This week's Texas Tribune weekly Tribcast featured harsh words from Tribune CEO Evan Smith, who is not buying Perry's refusal to debate.
Earlier this week, Bill White released his tax returns for all the year's in which he was Mayor. In doing so, he did exactly what Rick Perry's campaign team had asked for. As Ross Ramsey pointed out during the roundtable discussion posted on the Tribune's website, the initial press release from the Perry campaign asked for White to release his tax returns during his six year's as Mayor.
From the Rick Perry campaign's very first release about Bill White's taxes, dated March 9:
“Bill White has a tax problem – he won’t rule out raising taxes for Texans and refuses to release his own tax returns. His opposition to transparency raises questions about what he is afraid of and what he is hiding regarding his own personal fortune and how he may have profited during his six years as Houston’s mayor.”
Evan Smith, knowing that the Perry team -- in Smith's words -- had engaged "in a classic set the bar, meet the bar, move the bar maneuver" that should not be allowed. As transcribed from the Tribcast:
EVAN: Let's call that what it is: CRAP. The Perry campaign, if the Perry campaign thinks it will get away with not allowing a debate to occur between him and the major party candidate for Governor over what they perceive to be an insufficient release of the Mayor's tax returns it is, pure and simple, crap. It should be called crap by everybody, and no one should allow the Perry campaign to get away with it.
Rick Perry's panicky campaign team is trying to change the nature of the game. Now they've released a demonstrably false attack on White, claiming he profitted from an investment in BTEC while he was Mayor. As Dave Mann of the Texas Observer wrote on Tuesday, in a post titled, "A Bill White Scandal?"
This would seem a looming scandal for White. The insinuation is clear enough: he personally profited from disaster recovery that he oversaw as mayor. But that doesn't seem to be the case. There are some important mitigating details:
1. White had no financial ties to BTEC Turbines at the time the company received its contract. Although he had served on the board previously, he wasn’t invested at the time.
2. White spokesperson Katy Bacon said White’s investment in BTEC came more than a year later and was unrelated to the company’s hurricane recovery work. She said investors who were looking to purchase BTEC called White in 2006 to ask his opinion on the company. The then-mayor said it was an excellent company—one he would personally invest in. In fact, the investment group later asked him to do just that.
3. And, finally, it seems unlikely that White’s $556,000 profit stemmed from BTEC”s work on Hurricane Rita. It’s doubtful a temporary emergency contract for mobile generators could have provided enough money to BTEC to enrich a single investor. (Again, it’s not clear how much money—if any—BTEC earned from the emergency contract. Calls to the company for comment weren’t returned this afternoon.)
While Rick Perry and his campaign team continue to spread lies and send their anonymous bloggers and "we'll-pay-you-to-like-us" supporters lies about Bill White and BTEC, it's important to remember that facts matter. Perry's team, in just the last two days, have been rated "Pants on Fire" liars about their claims on Bill White and cap-and-trade, as well as "False" for their claims that the $18 billion budget deficit estimate came out of the air.
For a full transcript of this section of the Tribcast, check below the fold. In the meantime, today's question that Rick Perry refuses to answer is pretty simple:
Rick Perry -- why are you scared to debate Bill White?
Because Rick Perry can't defend his failures, that's why. From WFAA in Dallas:
Belo Corp., the company that owns WFAA and TV stations in Austin, Houston and San Antonio, sponsored a statewide debate during the Republican primary and invited Perry and White to debate this fall.
White accepted. But Perry's campaign spokesman, Mark Miner, says not yet.
"Once he releases his income taxes and tells the public how he made his money while in public service and as a business person, we'll be more than happy to discuss debates," Miner said.
The Perry campaign demands White release returns for all six years he served as Houston's mayor and two years as deputy energy secretary in 1990s.
White has released only his 2009 tax return since he's running for a statewide office just as Perry has since 1991. White said he will disclose specific information when asked.
"We'll take in consideration releasing tax returns or parts of those tax returns," White said. "We've been providing information from them to journalists as time goes on. I just want there to be a standard that's applicable to all candidates.”
This has to be one of the most chicken-moves imaginable. The Perry campaign is terrified -- absolutely terrified -- of standing next to Bill White and defending their record. Perry already skipped out on all newspaper endorsement meetings in his primary race against Hutchison, knowing full well that his repetitive history of lies could not stand the scrutiny of their honest fact-checking and reasonable requests for responsible solutions.
It's a cowards play, and a pretty weak one at that. Rick Perry thinks Bill White should release random tax returns from obscure years when he wasn't running for statewide office -- a standard that doesn't measure up to what Perry himself has done. Moreover, Perry's own Lieutenant Governor, David Dewhurst, has failed to release a single one of his tax returns.
Finally -- Rick, if you think these damn tax returns are so important, why don't you stand next to Bill White in front of a television camera and say so?
The answer is clear: Rick Perry is terrified to stand next to Bill White and defend his record.
If Farouk is such a red hot "CEO" already, what does he need with being Governor?
If he has 100,000 private sector jobs in his back pocket, why will the title "Governor" get those jobs filled faster?
Does Farouk plan to have Texas taxpayers subsidize his commercial ventures? If not, then what is he waiting for? JUST DO IT, Farouk, if you can.
Farouk knows how to market low tech hair dryers to vain ladies in a niche market. Does that mean he knows how to put everyone to work making solar panels?
Are we to believe that Farouk alone holds the keys to the mysteries of the "Green Economy?"
Probably the most difficult thing about being a SessionsWatcher is actually seeing Pete Sessions in person. It's kinda like hanging out in the rain forest with binoculars, trying to catch a glimpse of a rare bird that only shows up every two years, then flits away into the night.
After last night's debate--which only lasted half an hour--Sessions made a hasty retreat out the door of the elementary school cafetorium, instead of hanging around with constituents, enjoying cookies and coffee and listening to the other debates of the evening...
Tonight Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain take the stage for the second time, and less than a week after the Vice Presidential debate. The debate tonight also takes place during a period in which the Obama campaign has made significant advances in several key swing states, and the McCain campaign has pulled out of Michigan and has been spending a significant amount of time in Republican stronghold states such as Florida.
Well, Sarah Palin beat her expectations but with a bar so low it would have been a challenge to limbo under it. Joe Biden was solid. Overall, kinda boring in my opinion, which again, is not what McCain/Palin needed to change the dynamic of the race. Biden's moment about his family though was far and away one of the most powerful I have seen in this campaign, though.
I was watching with a large crowd at Scholz and may have missed some of the nuance. I'm more interested in what everyone else thought?
Tonight Governor Sarah Palin will debate Senator Joe Biden. Could this Vice Presidential debate have more affect on the election than any other Vice Presidential debate in history?
Given that the topic of this debate theoretically should have favored McCain, I found him rather underwhelming. In fact, he seemed like a grumpy old man, and at times, Mike Gravel-esque.
Obama, while agreeing with McCain to much for my tastes (not that that really does or means anything as it is simply a debate tactic), was engaged, explanatory, not afraid to be aggressive when need be, and generally came across as someone that I could trust to make decisions about running the country.
Sure, McCain has all the experience in the world. And what the hell has he done with it? At the end of the day, I felt like I was in a time warp and watching a re-run of the 2004 debate with "cut taxes, fight the world, and control spending".
Here are some of the Texas Publications that have post-debate polls.
(Oh, this could be fun. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
Not doing anything next Tuesday?
On Tuesday, 23 September 2008, at 8:00 p.m. (20:00) the student government association of Huston-Tillotson University, along with the NAACP and Greek organizations, is sponsoring an election debate. The two debaters will be Dr. Fred L. McGhee, the president of Black Austin Democrats, and David Beckwith of the John Cornyn campaign and a veteran Republican activist surely familiar to BOR readers.
Huston-Tillotson University is a Historically Black College located in East Austin, and is the oldest university to be founded in the City of Austin. It has a rich tradition of community service & outreach in the East Austin community, and this pivotal election cycle marks a unique opportunity to push voter registration on campus and to educate the community about the issues.
The event will take place on September 23rd, on campus in the Student Union starting at 8PM and lasting 60-minutes. The format will be as close to the televised debates as possible except that all all topics (domestic, international, and some local) will be touched on. Questions from the audience will be taken, that will be chosen by the hosts for appropriateness.
The Format- The debate is divided into 5 ten-minute issue segments with 5 minutes each for closing remarks. The issues segments will be:
Domestic policy
Environmental policy
Foreign policy
Iraq
Local issues
The moderator will introduce each segment with an issue on which each candidate will comment, after which the moderator will facilitate further discussion of the issue, including direct exchange between the candidates, for the balance of that segment. Time will be reserved for closing statements by each of the candidates in each debate.
This is aimed at increasing the educational value of the general election debates, and to promote voter education.
