Bio:
I've grown up in Austin my whole life. I've graduated from UT. My thesis was an adaptation of Bob Dylan's album "Highway 61: Revisited" into a play. Something worth noting: if you take me to lunch at Dirty's, I'll write anything you want.
White also brings a low-key, thoughtful approach that seems like just what Texas needs now. There's nothing like high-decibel rhetoric to get folks excited around election time. But today's problems — education, transportation, health care, jobs, a massive projected state budget shortfall, etc. — are best solved by thoughtful deliberation, not overheated rhetoric.
It's also not the time or place for know-it-all politicians who think they have all the solutions and can single-handedly put them in place.
[...]
We also find something comforting and confidence-inspiring in the sort of anti-charisma that White exudes. It's so, well, grown-up. It's also devoid of the unattractive overconfidence that many of today's politicians harbor as they promise us no-cost solutions to all of our high-dollar problems.
Tomorrow, Bill White will spend an entire day in Central Texas, attending:
The Coalition of Black Democrats State Convention at the St. James Baptist Church
A Sun City Democrats Meeting
The Williamson County Volunteer Kickoff at the the County's Party Headquarters
The UT Democrats and Central Austin Democrats Endorsement Meeting
The Texas AFL-CIO Convention
The LULAC Candidate Forum
"Cafe on the Square" -- A meet and greet with Patrick Rose in San Marcos
Bill White is running an incredible statewide campaign -- tomorrow's intense schedule is a daily reality for his campaign, and as he travels across the state, he's talking about education, restoring government to the people, and the need to balance a budget. It's a terrific message delivered by a campaign that raised more money than either Perry or Hutchison in January.
No matter how you slice it, Bill White is running an incredible campaign, and is a serious, serious threat to Rick Perry in the fall.
This past week, they have featured Bill White and Farouk Shami in a compelling set of stories that, when read together, provide tremendous insight and allow the reader to develop a strong side-by-side comparison of the two candidates.
The series is quite remarkable. If you put it aside this week, or just missed it, or especially if you are in the majority of our readership that live outside Austin, please click on the links above and read the articles in full to get the full side-by-side comparison of the candidates.
One month ago today, I praised the filing day coverage of the Dallas Morning News as "Incredible Journalism." At the time, I wrote:
The Dallas Morning News, without question, has shown up for the 2010 election season with the best political coverage in the state. Between now and the primary, everyone else is playing catch up. They laid the gauntlet down on Day One, and it's going to take some seriously impressive efforts from other news organizations to match what the DMN has put forth on their first day.
Today marks the start of the second month of the 2010 campaign season in Texas. The Morning News may have thrown the gauntlet down, but right now it's the Statesman that is delivering the strongest coverage. Between the Gubernatorial Profile series and their excellent new PolitFact feature, they are doing tremendous with with this election cycle, and I look forward to more of it in the coming days, weeks, and months.
On our end, more on the Governor's race is forthcoming as we prepare for Monday's gubernatorial debate. For now, though, here are some highlights of the Statesman series -- for those looking to glimpse the key parts of each particular section:
White developed an interest in government, sparked in part, he says, by "the horrors of Selma and Birmingham and the awakening of the civil rights movement."
"That interested me, engaged me, when I saw that laws could make a difference," he said, "and where there was a stark choice between some who felt we needed to defer making good on the promises made in our founding documents and others who thought, as did my parents ... that every person is made in the image of God."
In 1955, some of Farouk's brothers and cousins were playing with a bomb left behind after a battle between Israelis and the Jordanian army near the family's house. It exploded. Three of his brothers and two of his cousins were killed.
"It's hard to remember it," he says softly. "I saw my brothers torn into pieces."
He was 12. With the loss of Faheem, 11, Kareem, 10, and Haleem, 7, six brothers became three. After that, everything changed. Jamil Shami said that from that moment, he and Farouk were driven to succeed as a way of compensating their parents for what was lost. And because of the violent incident, the family moved into the city of Ramallah. The Friends School offered Farouk and Jamil scholarships. "It was a disaster, but I was fortunate to go to the best school in the country," Farouk Shami said. "There's always an opportunity in a disaster."
White's career in the upper echelons of law, business and government gives him a perspective that influences his approach to everything from problem-solving (identify solutions, delegate tasks, hold people accountable and change course as needed) to his meetings with the oil executives.
"I believed senior management wanted to be good neighbors and citizens," White said. "They don't want to be treated differently than their competitor, and they want some predictability, and they are all concerned about the image of their industry."
Since the 1990s, Shami's company has been involved in more than 80 lawsuits, according to district and federal court records available online.
The lawsuits, which range from dissolved partnerships to trademark and contractual disputes to sexual harassment claims, mark the challenges Shami has encountered in his climb to become founder and head of Farouk Systems Inc., which sells the popular CHI hair-straightening iron and BioSilk hair care line. Its executives say the privately held company is valued at $1 billion and employs 2,800 people. [...]
In one month, Shami remembers getting a legal bill for $500,000. But generally, he estimates legal bills at close to $1 million annually. Shami said his company has many outside lawyers and an internal legal department, though he couldn't say how many people work there.
"I have plenty of them, plenty of them," Shami said, laughing. "You can't do business without lawyers now."
A cyclist who loves the outdoors, White sometimes wears an athletic-style watch even when he's in a suit. He shows personality with patterned or colorful ties, but his suits tend to be so big that he looks like someone who lost weight but has hung on to his old clothes.
White's appearance gives the impression that he's too busy worrying about business to fuss over his clothes. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he wore pocketed khaki shirts that made him look like a safari tour guide.
But at a time when the task at hand was managing the influx of more than 200,000 refugees — work that earned White a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award — it was no time for him to start looking like a movie star.
With his slicked-back hair, impeccably tailored suits and paisley ties, Shami cuts a contrast to the ho-hum, button-down-shirt-and-jeans uniform favored by Austin Democrats. This is a man who is not afraid to wear pinstripes, prints or vibrant reds, purples and yellows, and he hasn't toned down his clothes for the campaign. [...]
Shami sees himself as something of a ladies' man. He's tried flattering female reporters by telling them they look like teenagers, and he has said he expects to do better with female voters because they have more sense.
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." — Frederick Douglass
Today, Rep. Coleman sent out an e-mail celebrating the one-year authorization of SCHIP reauthorization. With all the attention on what President Obama and Congress has done (and hasn't done) the last year, it is easy to lose sight of the real work that was accomplished with the election of a Democrat to the White House.
Rep. Coleman (who I had the privilege to work for during the 80th Regular Session in 2007) has never lost sight of the real work, and his e-mail today reminds us of how important re-authorizing CHIP was, especially for a state like Texas. From his e-mail:
Today marks the first anniversary of President Obama's reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The expansion of the program was crucial to providing health insurance to children from working families, and is expected to cut the number of uninsured children in our country by half in the coming years.
The reauthorization of the program was one of President Obama's first orders of business upon taking office and was particularly meaningful after President George W. Bush twice vetoed similar legislation. President Obama called the expansion a down payment on quality, affordable health care for all Americans.
In Texas, 495,781 children rely on CHIP to access health care. January was the only month that Texas' enrollment levels exceeded 500,000 since 2003, when Republican lawmakers instituted enrollment barriers that purged hundreds of thousands of eligible children from the program. The federal government gives Texas $2.52 for every $1 we invest in the program.
During the 81st Legislative Session, I authored legislation to increase enrollment in and public awareness of CHIP. My bill would have insured an estimated 80,000 Texas children from working families by allowing their parents to buy in to the program. Despite bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate, political action by the Governor, conservative Republicans, and Senate leaders caused this bill to die in a Senate committee. As one of the original authors of CHIP in Texas, I will continue to work to eliminate the red tape that keeps eligible children from receiving health care.
Today, we have 495,781 reasons to thank President Obama.
Rep. Coleman, as he notes, was one of the original authors of CHIP in Texas. Since then, he has championed it at every step of the way -- crafting legislation and drafting amendments for legislation to restore the devastating cuts and policies enacted by Rick Perry, David Dewhurst, and Texas Republicans in 2003. As he (and all of us) give thanks today to President Obama for his leadership on this issue, let's remember to thank our leaders in Texas, too.
That means that Debra Medina -- who is raising far less than any other candidate, and spending 3.17% of what Hutchison is spending -- has taken approximately four percentage points away from Hutchison. {Remember back in July when I wrote that she was a serious candidate?)
With Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison heading towards a runoff, Bill White is in excellent position to run the best, most promising statewide campaign of any Texas Democrat in a long, long time. Both elected officials and grassroots activists are rallying around White's campaign, and with continued fundraising efforts and a strong field team in place, he is in excellent position to take down Perry in the fall.
Whtie's expenditures will increase some, now that he's on TV. As a reminder, Bill White is the son of San Antonio school teachers. When he announced for Governor, the first issue he talked about was education. The first endorsement he got was from the Texas State Teachers Association, and no Republican is talking about education in any debate.
Over at TexasKaos, Libby Shaw puts a local spin on young James O'Keefe's foiled attempt to tamper with Mary Landrieu's phones. The roll call Texas Republican admirers is quite long. Of equal interest was the discussion that followed the outing of these Republicans. See it all at Texas Republican Lawmakers Honor James O'Keefe.
It's a travesty that only Bill White and Farouk Shami are participating in the Texas Democratic gubernatorial debate on February 8 because the other five candidates don't meet the "standards". PDiddie at Brains and Eggs believes it's impossible to reconcile that KERA, a public broadcasting station, together with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Univision and other corporate and media industry sponsors, would conspire to preclude candidates for the state's highest public office.
Neil at Texas Liberal is glad that Houston City Councilmember Jarvis Johnson is talking about pov
Key Point: Debra Medina is a serious candidate, but the Repbulican establishment and traditional media ignored her for months. Now, she is poised to capture energy during a second televised debate, has an upcoming Moneybomb that could inject cash into her campaign, and -- even if she loses -- has told supporters she likely will support a third-party candidate, and not the Republican nominee, should she lose the Republican primary.
The conventional wisdom that Rick Perry has led some Tea Party movement in Texas is absolutely wrong. Rick Perry is not a real "Tea Party" candidate:
Perry is smug and inauthentic about his Tea Party credentials. All he really did was jump on the bandwagon on April 15, 2009, when he did his pseudo-secession hint, and has been coasting on fake Fox News populism ever since.
Toni Backdahl, Minnesota coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, said the group behind the convention — Tea Party Nation — is not affiliated with the national movement and there are questions about the group's intent.
"We put pressure on Bachmann, and we're glad that she didn't go," Backdahl said. "I'm glad that she did the right thing."
Honestly -- considering that there is physical evidence that Perry supported the bank bailout before it was cool not to support it, do you really think Perry is a true "Tea Party" person, or that he saw which way the weather vane was pointed and jumped out in front?
Perry jumped on a bandwagon that Ron Paul started long ago in Texas, and he got away with it because Fox News and pundits like Chris Matthews and Paul Burka told the country that the Tea Party movement was the result of GOP-led opposition to President Obama. Here in Texas, nothing could be further from the truth, and Debra Medina is perfectly positioned to continue unveiling Rick Perry's fake Tea Party persona for the next month -- and potentially long after.
From Rick Perry's personal blogthe Rick vs. Kay blog, we learn that Medina will not necessarily support Perry or Hutchison if she loses:
A fairly well known very very conservative Republican activist in the Austin area named Michelle Samuelson has a blog calling out Debra Medina for saying that she would not support the winner of the Republican primary in the general election (link). Excerpt follows...
This is the problem with most "wing" a certain wing of the Republican Party. Instead of rallying behind the "80%" candidates, they throw stones and end up helping the Democratic Party. Liberals. Who agree with them maybe 20% of the time.
Republicans are calling Medina a traitor to the Repbulican Party, admonishing her for not playing on the team. Well guess what folks -- she never was on Team GOP. The Republican Party of Texas establishment -- following the lead of Fox News and the Republican National Commitee -- has tried to co-opt a grassroots movement that existed long before Perry decided to raise taxes on small businesses. It is a movement started by Ron Paul and ignored by Rick Perry because he could never figure out how to co-opt it. He thought he did in 2009 -- and he sure painted himself that way. But at the end of the day, Rick Perry is still the guy who jokes about Texas being in a recession.
Debra Medina is an authentic grassroots conservative, and she's been a serious candidate for a lot longer than most news outlets have paid attention. Today, the Wall Street Journal and Dallas Morning News have stories entirely devoted to her impact on the race. Interesting though their pieces are, they don't get into why Medina went from someone with only $9,000 COH after June 2009 to be the star of the second (and probably final) GOP debate.
Medina is a dedicated community activist that has rallied her support by appearing at Tea Parties, local community events, and pretty much anywhere you could imagine. Her website, MedinaforTexas.com was launched only a few days before the June 30 filing deadline, yet it looks professional. She will only report a tiny amount of cash-on-hand ($9,000, with $35,000 raised), which means that Rick Perry, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and most Austin Republican insiders will completely dismiss and ignore her campaign.
To do so would be wrong.
And why was she a serious candidate? Here's what I wrote back in July:
Debra Medina has huge, huge support of Ron Paul supporters, having actively worked for Paul in the past
Libertarian newspapers are promoting Medina
Medina is proposing a statewide ballot initiative to impose term limits
Key GOP operatives (including Sarah Palin) may be trying to squash the growing Libertarian Party
Well, here we are over six months later. Looking at those four points again, we know that:
Medina's support from Paul supporters has sustained her low-budget campaign and put her in position to compete;
The Libertarians have promoted her from the beginning, because that's who she is and no one should be surprised she'd support a Libertarian (or an Independent) over Rick or Kay in the general;
Her term limits platform is an anti-incumbent, limited government policy position -- the same kind of policies she championed in the first debate, that she has championed for months, and even the conventional wisdom agrees is the primary catalyst for her success;
See the discussion above about Perry's posturing on the Tea Party.
Finally, tonight's debate isn't the last major time Debra Medina will make headlines. Ever since the last debate, she has promoted -- at local events, on the radio, and through grassroots e-mail communications -- a Medina Momey Bomb on February 2. Remember -- Debra Medina is a Ron Paul Republican. Ron Paul raised $6 million and $4.2 million in single-day money bombs during his run for President -- both of which still stand as records for GOP single-day fundraising.
Will Medina duplicate Paul's success? Probably not at such a large scale, no. Ron Paul has supporters across the country, whereas Medina's supporters are limited mostly to Texas. However -- she raised $100,000 in unsolicited contributions after the last TV debate. If she can raise $500,000 or more from next Tuesday's money bomb, Medina will have enough to continue making a focused GOTV effort for her campaign -- which will keep her in the race. Who knows what happens if she makes enough from her money bomb to go on television.
Debra Medina is a real candidate. Too often, we determine that "viability" is the only factor that determines a real candidacy. Medina was fighting for her political views before she got in the race, and she will continue fighting for them when she loses the primary and (most likely) forces a runoff.
Anyone who thinks otherwise just hasn't been paying attention.
Wow. There's politics, there's dirty tricks in politics, then there's this. State Representative Aaron Pena sent out this like via his Twitter feed (which you can follow @AaronPena):
Take a look for it yourself -- and remember that Republicans will pull every horrible trick they can this and every election cycle. From Politico:
Officials of both parties are sharply criticizing a fundraising mailing from Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele they say could be confused with official correspondence regarding this year’s census.
The fundraising letter comes in the form of a “survey,” a frequently used device for partisan fundraising, but this one has a twist: Calling itself the “Congressional District Census,” the letter comes in an envelope starkly printed with the words, “DO NOT DESTROY OFFICIAL DOCUMENT” and describes itself, on the outside of the envelope, as a “census document."
A couple months ago, I attended a Texas House of Representatives Redistricting Committee hearing about the census, and what it means for Texas. At the meeting, I learned that $3 trillion is appropriated annually based on census data. States and counties budget their numbers based on the census, which makes an accurate count extremely important.
However, there has been a long-standing effort to improve census counts in Hispanic communities, especially in South Texas. As some of you may know, Univision is making an extended effort to have conversations about the census on all major programming, from nightly news to telenovelas. As Pena wrote online:
Working so hard here in South Texas on getting a good census count only to have these ill-timed tactics. What's next?
The Texas Progressive Alliance congratulates the city of New Orleans for its first Super Bowl as it provides an instant replay of its blog highlights for the week.
CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme sympathizes with Lamar Smith's constituents who were told they must contact Smith's office if they want him to stop illegally calling their cellphones. Smith's breaking the law and his solution is to make his constituents ask him to stop.
A Republican in Democrats clothing tries to ride into office in Dallas County. SDEC members and precinct chairs say no way to this Eagle Forum darling at The Texas Cloverleaf.
Citizens of Texas say &^%$ Governor Perry! for screwing up the state after 10 years. Add your own!
BossKitty at TruthHugger is continually amazed at general ignorance concerning the actual words in the US Constitution. Interpretations abound from the mouths of people who have never read the document, or do not comprehend the words in context. Embellishments and fantasy surrounding this document are spoken every day. What is especially disturbing is how these fantasies infiltrate America's politics. To be elected in some regions, a politician must fertilize the fantasy. Perspective must return to how Americans regard the Law of the Land. American Theocracy divorces US Constitution, promotes terrorism.
Over at TexasKaos, Boadicea offers a little not so subtle advise to Democrats who find themselves unmanned by the events of last week. She calls it .Dear Democrats: Balls.. Trust me, you will like the video she found to illustrate her point!
Neil at Texas Liberal made note of the fact that just two months remain before his tenth wedding anniversary. Neil is damned glad about his marriage. Neil is not certain he could advocate for liberal causes if he did not have such a solid personal relationship in his life to help him manage his frequent anger at the world. The personal and the private are often connected in many ways that we may not often consider.
