So you probably haven't been paying much attention to the gubernatorial election cycle in Texas. Greg Abbott, the present Attorney General is running against Wendy Davis, state senator from Ft. Worth and the Great Blue Hope of the Dems. [Oh, don't worry, Abbott is leading Davis by a wide margin - 10-15% points - that hasn't moved in months.] But it has been entertaining if you like to see Democrats stumbling all over themselves. And the main stumblers are from Battleground Texas, an organization formed from Texas Obama campaign organizers who have convinced themselves that they can turn Texas blue.
Yes, Battleground Texas has convinced themselves that because there has been such a huge influx of people from blue states moving into Texas that they can take over Texas, if not by 2014 then at least by 2016. Yeah, okay, but maybe they haven't counted on that a number of those people who are migrating to Texas are tired of blue state policies and want jobs, low taxes, and affordable real estate. Anyway, let me tell you about the candidates:
The Republican Greg Abbott. He has been the state Attorney General for three terms and has served the state well. He is really sharp candidate who is well-liked and a well-respected judge, attorney, and family man. And as Attorney General has successfully argued before the US Supreme Court. And, we might as well get this out of the way because it will become important in the next paragraph...he has spent the last 30 years in a wheelchair.
Like Sandra Fluke, the Democrat Wendy Davis drew national attention in 2013 after standing for hours in her pretty pink tennis shoes to filibuster an abortion restriction bill before the Texas Senate. And...yeah, that's about it. That's her legislative record. [Okay, she's not just a pretty blond, she served on the City Counsel in Ft. Worth for twelve years and has been in the state Senate since 2010.] And her campaign has been riddled with missteps from the beginning. First, her campaign nightmare begins with her campaign biography. It makes it sound like she came from the poverty as a teenage single mother and worked her way all the way through Harvard Law School through hard work, sacrifice and just sheer will. But the truth is that she married a very wealthy attorney Jeff Davis who paid her way through TCU and Harvard and formally adopted her child. He also took care of their two children in Texas while she was in Cambridge, Mass to attend Harvard. [She served him with divorce papers the day that her student loans were paid off.] Her response to the expose in the Dallas Morning News was well, telling - "My language should be tighter. I’m learning about using broader, looser language. I need to be more focused on the detail."
Her second P.R. mistake was taking up the campaign slogan - "Stand With Wendy". Yeah, she was campaigning against a guy in a wheelchair and thought "Stand With Wendy" would make a great slogan. Her campaign workers have been caught on camera making fun of Abbott's "disability". And when she was criticized for kinda' sorta' fudging her bio [see above], she actually responded that "he [Abbott] hasn't walked a day in my shoes." Well, let's just say that if Davis had been a Republican, this (and much more) would have been daily fodder for the Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow, Bill Maher and HuffingtonPost. [Addendum: She has dropped this slogan...]
But her third mistake is the most telling and why she is losing. She is campaigning on nothing but the typical liberal platform of vague grievances and victimization. She has not competently expressed any issues that affect all Texans at large. So it does not surprise me that her message isn't resonating with Texans.
Anyway, we will see in November if the Dems can really turn the state blue, but I will predict not.
UPDATE FROM TEXAS: After request after request to the WH have gone unanswered, Governor Perry has now been forced to activate the Texas State National Guard to supplement the borders guards in securing the borders. Obama's response to this new development was that they "hadn't gotten a communication from Perry and that a better solution would be to pass a comprehensive immigration law." Now, I am not a expert, but I thought that in order to activate a National Guard one had to have approval from the President. Interesting development...
Yes, Battleground Texas has convinced themselves that because there has been such a huge influx of people from blue states moving into Texas that they can take over Texas, if not by 2014 then at least by 2016. Yeah, okay, but maybe they haven't counted on that a number of those people who are migrating to Texas are tired of blue state policies and want jobs, low taxes, and affordable real estate. Anyway, let me tell you about the candidates:
Her second P.R. mistake was taking up the campaign slogan - "Stand With Wendy". Yeah, she was campaigning against a guy in a wheelchair and thought "Stand With Wendy" would make a great slogan. Her campaign workers have been caught on camera making fun of Abbott's "disability". And when she was criticized for kinda' sorta' fudging her bio [see above], she actually responded that "he [Abbott] hasn't walked a day in my shoes." Well, let's just say that if Davis had been a Republican, this (and much more) would have been daily fodder for the Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow, Bill Maher and HuffingtonPost. [Addendum: She has dropped this slogan...]
But her third mistake is the most telling and why she is losing. She is campaigning on nothing but the typical liberal platform of vague grievances and victimization. She has not competently expressed any issues that affect all Texans at large. So it does not surprise me that her message isn't resonating with Texans.
Anyway, we will see in November if the Dems can really turn the state blue, but I will predict not.
UPDATE FROM TEXAS: After request after request to the WH have gone unanswered, Governor Perry has now been forced to activate the Texas State National Guard to supplement the borders guards in securing the borders. Obama's response to this new development was that they "hadn't gotten a communication from Perry and that a better solution would be to pass a comprehensive immigration law." Now, I am not a expert, but I thought that in order to activate a National Guard one had to have approval from the President. Interesting development...
Story for all the edit hiccups. I can't fix them from my IPad. Blogger hate Apple...
ReplyDeleteNo surprise. She seems like a single issue candidate and the issue she is focusing on is one that is pretty unpopular in the South (I don't think abortion could win a majority vote anywhere in the South).
ReplyDeleteTed Nugent notwithstanding, there haven't been many Republican missteps this election cycle.
I haven't paid enough attention to Davis to be sure of this, but I get the sense she is too close to the national party to hold much appeal in Texas. Ideally she would be a Scott Brown type who MSNBCers would rail against due to her various departures from national orthodoxy and willingness to work with the other side.
Still, it seems like the Texas Republican party is moving further to the right (which runs counter to demographic trends) so a California style meltdown further down the line isn't out of the question. Its worth keeping in mind that that popular (among Democrats) analogy isn't perfect since while Californians was once reliably Republican at a national level they were never as socially conservative as Texas.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/08/texas-gop-backs-off-guest-worker-plan-cruz-wins-presidental-straw-poll/
Following hours of often contentious debate and an especially raucous vote, the roughly 7,000 delegates torpedoed platform language approved at their convention just two years ago endorsing a guest-worker program for people in the country illegally.
Wait! What's Nugent been up to? Apparently he doesn't attract cameras like he used to. I haven't heard a thing about him all year, let alone any attempts to tie Republicans to him. I think another political truth is that you can associate your opponent with the crazies for a short while, but after some time it doesn't work anymore.
ReplyDeleteObamacare just took a torpedo. The DC Court of Appeals has struck down the subsidies in states that don't have their own exchanges. That means things just got a whole lot more expensive for people.
ReplyDeleteT-Max, a little while back, Nugent called Obamma a "subhuman mongrel" and a "liar." He's usually politically blunt, so no surprize. I like the guy and hate PC, but even I have to concede that the "subhuman" statement was well over the line. I think he did apologize, but conservative apologies tend not to be accepted.
ReplyDeleteAndrew - Hol-lee Cow!
ReplyDelete"A recent report from Urban Institute researchers estimated that a ruling against the Obama administration could cause 7.3 million people—about 62 percent of the 11.8 million people expected to enroll in federally facilitated marketplaces by 2016—to lose out on $36.1 billion in insurance subsidies."
Andrew, I was just reading that! So now we have the SC who has ruled that states cannot be compelled to set up exchanges and the DC District court ruling (2-1) that the Feds can't subsidies in states with no exchanges. Hol-lee Cow is right. Okay, I have to go and see the screaming headline on HuffPo. It ought to be 4 feet tall...
ReplyDeleteOh, yeah, SCREEEAAAMMMMIIIING at HuffPo - "2 GOP JUDGES STRIKE DEATH BLOW TO OBAMACARE!!!!" all in red..
ReplyDeleteThink Progress reports that both judges were appointed by a Bush...do I smell a conspiracy set up by the Bush clan/Masons/Illuminati brewing here?
"...The two Republicans’ decision rests on a glorified typo in the Affordable Care Act itself. Obamacare gives states a choice. They can either run their own health insurance exchange where their residents may buy health insurance, and receive subsidies to help them pay for that insurance if they qualify, or they can allow the federal government to run that exchange for them. Yet the plaintiffs’ in this case uncovered a drafting error in the statute where it appears to limit the subsidies to individuals who obtain insurance through “an Exchange established by the State.”
There are 8 justices on the court and 3 heard this case. The decision was 2-1 because the lone Democrat dissented. Administration will certainly appeal for an “en banc” hearing, in which all judges on the circuit re-hear the case together and decide to affirm or overrule the 3. The full court is evenly split between Republican and Democrat appointees.
ReplyDeleteAfter the en banc hearing, there’s only one place left to go. Do you think John Roberts might want another bite of this witch’s apple?
Okay, back to our regularly scheduled post -
ReplyDeleteAnthony - Texans have been moving to the right on Immigration only in that they are under siege with no response from the Federal Government (Obama). The illegal immigration has always been a problem on the southern border, but now the flood gates have opened. Gov. Perry has repeated asked for help for years, but all Obama will do nothing but scoff. Bush tried to pass a comprehensive immigration plan in 2007 with a guest worker plan that was shot down by the Dems. So it is kind of disingenuous of Dems to blame this all on intransigent Republicans.
KRS - the WH has already filed an appeal for the hearing.
ReplyDeleteOh, wait, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals (Richmond VA) has just upheld Obamacare federal subsidies. Looks like Roberts et al. will have another bite at this poisonous apple.
KRS - I don't think Ted Nugent's comments would have hurt the Republican party at all (feeds the narrative, but lots of things feed the narrative) if Greg Abbot hadn't decided once Ted Nugent made the comments that Ted Nugent was a guy he wanted to campaign with.
ReplyDeleteThat just caused a blip in surveys (which is why Ted Nugent decided to apologize) but Wendy Davis would have needed a string of stupid to be competitive in Texas, not just a guy embracing Ted Nugent.
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http://www.mediaite.com/online/ted-nugent-reportedly-apologizes-for-sub-human-mongrel-obama-remark/
“I do apologize–not necessarily to the President–but on behalf of much better men than myself,” he said in an interview with conservative radio host Ben Ferguson, who’s also a CNN political commentator.
[...] Nugent said he apologizes “for using the streetfighter terminology of ‘subhuman mongrel’ instead of just using more understandable language, such as ‘violator of his own- the Constitution.”
In his apology, Nugent appeared to regret more the fact that his language has been tied to Republican politicians from his state, such as Abbott, Gov. Rick Perry, and Sen. Ted Cruz.
Anyway, if Obamacare gets killed by the Roberts court (liberals are learning that hard way that legislating from the bench can cut both ways) it will help the country and the economy so here's to hoping.
ReplyDeleteAnthony - Ohhhh, yeah, thanks for reminding me! He did one of those, "sorry you're so stupid that you're offended" apologies! Liberals use these all the time.
ReplyDeleteMan, I hate those apologies, regardless of who says them. I think a guy should cowboy up and issue a sincere apology or, if he's not feeling it, just stop talking (or double down on it!). Excusing your apology by walking it back a touch or spinning it into a better criticism is beneath us.
The thing that makes this more galling is the "subhuman mongrel" line thrown against a man with an African bloodline. In any situation, that's just plain low, but coming from someone who supports the party of Lincoln, utterly shameful.
What was this thread about again ... westerns, the Alamo?
Andrew - Governors can activate the State National Guard for intra-state emergencies, such as tornados, floods, civil unrest and, apparently, Mexicans. Presidents can take Guard units from a State for a National emergency (and the governor can't stop the president from doing it), such as war.
ReplyDeleteFor example, the National Guard unit that shot the protestors at Kent State were under the orders of the Ohio Governor.
KRS - Texas...but "Alamo" will do! The Alamo will always do to a Texan!
ReplyDeleteAs to your comment about Nugent - As I have always said, It used to be people like Ted could make his uncivilized statements as a voice in the wilderness. But now the internet has allowed the comments of fringe wackos (of which I count Nugent as one) to amplify their comments globally and instantly. It is never okay to call people names. Ted can feign that he's just be "honest", but, sometimes it is just better to keep your mouth shut.
BUT (there's always a "but"!) for the Left and Obama in particular to get so indignant after their sheer delight of what their fringe wackos call Sara Palin, Clarence Thomas, and pretty much any conservative female or non-Caucasian conservative, well not only is it hypocritical, but it just fans the flames of both fringes. People like Ted need to be ignored and shunned.
It sounds like the National Guardsmen are going to ignore the Central American kids that are winning all the headlines and focus on criminals. They also say they aren't going to arrest anyone.
ReplyDeleteHard to square those two statements. Perhaps they will give the maras disapproving looks until they ask to be taken into custody?
Seriously, this seems like a symbolic gesture, but its the strongest move anyone has made in response to the recent surge of illegals, so its good politics.
http://www.click2houston.com/news/gov-rick-perry-sending-national-guard-troops-to-texas-border/27068426
Gov. Rick Perry said Monday he is deploying up to 1,000 National Guard troops over the next month to the Texas-Mexico border to combat criminals that Republican state leaders say are exploiting a surge of children and families entering the U.S. illegally.
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The deployment will cost Texas an estimated $12 million a month. Texas Adjutant General John Nichols said his troops would simply be "referring and deterring" immigrants and not detaining people -- though Nichols said the National Guard could if asked.
"We think they'll come to us and say, `Please take us to a Border Patrol station," Nichols said.
Calling out the National Guard because of a flood of Mexicans is just showboating. There is nothing the NG can do except either watch them enter or grab them and take them to a detention center, from which they will eventually be released.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Bev on Nugent. They guy is a fringe player who should be ignored. That said, I don't care what the left things because they play this same game and they would be backing Nugent if he were a leftist and had attacked Bush.
ReplyDeleteI would like to believe Obama's stance on the border crisis would pretty much limit Texas going "blue." As for Roberts and healthcare, I wish I could trust the guy. His actions the first time seemed like a guy who had either had his family threatened, or realized official historians (e.g. Doris Kearns Goodwin and her ilk) would crucify him and the conservative court)
ReplyDeleteKRS - That is good to know that Governors can activate the Guard in their states. I was under the impression that Perry couldn't do anything until he go permission from the Pres. So I wonder what took Perry so long? Maybe it is because it is to enforce federal border laws rather than help in natural disaster or local civil unrest.
ReplyDeletere Nugent, "subhuman mongrel" is too far. Especially when you factor in the 19th-century pseudo-Darwinist racial connotations of the words (intended or not).
ReplyDeletePro-Russian rebel commander claims that the bodies on MH 17 were already dead.
ReplyDeleteLINK
Oh, dear, the Russians are claiming in
ReplyDeleteScenario One, there were no live people on board MH 17. All the passengers that boarded in Amsterdam were really all corpses because they bodies were 'not fresh".
Scenario Two, it was Ukrainians brought it down in the air. The Russians swear there was a Ukrainian bomber near the plane...which they didn't know was a commercial airliner at 30K feet, but they could see a Ukrainian bomber.
Third scenario, it was Colonel Mustardovitch in the library with candlestick.
Okay I made that last one up, but Russians made the other two up. Or did they??
Thinking on his feet clearly isn't Putin's strong suit.
ReplyDeleteThe reality of Russian media is what it would be like if Alex Jones were the white house press secretary.
ReplyDeleteTyranmax,
ReplyDeleteNo, no, Alex Jones is still way crazier. I think.