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Home > First Reading > Archives > 2009 > November > 18 > Entry

Hutchison, Cheney and Toby Keith

By Jason Embry | Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 08:10 AM

Fun facts about the Cheney event … A brewing debate about transportation … Tributes paid to a legend

Austin weather from News 8 Austin’s Maureen McCann: Mainly sunny with seasonable temperatures. High of 72.

(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.)

Tuesday highlights

“Now this nation that I love is fallin’ under attack.

“Man, we lit up your world like the fourth of July.”

And so the words of “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue,” Toby Keith’s 2002 anti-al-Qaeda anthem blared through a historic terminal at Houston’s Hobby Airport on Tuesday. And soon thereafter, in walked former Vice President Dick Cheney, the man who helped turn the public sentiment expressed in Keith’s song into support for the invasion of Iraq, trying to build public sentiment among Republicans for the gubernatorial candidacy of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Here is my story from this morning’s paper about the Cheney-Hutchison events. And here are some general observations from a very long day:

• Houston radio host Edd Hendee warmed up the crowd, and he’s still angry about the margiins tax that Perry pushed in 2006 to cover part of the cost of property tax cuts. Before the event started, the DJ played, among others, the Toby Keith song and “Right Now” by Van Halen. Ken Herman tells me “Right Now” is very popular at political events.

• Cheney spoke for about five minutes and Hutchison for about 10. The only other person on stage was Ray Hutchison, the senator’s husband. “Mercy,” Cheney said as he took the stage to a very warm reception, a crowd of about 150 instructed not to wave their signs too high so that they wouldn’t obstruct the view of the half-dozen television cameras behind them. He made only a couple of passing references to Perry, never mentioning him by name. The closest thing he said to a direct hit was this: “Texas needs a true conservative champion in the governor’s office. We westerners know the difference between a real talker and the real deal. And when it comes to being conservative, Kay Bailey Hutchison is the real deal.”

• Hutchison and Cheney worked the short rope line, such as it was, after their brief speeches. There weren’t supposed to be any questions from the press, but Herman got one in that you’ll have to watch in the video below.

• This was perhaps the most interesting thing that Hutchison said: “Don’t talk to me about more dollars for transportation when we aren’t managing the dollars we have yet. That is the first thing that we must do for Texas.”

The Hutchison campaign is trying to draw attention to this comment from Perry in Dallas on Monday to argue that he supports a gas-tax increase, as reported by Gromer Jeffers Jr. of the Dallas Morning News: “One of the problems is that we do not have the dollars that we need to build all the transportation infrastructure needs that we have. So hopefully when we come back in 2011, both the citizens and their elected officials will come to a stronger realization that we’re going to have to expand our ability to raise some dollars to build the roads so that you don’t have the strangulation in places along the 1-35 corridor.”

Perry’s campaign says he does not support increasing the gas tax. He has previously said he could support indexing the gas tax to inflation, which my colleague Ben Wear has noted could add less than a penny per gallon to the cost of gas in any given year.

Hutchison hasn’t said how she thinks the state should produce more money for transportation, other than to better manage the money that’s already there. But is that a sufficient solution?

Consider this statement in May from Republican Sen. John Carona, chairman of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee: “We will have no money to build new roads in less than four years.”

And the 2030 Committee, which consists of business and transportation leaders, held town hall meetings around the state last year and, working with some of the state’s top universities, reported that the state’s transportation system is facing a severe crisis and needs $313 billion over the next 20 years.

There will be plenty of time to hash all that out. So let’s go now to Ken Herman, who wisely established himself at the front of the crowd Tuesday so he could watch the former vice president’s every move:

One other very important item to hit today:

• Longtime Capitol photographer Harry Cabluck has taken a severance package with the Associated Press. Politicians and fellow journalists love Harry, the most earnest member of the Capitol press corps. Almost every day during the session, Harry would ask me what I was working on and try to find photos he’d shot that I could use with my story. Elise Hu has compiled Harry stories from a number of us in the press corps, as well as political professionals. And as a tribute to just how important a part of the Capitol community Harry is, Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst quickly answered Hu’s call with some kind words about Harry.

Poll watch

Washington Post/ABC News: Most Americans say they think President Obama will come up with a successful strategy for Afghanistan, but few are “very confident” that he will do so.

Countdown

15 days until the start of the filing period.

47 days until the end of the filing period.

90 days until early voting begins.

104 days until the March 2 primaries.

In the news

“The sting of the criticism has yet to subside for two State Board of Education members who say they were unfairly slapped by media reports in October that they received gifts from a firm vying for Permanent School Fund work.” Austin American-Statesman

“Residents at FEMA trailer sites in Galveston and High Island say caseworkers are pressuring them — sometimes aggressively — to move out of the trailers and into apartments even though the temporary housing program doesn’t end until March 12.” Houston Chronicle

“The Texas Lottery Commission took a step Tuesday toward expanding state gambling options to include Powerball, with a chance for the first ticket to be sold here Jan. 31.” Houston Chronicle

“At least seven judges who preside over criminal cases have hired the wife of Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins as a political consultant for their 2010 re-election campaigns.” Dallas Morning News

“The design of the George W. Bush Presidential Center at SMU, which will be formally unveiled today, is a showcase for exhibits, not a monument to the 43rd president, former first lady Laura Bush said this week.” Dallas Morning News

“Andre Osborne is a Jamaican immigrant who has bipolar disorder. He was detained in New York in 2008 over a 15-year-old drug charge, and taken to the Willacy Immigration Detention Center in Texas. In detention, doctors gave Osborne a cocktail of new drugs and dramatically increased his dosage. He was so over-medicated that he rolled off of the top of a bunk bed and badly injured his face and eyes. Though he was taken to and from the hospital by ambulance, and received multiple stitches in his face, Osborne remained unconscious through the entire 19-hour episode.” Texas Tribune

Everything else

Suns beat the Rockets, 111-105. Rockets are now 6-5.

The Royals’ Zack Greinke won the American League Cy Young award.

Get more Legislative coverage inside the Virtual Capitol

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