Then there was her odd decision to blame Abbott for her biography inaccuracies.

I get that the TLSPM would love to have a real gubernatorial race on their hands for a change, but it's becoming more and more likely that Wendy! Davis is not the one who's going to provide it.  I've said for a while now that the number one problem facing Texas Democrats is a lack of credible candidates for statewide races.  From perennial candidate Chris Bell to Rick Noriega to Bill White to Barbara Ann Radnofsky to Leticia Van de Putte to Wendy! Davis to (my favorite) David Van Os.  Regardless of your political leanings, that's a fairly weak slate of candidates who have been bashing up against the Republican fortifications in Texas for over a decade now.  For Democrats to win, they're going to have to find candidates with whom people can relate and who can craft a message that's more than "spend more money, war on women! and White men suck!"

Until then, all of the TLSPM rambling about Abbott having a "rough start" is just that, media rambling.  And, as we're finding out, more and more people aren't paying much attention to what the TLSPM has to say anyway, choosing to get their news from other locations.

If Rick Perry's Governorship did anything, it proves how much of a circle-jerk the TLSPM has become.  He ignored them, and won. I have a feeling Abbott would do much better if he realized he doesn't need them either.

Why Lt. Gov Dewhurst Will Not Drop Out. (For now at least)

You can't blame State Sen. Dan (Goeb) Patrick from trying however.

Patrick Aides: Patrick's lead over Dewhurst "insurmountable". Robert T Garrett, Dallas Morning News

Dewhurst is in big trouble, chief Patrick strategist Allen Blakemore told reporters.

He noted that while Dewhurst is a 16-year statewide officeholder, 72 percent of Republicans who cast ballots Tuesday for lieutenant governor voted for someone else.

“The situation for Mr. Dewhurst is rather hopeless,” Blakemore said. 

Forgetting, for a moment, that this metric has no value. (After all a majority [58.55%] also voted against Mr. Patrick and there's little evidence that even half of these votes will fall his way in the run-off) There's little reason for Dewhurst to do anything until this:

Blakemore said Patrick is scheduled to participate in a televised, two-man debate of immigration issues with San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro in the Alamo City on April 15.

It's reasonable to think that the Dewhurst camp is hoping this debate is a disaster for Patrick, a man whose debating chops are relatively untested. Until now he's been known for brow-beating his opponents on his radio show, shutting them off when they start scoring points.  By all accounts he did not win the Republican Primary debate but neither did Mr. Dewhurst. Most non-campaign affiliated observers felt Jerry Patterson won.  Of course, Mr. Patterson ended up finishing well out of the run-off and ended his campaign in embarrassing fashion. That debate was between 4 Republicans and was lightly followed by voters in the Republican primary.  The April 15th debate stands to be much more high profile, on a hot-button topic to which Sen. Patrick has tethered his campaign. A failure here probably won't hurt him much within Senate District 7 (his base of support) but it might cause Dallas, San Antonio and other TX Republicans to wonder if they're backing the right horse in the race.

Mr. Dewhurst needs nothing short of a total disaster for this to move the needle.  Castro needs to make Patrick look small and ineffective, ignorant of reality even.  He needs to make Sen. Patrick appear unfamiliar with the basic facts.  In other words, it's going to take more than snark and pink tennis shoes for Mayor Castro to do any harm to Patrick's chances of election.  If Patrick barely loses, holds his own or wins, he's going to be your next Lt. Governor. Despite that Mr. Dewhurst should hang in until at least that debate because you never know. When it's over he's going to know whether he has a chance or if he's going to be looking for a cushy private sector position in order to cash-in.

All that being said, this debate is a silly political move by Team Patrick. He's got nothing to gain (Mayor Castro is not on the ballot) and everything to lose. There's nothing more at play here than Mr. Patrick's ego.  It's worth noting that stunts like this are why several Republicans have great heartburn about Patrick taking over as Lt. Governor.  The man is less a politician than a carnival barker whose signature legislative achievements have been getting "In God We Trust" added to the TX House and Senate tote boards and a sonogram bill that was only partially upheld by the right-leaning 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.  Befitting his political career, he's an empty suit.

What this means for Texas Democrats is that they are still in a deep hole. Even an empty suit will probably best Letitia Van de Putte by 30 percentage points. While a Patrick-led State Senate will certainly be further to the right (at least socially) than a Dewhurst-led one, it's not the ideology that worries me.

What I'm really worried about is that Patrick's own need to self-promote and grandstand is going to rub many independents and moderates the wrong way. I worry that, if Patrick becomes the "face" of the Texas GOP, that the fiscal good is going to be washed away with the pandering bad.

And which one do you think the Texas Lock-Step Political Media (and the news-ish agencies) are going to focus on?