SurveyUSA has Senator Cornyn ranked 94th out of 100 in terms of net popularity. Cornyn is currently polling at 43 percent approval / 47 percent disapproval. This comes as no surprise to anyone who has followed the polls at least casually since Cornyn was elected; he's just not been very popular.
Though we are in the middle of an important election cycle right now, and that takes first priority, I would hope that the right kind of people have put some thought into challenging Senator Box Turtle in 2008. My fear, of course, is that if we do poorly this year (and let's face it, recent polling and stories like this make me nervous) quality candidates will be scared out of running. And what a tragedy that would be.
Of course, my ideal candidate would be someone who has not flinched in the face of adversity. This leads me to conclude that the best man for the job is Dirk Nowitzki. But I'm sure there are some other folks who would do fine, as well, and not all of them basketball players.
I just received an e-mail from TDP chairman Charles Soechting which reads:
Please join me in supporting Barbara Ann Radnofsky in the April 11th Democratic primary run-off election for U.S. Senate. Barbara Ann is an accomplished attorney who has made over 300 trips to every corner of Texas talking to voters. She knows the issues and will be a Senator who will make Texans proud. On Friday, I'm joining Chris Bell and other Democrats to formally endorse Barbara and hope that you will show your support by making sure your friends and family vote for her.
Though the endorsement is a personal one (Soechting is speaking for himself and not for the party), this e-mail was sent out on TDP's distribution list and, as the e-mail makes clear, paid for by the TDP.
Radnofsky, as we all know, is currently in a runoff against perpetual vanity candidate Gene Kelly. Clearly, anyone with any sense is backing Radnofsky.
Nevertheless, I fully recognize that sending out official party e-mail containing endorsements for a primary candidate is ethically troubling. That is not to say it's inherently wrong, but I would consider it to fall into a gray area.
Consider this an open thread for expounding grand-unifying theories of endorsement ethics, or anything else for that matter.
Through Kevin Drum, I see that the Guttmacher Institute has ranked Texas among the worst states (45th) for efforts to curb the number of unwanted pregnancies. Particularly dinged are Texas's sex education and family-planning funding policies. Not coincidentally, one supposes, Texas has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation (101 per 1,000 teenage girls), and an abortion rate which, while not among the highest in the nation, is probably higher than it could be.
If you're tired of seeing Texas 45th or 49th or 50th in these sorts of rankings, then... well, you know what you do.
(I think Jim forgot to front page his post. ;) - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
I always enjoyed watching Alex Jones' rants on late-night public access when I lived in college. Watching, mind you, not listening. I usually hit the "mute" button and just watched the body language.
From the Internets comes this video clip of Alex Jones attempting to re-create Vice President Cheney's hunting accident with the help of a rubber dummy, a watermelon, and a chicken. For guys like me that enjoy watching other guys play with guns, it's pretty entertaining.
Now, mind you, I have no idea how accurate this reconstruction is, so take it with a grain of salt. Moreover, I'm of the opinion that "Shotgun-gate" has been tremendously overblown. But to each their own.
Gov. Rick Perry wants the Legislature, in a special session this spring, to cut school property taxes by about one-third but postpone action on other education changes until next year, a legislator who met with the governor said Monday.
Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, said he believed a commission appointed by Perry may recommend increases in sales and cigarette taxes, as well as a new business tax, to pay for the property tax reductions.
"The governor was saying we're not going to do any (school) reforms this session," Wentworth said, despite calls by House Speaker Tom Craddick and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst for changes in how education dollars are spent.
This is of course second-hand from Wentworth, but it makes sense -- deal with the issue that's subject to a court-order (the tax and funding issue) first. Nevertheless, it seems like splitting this discussion up could forestall needed discussions (as well as some unneeded ones, like a fight over vouchers).
At any rate, we're getting closer to finding out what the Sharp committee's plan will be. And that'll be pure excitement, I'm sure.
I almost always appreciate the arguments of Professor Brad DeLong, a former Clinton administration staffer and econ guru at Berkeley. But every now and then I just have to bang my head on the table and ask "why?!?".
A policy of no debt--a policy of publicly-funded college education for all--thus looks to us economists like a policy of taking from the relatively poor (the working classes who don't go to college do pay taxes) and giving to the relatively rich (the middle classes who do go to college) who earn much higher relative wages now than they did a generation ago.
That on its face might have some merit, but then he proceeds to compare it to an episode of Star Trek, which... well I won't bore you with the details.
My rub here is that education policy, in real terms, is not so much the rich-being-subsidized-by-the-poor as it is the young-being-subsidized-by-the-old. As a general principal, the older one gets, the richer. Should we believe that younger workers like me should not fund Brad DeLong's Social Security because it involves poorer workers subsidizing wealthy retirees?
For more arguments, check out the comments on DeLong's blog.
Mark Blumenthal (nee Mystery Pollster) comments on the decline of the State of the Union audience, showing that the number of Americans who watch the Presidents has fallen considerably since the 1970s. He only seems to raise the issue tangentially, but the obvious explanation for the recent lack of viewership might be that, with the spread of cable, the SOTU is no longer on all the channels (all three of them). Technological change has allowed Americans to tune out.
As for me, I was in a class. I hear there was something in the speech about animal-human hybrids being addicted to Middle Eastern oil. And we all know that addiction is no laughing matter.
