The deteriorating situation along the Texas-Mexico border has caused Rick Perry to emerge from his primary cocoon of extreme, Tea Party anti-government rhetoric to beg for help. The problem is that Perry doesn't understand the consequences of his political rhetoric.
It may have been politically popular to spend a year tearing down the Federal government and framing his primary opponent as representative of everything that is wrong with Washington D.C., but now the very people he needs to help him lobby in Washington for border assistance, both Republican and Democrat, are likely to be the very one's who gently remind him that his political rhetoric didn't help his cause. For an entire year Rick Perry ignored the cartel action along the border and instead concentrated on moving so far to the Right in his primary campaign that he makes Rush Limbaugh blush.
Career politicians like Rick Perry have never learned that political rhetoric has far-reaching consequences. He just simply fires off at the mouth when he believes it makes him look like the swaggering cowboy that a cheerleader could never be:
Rick Perry hates the Federal government until he needs their transportation dollars to meld pieces of his defunct Trans-Texas Corridor project together.
Rick Perry hates the Federal government until his primary campaign is over and he just now discovers that he has a cartel problem along the border between Mexico and Texas.
The essence of leadership is putting aside self-interests to simply step forward, exercise political will, and do what is right for Texas and not for the campaign at hand. Perry's anti-government, extremist political rhetoric has burned more bridges to Washington D.C. than Texas can afford. As Rick Perry calls Washington for help, here is hoping his two Republican senators and majority Republican congressional delegation, which didn't support his primary campaign, are there to answer what he now begs for.
As March 2nd approaches and Rick Perry either wins on Tuesday, or heads into a runoff with Kay Bailey Hutchison, the fallout resulting from a year-long battle for the Texas GOP gubernatorial nomination appears to have taken its toll on supporters and donors of both candidates. The Star-Telegram reports that key donors of Kay Bailey Hutchison may be open to supporting presumed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White after the field has settled:
"I can assure you that I will not be a financial supporter of Rick Perry, and I can assure you that most of the people I talk to are not going to support him either," said Fort Worth oilman Dick Moncrief, Hutchison's financial chairman in North Texas, predicting that Republicans who are "fed up with Perry" may wind up supporting White if Hutchison fails to get the nomination.
"There is absolutely no assurance that Perry can beat White in November," Moncrief said.
Clearly a battle for the soul of the Texas Republican Party is bearing out for all to see; whether it is the Tea Party primary challenges to moderate Republican state representatives, or even the current gubernatorial slug-fest between political heavyweights in Perry and Hutchison, the Texas GOP is in shambles.
The question is where do the moderates go? Clearly if Perry wins, and extremism continues to become bedrock mainstream for the Republican Party of Texas, a wide swath of voters will be up for grabs and available for Bill White. As more and more Texans declare themselves as independent, or as a large swath of moderate voters become up for grabs due to the Texas GOP splintering, an opportunity arises for the Democratic Party in Texas to expand its base. Moreover, the opportunity arises for Bill White to begin creating a whole new mainstream majority in the Lone Star State.
Could what Dick Moncrief proposed in the Star-Telegram be a microcosm of what Bill White could expect heading into a general election campaign on March 3rd? It would appear he certainly has the opportunity to try, which represents the best opportunity that Texas Democrats have to be the national headline this November.
I don't know. Every day that goes by is one more day where a new Tea Party organization splinters from another larger Tea Party organization. Every day that goes by is another day where the crazy Limbaugh/Palin/Beck fringe of the Republican Party gets more and more upset at the core GOP itself. And every day that goes by is another day where Rick Perry continues to sew up the Republican gubernatorial nomination over Kay "I don't know what I'm doing" Hutchison.
With that said, an interesting turn in the saga that is the fracturing Texas Republican Party took place this week when fringe secessionist, and American flag hater Larry Kilgore dropped his bid for the Republican nomination for governor and threw his support behind Debora Medina.
There has been a substantial protest vote in the past two Republican primaries. Last year those votes went against Sen. John Cornyn and candidate Larry Kilgore got 18 percent of the 1.2 million votes cast. That's nearly 227,000 votes.
In 2006, Kilgore led a group of fringe candidates in scoring nearly 16 percent of the vote against Perry.
"The question is whether that fringe vote goes three or four percent or nine or 10 percent," said Cal Jillson, an SMU political science professor. "At nine or 10, it can affect the outcome and cause a runoff."
This morning on WFAA's Inside Politics in the Dallas/Fort-Worth media market, Houston Mayor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White, revealed he was considering a ballot switch as early the day prior to Farouk Shami's entrance into the race on November 19th.
When Mayor White was asked by Brad Watson, How much of a challenge will it be to run against Farouk Shami? White answered:
He can pour some millions into the race. In fact, I know Farouk and met with him the night before he announced and told him I was reconsidering my decision, so I'm not sure where that comes from.
White's answer is the first real glimpse of internal campaign deliberations where he was contemplating a switch to the gubernatorial race even days before meeting with Tom Schieffer. The meeting with the former ambassador in which Schieffer offered to abandon his gubernatorial race if White would enter might have been the deciding factor---that and the positive responses from thousands of Texans.
Brad Watson and Gromer Jeffers continued to press White as to whether he was worried about Shami's ability to self-fund his campaign; therefore forcing White to spend his sizeable financial war chest in the primary versus the general election:
I don't know, I'm not the political guru, but I have deep broad support from both within my own Party and outside of my Party. And when people who don't know me get to know the sort of business experience I bring to the job and the results that we've been able to get in Houston, then people are willing to help. We have hundreds of volunteers-thousands really across the state, and I'm blessed to have a lot of public support.
Ideally you would like for the field to be cleared for White, but I have far more confidence in White's ability to not only raise money without federal limits, but also resonate quickly with primary voters in a manner that will make it difficult on Shami to gain much traction in this race. The field continues to clear enough to where a runoff is unlikely and White's entry into the race solidifies Hutchison's inability to attract un-energized, disenchanted Democrats into a GOP primary. That all translates to more energized Democrats voting in the Democratic primary.
Given Hutchison's fate, the question of whether White would prefer to run against Hutchison or Perry was an easy softball for the Clinton-era Deputy Secretary of Energy:
What Texans have said who have e-mailed me, and you can see some of those at www.billwhitefortexas.com and they have said they can't afford another four years of Rick Perry and I agree with that.
On the heels of Friday's gubernatorial launch, Mayor Bill White has enjoyed rather positive press coverage throughout the weekend and gives his campaign an energy boost leading into a new week in a new race.
Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, a Republican, refused to rule out a run in any potential special election race should Kay "Will she or Won't she" Hutchison eventually resign.
It took three times for Brad Watson and Gromer Jeffer's with WFAA's Inside Politics to pull an answer from Leppert that didn't have your stomach queasy from all the political spin:
Opportunities and obstacles come up and if they come up I will deal with them. I am very happy with what I'm doing right now. We are making great progress in the City of Dallas and I think people recognize that. If the opportunity comes up then I'll look at it.
Clearly Leppert is making some of the same calculated assumptions that Mayor Bill White is making. Leppert is a popular Republican mayor of a major metropolitan county that has trended heavily Democratic since 2006. Leppert recently muscled through a sweeping Ethics reform package in the wake of former councilman Don Hill's corruption trial--the same corruption charges that now engulf State Representative Terri Hodge.
Leppert has momentum, and certainly has potential, to shave off quite a few votes in his favor in the North Texas region where his name identification is high. In a special election race with very low turnout numbers that could be just enough to pull him into a runoff. It is the same calculations the White campaign is making: a popular mayor from a major metropolitan area that has trended blue in the last few election cycles. Shave off enough votes in favor of Mayor White in a low turnout special election and it should be enough to catapult him into a runoff.
But again, all of these calculations are based on whether or not Kay "Will she or Won't she" Hutchison eventually resign her senate seat and the answer, as she indicated on Friday, is she will not. Based on this past week's Rasmussen poll showing KBH down 11 points to Perry less than four months away from a GOP primary election is a terrible spot to be in. However, it is indicative of the terrible campaign she has run for governor as well.
It may be intriguing for Leppert to consider a special election run, and I do believe he is giving it very serious thought, but he is a smart enough politician to know that I'm staying right where I am. Hutchison is the most deceptive, stick my finger in the air to figure out which way the political winds are blowing, type politician that we've ever seen. Leppert will position himself to launch a campaign should the opportunity arise, but ultimately it will be for nothing because Hutchison won't resign.
(Please note the update to this story below. I have been of the same opinion as Todd since the summer that KBH isn't going to resign. This appears to becoming more true once again. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
An update to this story is below
Senator Kay "will she or won't she" Hutchison threw more fuel on the growing fire as to whether or not she will indeed resign her senate seat to pursue a full-time run for governor of Texas.
"I can't say anything right now because I don't know," Hutchison said. "Every day in Washington, some new bad thing is coming up."
Davis pushed further, asking if she might stay in the Senate through next year's March primary.
"Well, a lot of people are suggesting that," Hutchison said. "That's not what I want to do. That's not what I intend to do but ... right now I want to just see what comes next. When is health care finished? I want to stay and fight with every bone in my body against the government takeover of health care."
Hutchison was the featured guest of Right-wing conservative WBAP radio host Mark Davis this morning.
I've been one of the few who began to speculate back in the summer that Kay Bailey Hutchison may not resign her senate seat because she has been unable to build the necessary statewide infrastructure to challenge Rick Perry in the 2010 GOP primary. Hutchison has not had to run a statewide campaign since 1993, whereas Perry has run statewide campaigns dating back to 1998. Hutchison represents more of the moderate, yet dwindling wing of the Texas Republican Party, while Perry represents the extreme, Right-wing of the Texas Republican Party. The latter votes in larger numbers than the former in Republican primaries here in Texas. Hutchison has a lot going against her---much of which is her own fault.
Hutchison went on in her interview to suggest that there are a number of politicians beginning to be a bit upset that she is incapable of making up her mind as to whether she wants to retire to the Texas governor's mansion, or retire up in Washington until 2012:
Hutchison told Davis Tuesday it "bothers" her how many public officials' political plans are up in the air while they wait for her to step down.
Hogwash! You love the fact that you have the whole wide world in your hands, Kay. You love nothing more then having all these politicians pawing and begging for you to make up your mind. Hutchison will continue her half-hearted run for that retirement mansion in Austin, but she'll do it without resigning her senate seat.
UPDATE:POLITICO is now reporting an unnamed source within the Hutchison campaign as stating the following regarding distrust on the part of her campaign toward Perry appointing a suitable replacement for her in the senate:
A Hutchison insider told POLITICO that she "can't trust Perry to appoint a candidate who would hold the seat and represent the state at a desirable level."
You may have read an interesting article this week in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about the fact that the North Texas Transportation Authority rarely hires, or considers hiring, minority owned contractors to manage NTTA projects. Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price commented that the NTTA runs a "Good Ole' Boys' Club." Apparently so if roughly 95% of all projects are awarded to white males.
The Dallas Blog did a bit more investigating and found that Ray Hutchison, husband to Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, advised the Collin County Commissioners' Court as bond counsel with Vinson & Elkins, LLP, on the pros and cons of pursing private activity bonds to build a toll road between Denton and Collin counties. Dallas Blog came to the following conclusion, under the headline of, "Ray Hutchison Promotes NTTA's "Good Ol' Boys' Club":
Mr. Hutchison works full-time for Vinson & Elkins earning a substantial salary there. TxDOT and NTTA coordinate to build toll roads in the North Texas region. Yet, the NTTA recently earned notoriety for flagrantly hiring very few minority contractors.
I actually want to go one step farther and question Senator Hutchison's sincerity on being anti-toll. Her husband defends the practice of toll privatization on behalf of the NTTA, an agency that doesn't believe minorities are up to the task of building roads as much as Anglos, but meanwhile Kay Bailey has the audacity to slam Rick Perry on allowing the building of privatized toll roads across Texas?
How can you be anti-privatization of roads when your husband brings home paychecks due to work where he advises pursuing bonds that allow private entities to build toll roads?
It looks like to me we have another case of Senator Hutchison sticking her finger in her mouth and pointing toward the sky to figure out which way the political winds are blowing on a particular issue. It is politically convenient to say you are against privatizing toll roads because that is popular, but as long as your husband gets paid to promote doing just that it's rather easy to turn the other way and play dumb. What voters don't know, won't hurt them, I suppose is what Kay Bailey is thinking.
The never ending, weekly Broadway saga we've come to know as Kay "Will she or Won't She" Hutchison, continues to take more wild turns then a Talladega race during a thunderstorm. Let's take a look back at the week of drama we've come to expect from Kay.
First, Hutchison announced she would vote "no" against President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor. No surprise there really. Kay finally realized she has to win the Republican Primary before she can run in a general election. Her decision is calculated to appeal to the "teabaggers" and nutty "birthers" of the Grand Old Anglo Party. Her decision had nothing to do with "gun rights." Sure she could have voted "yes" in a move to pander to Hispanics and Democrats, all of whom she would need to win both a primary and general election, but because she has teeter-tottered back and forth as to what the heck she wishes to do---be a senator or be a governor--- she backed herself into a corner of needing to pander to a base she has yet to not only lock up, but even appeal to.
Second, In a very "As the World Turns" moment, Hutchison announced on Right Wing radio this past Wednesday that she will in fact resign to run for governor sometime in October or November, only to come back on Thursday and say essentially "well, maybe not if Rick leaves the race." Yeah, right. Kay again played into to the very strong stereotype that she licks her finger and points it in the air just to gauge which way the political winds are blowing. Although I still won't be surprised if she doesn't resign her senate seat and continues to run for governor, much of which I indicated before, I feel the following quote from her radio conversation this past week was pretty revealing:
"I had hoped that he wouldn't run. You know, no one expected him to run again. And, I thought, you know I stepped back last time, Mark. I tried to give him a really free ride with no primary because I thought it was right for Texas. But for him to stay on for 15 years is too long."
Well, Kay, Perry is running and frankly you have forgotten how. You "hoped he wouldn't run?" On what laurels do you rest that hope on? You thought, Kay, that by threatening Perry once before in 2006 about resigning and running for governor, to which Perry ran anyway and you backed off, that by threatening to resign again you would scare Perry's ego away from the history books this time? As a favor to you, Kay, you thought Rick Perry would just back away and let you have the governor's mansion? Geez,what an ego. Not to mention a politically ridiculous strategy that you carved out for yourself back in 2006 and hurt yourself for a potential gubernatorial run in 2010. That strategy shows just how politically naïve Kay Bailey really is. Perry doesn't owe you anything for giving him a "free ride" in 2006 all you did was tick him off. He has you in a political headlock right now and you're trying to wiggle out of it.
Goodness knows what drama, or political naivety, will play out this week with Kay "Will she or Won't she" Hutchison.
Kay Bailey Hutchison appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box to whine and bellyache about the Grand Old Anglo Party being "shutout" of the healthcare debate in Washington.
"There is no bipartisanship here," she said. "There were something like 45 amendments on the health care bill that came out of the Senate committee. Two Republican amendments were put on out of 45 offers."
Speaking this morning on CNBC's "Squawk Box," the Dallas Republican disagreed with Obama's contention that Republican views were being considered and declared: "The Democrats want to pass their own plan, of course."
Really? No bipartisanship at all? Being shutout? Obama is lying about bipartisanship? From MSNBC:
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus today announced that a bipartisan group of committee members have "locked down and agreed" on two "major issues" of their version of the health-care reform bill. But Baucus refused to give specific details on which provisions agreement was reached.
He did said the agreement was on a policy provisions -- not issues that address how to pay for the massive reform. "Major issues," Baucus said, "issues that have been in the public domain for a good time."
Beside Baucus and Conrad, the group consist of Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Mike Enzi (R-WY), and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM). Baucus says the group will meet again today at 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm ET.
Either Senator Hutchison can't count, because I see four Republican senators working with Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus on health care reform, or she is being shutout by her own Party as it relates to the health care debate. Moreover, her attempts to portray President Obama as lying to the American people about bipartisan efforts to find common ground on health care reform demonstrate who is really being dishonest to the public. You see, Kay, you have to actually come to the table and be willing to add something constructive to a debate versus just saying "no, no, no" all the time.
