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?
This is still a Republican state, and it will remain so for at least the next presidential cycle. Texas Democrats can dream, but the only thing likely to be blue in 2012 is their mood. --Evan Smith, Texas Monthly
Let's look at this again -- does this look like a Republican state to anyone?
U.S. Senate: TX Fundraising Totals (1st Q)
Party
1Q 2009 Raised
Cash on Hand
2 Democrats
$4,392,996
$4,564,313
4 Republicans
$181,000 + ???
$977,248
Two Democrats have nearly five times as much cash on hand as their four Republican counterparts in the U.S. Senate race.
I bet Republicans wish they could be so blue. Oh, the sadness of having five times as much cash on hand -- and having potentially raised as much as ten times more -- than Republicans after the end of the first quarter.
John Sharp and Bill White each reported some excellent numbers, and there is a lot of reasons to be proud about each of them. What's more, each campaign is reaching out to bloggers this year -- whether we like how they do it or not -- and each has shown some tremendous strength in the simple ways they are organizing their campaigns.
This year, conventional wisdom needs to get thrown out like the rest of the Republican bums that are running this state. Texas Democrats are ready to win today, and so far we've got two great names atop our Party that are helping us make that happen.
Congratuiations to both Sharp and White on strong early numbers. We hope to learn more -- and report more -- about how they intend to put those dollars to use in the coming weeks and months.
Gingrich looked ahead to the 2012 campaign and said he sees an open Republican field aiming to take Obama's job.
"If Sarah Palin seeks out a group of very sophisticated policy advisers and develops a fairly sophisticated platform, she will be very formidable," Gingrich said.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who made a strong run at the 2008 GOP nomination, "has got to figure out how to close the sale," he added. Gingrich also suggested Texas Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) and John Cornyn (R) could position themselves for national candidacies in four years.
I suppose I can see a scenario where Hutchison (if she was willing to run) could find an opening in a weak GOP field but the thought of John Cornyn as a serious presidential candidate is pretty laughable.
Cornyn is less than two years away from becoming the NRSC Chair who allowed the Democrats to win over 60 seats. That is not the title a presidential candidate wants to have.
John Cornyn 2012 would be a repeat of Phil Gramm 1996, except Cornyn's run would probably be even less successful than Gramm's short-lived campaign for the GOP nomination in '96.
Tune into 91.7FM KOOP Radio today (Fri., Nov. 14th, 2008)from 2:00pm-3:00pm to hear Deece Ecksetin and David Kobierowski discuss the speaker's race with former Speaker of the TX House Pete Laney, TX Monthly President and Editor Evan Smith, and Austin American-Statesman political writer Laylan Copelin.
This will be a live interview.
If you can't get the FM signal from where you are, you can also catch it streaming live at www.koop.org between 2:00-3:00pm.
Remember Ted Nugent? Kind of hard to forget. If you are in Austin next Tuesday, hear the controversial Republican and Gov Perry supporter talk. I put my money on a dozen racist comments. Any takers?
Join Texas Monthly Talks host Evan Smith
for a conversation with rock/media personality Ted Nugent.
You are cordially invited to join KLRU and Texas Monthly Talks for a special conversation with Ted Nugent.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007 at 9:30 a.m.
(Please arrive by 9:00 a.m.)
KLRU Studio A
(Austin City Limits Studio)
2504-B Whitis - Map
(Southeast corner of 26th and Guadalupe), 6th Floor
RSVP for you and your guests by
the end of the day on Monday, March 19, 2007.
Join Evan Smith and Texas Monthly Talks for a conversation with Ted Nugent, the Detroit rocker and part-time Texan. If you don't know him from more than four decades of recording and touring, you've probably heard something about his other passions. You'll hear about hunting, Nugent's performance at Governor Rick Perry's last inauguration and, we're sure, a bit about politics.
