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Friday, November 13, 2009
Perry, Hutchison to address same crowd this weekend
TFRW in Galveston … Drudge loves him some Rick Perry … Three Texas congressional races deemed possibly competitive
Happy birthday to Rep. Patricia Harless, Dallas County Republican Party Chairman Jonathan Neerman and Ben Philpott of KUT and the Texas Tribune and, on Saturday, Robert Wood of Texas State Networks Radio.
Austin weather from News 8 Austin’s Maureen McCann: Intervals of clouds and sun. Breezy and warm with a high of 77.
It’s Friday the 13th!
(Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading when I post it. Let me know if you want the Blackberry-friendly version. It doesn’t have the videos, but it pretty much has everything else.)
Thursday highlights and the day ahead
The Texas Federation of Republican Women is holding a big meeting in Galveston this weekend, and all of the GOP candidates for governor will be there. Debra Medina and Gov. Rick Perry will speak today, and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison will speak Saturday.
Perry and Hutchison addressed the same crowd in Austin during the legislative session, when they somewhat-awkwardly had to stare a stage. Not this time. My guess is that Perry won’t mention her by name, but of course will talk a lot about Washington. Will Hutchison take the fight directly to Perry?
• That’s not all Perry will be doing this weekend. His Texas A&M Aggies are playing the Oklahoma Sooners, and Perry is scheduled to attend a fundraiser hosted by longtime Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer.
• The governor’s assertion Wednesday in Midland that the Obama administration is “hell-bent on taking America towards a socialist country” had quite a kick to it on Thursday. As you know, it was the lead item in First Reading, which isn’t unusual, but for most of the day, this blog was the centerpiece of the Drudge Report. That brought more than 200,000 page views to First Reading (slowing the Statesman to a crawl for much of the day) and, more importantly, landed Perry a spot on Fox News in the afternoon. These are the kinds of days that show why we might be talking about Perry the presidential candidate in a year or two, as Paul Burka suggested earlier this week.
• Midland was the source of all sorts of interesting stuff this week. According to the Midland Reporter-Telegram, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst was also in town: The paper said, “Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who spoke before Perry and later with the Reporter-Telegram editorial board, said the 2009 budget was balanced with the help of stimulus funds, though he added it could’ve been balanced in their absence, as well. Dewhurst also added they worked to put those federal dollars toward things that have a one-time use.”
Yes, the budget could have been balanced without stimulus dollars. But that’s not how lawmakers chose to do it.
• The Cook Political Report is out with new ratings of U.S. House districts. Three Texas seats make the list, meaning they are somewhere in the neighborhood of competitive: U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, holds a seat that is deemed “lean Democratic.” Rep. Ciro Rodriguez’s San Antonio-based seat is deemed “likely Democratic,” (if you’re the incumbent, you’d rather be “likely” than “lean”) and Rep. Michael McCaul’s Austin-to-Houston seat is tagged “likely Republican.”
• Earlier this week, state Rep. Chuck Hopson picked up the endorsement of Brian Walker, the Republican who tried to defeat him in 2008. This week, Walker lauded Hopson’s move from the Democratic Party to the GOP, saying, “As Chuck’s former opponent, I know he is tough and fights fair, and I respect that.”
Walker was much more critical in an October 2008 story in the Jacksonville Daily Progress, when he accused Hopson of lying. He told the newspaper, “He (Hopson) has sent out mail pieces that are patently false, and where I come from that’s called lying. That type of deception has no place in politics. I’ve been told that I have been too negative towards him, but all I have done is point out the times he has said one thing to the voters and then gone to Austin and done the exact opposite. Everything we run about Chuck Hopson is cited specifically so that you can go look it up yourself and see the truth. You will find in Chuck Hopson’s mail that he doesn’t cite anything.”
• Gardner Selby and I stepped into the Texas Political Parlor on Thursday with KUT’s Ian Crawford, and we discussed a number of issues around Texas politics this week. You can listen here, and all segments of this weekly series are available on our Virtual Capitol site.
• Be sure to check out Brandi Grissom’s well-reported series on the Texas border over at the Texas Tribune. Today’s is the sixth installment, but you should read all of them. Brandi does something smart here: While each installment is newsy and full of good info, each is also relatively brief, which makes the series incredibly readable.
Poll watch
A new Rasmussen Reports poll says Gov. Rick Perry is ahead of U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, 46 percent to 35 percent, among voters who plan to take part in the March Republican primary.
The poll is significant because, two months ago, Rasmussen showed Hutchison leading Perry by two points.
Wharton businesswoman Debra Medina draws 4 percent in the poll, and 14 percent of respondents did not know who they plan to support.
Countdown
20 days until the start of the filing period.
52 days until the end of the filing period.
95 days until early voting begins.
109 days until the March 2 primaries.
In the news
“Gov. Rick Perry has opened up a new front in his yearlong political war against the federal government, accusing the Obama administration this week of dumping thousands of illegal immigrants on a small, unsuspecting Texas border town.” Austin American-Statesman
“An Austin federal judge has overturned personal damages of $21,250 that a jury had imposed on the chairwoman of the state parole board a month ago, but the judge did not change the finding that officials violated a paroled convict’s constitutional rights by denying him a required hearing for 576 days.” Austin American-Statesman
“Today, let’s meet Hank Gilbert, whose chances of being governor are about the same as yours unless your name is Rick Perry or Kay Bailey Hutchison. (And if either of those is your name, thanks for reading, but don’t you have some important governoring or senatoring you should be doing?)” Ken Herman
“Hispanics accounted for more than half of the 95 swine flu-related deaths in Texas in the first six months of the H1N1 pandemic, an analysis by the state health department found.” Houston Chronicle
“Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison tells The Dallas Morning News that the Fort Hood shooter should face 14 murder charges, not just 13. The Army announced that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan will face one specification of murder for each casualty. But as Hutchison points out, one of the soldiers killed in the rampage a week ago was pregnant: Private Francheska Velez, who had already served in Korea and in Iraq, was expecting her first child.” Dallas Morning News
“Faced with the worst domestic economy in decades, the president has responded — by setting a record for foreign travel. An Asian swing that began Thursday will bring his total this year to 20 countries in eight trips, according to CBS News’s Mark Knoller, official statistician of the White House press corps.” Dana Milbank
“The Republican National Committee’s health insurance plan covers elective abortion - a procedure the party’s own platform calls ‘a fundamental assault on innocent human life.’” Politico
“The rumors are true, according to Sarah Palin: The McCain-Palin campaign was not a happy family.” Associated Press
Everything else
Jay Cutler threw five interceptions as the Bears lost to the 49ers, 10-6, in the first Thursday night NFL game of the season.
New in theaters: “2012,” “An Education,” “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men,” “Bronson,” “Flame and Citron,” “Pirate Radio” and “Splinterheads.”
Get more Legislative coverage inside the Virtual Capitol
