It was good to see at least two of the the Democratic candidates, Farouk Shami and Bill White, get some free media on statewide TV last night. Let’s hope people watched. (If anyone missed it it can be viewed online here). It was not a contentious debate, which usually makes for better TV, but it was one where those watching were able to get a good sense of both candidates.
It’s clear that White will lean heavily on his experience bringing people together as Mayor of the fourth largest city in the United States, and Shami will lean heavily on his success as a self-made business man. Because of the non-contentiousness of the debate there really wasn’t a winner/loser situation. Both had certain things to do and, of course, each voter has certain things they want to hear. White was trying to get his name out and not make any gaffes, he did that. Shami too was trying to get his name out and also show he can be a credible Democratic nominee for the governor of Texas. And that last part is what I’m still not sure about with Shami.
I’ve never been one who thinks that just because someone can run a business, they can run a government. I don’t think it translates to good government most times. Some of the answers to his questions, and the harping on the governor as CEO, seems naive and seem to imply a top down type of management style. That’s not likely to work very well with the legislature. That being said there are many areas where I agree Shami on the issues.
White for his part has a very good command of the issues and where he stands on them. Spent a good amount of time attacking Perry, and some time attacking TxDOT. His answers on education, health care, and job creation/training were good. While White made a few good comments on transportation, hopefully he will come around to to raising the gas tax sooner, rather than later.
AAS, HChron, Burka, have some analysis. The Texas Tribune has it’s analysis including post debate Q&A’s with both candidates.
There could have been much better questions, delving deeper in the budget, health care, and education. There certainly should have been something on the Texas Enterprise Fund, on Perry’s cronyism and the the governor’s appointment power in general. The bottom line is at least two Democrats go to debate and they both did good for themselves and the Democratic Party in Texas.
All I can Say is WOW!! We had a great turn out today in support of Mayor Bill White and his run for Governor of Texas! It was a pleasure to have Diana Maldonado as our host and the Williamson County Democratic Party for allowing the use of their office for this event. While I saw a fair number of old faces in attendance, I am overwhelmed at all the new faces!
The WC4BW Team is also thankful that many of the local candidates were on hand as well. This is very inspiring to our team and to the Bill White Campaign as well. The momentum is definitely building and we can do a lot good work between now and the primary, and even more between now and November! Thanks to all of you who attended today, and spread the word. Your help is compounded by the help you recruit in this campaign effort! Let’s make this happen!
I posted about the exclusion of the other five candidates for governor from tonight’s debate here, an entreaty that fell on completely deaf ears. I also had a compilation of news and blog articles on Shami last month, and my 2007 meeting on e-Slate issues with White, before and after.
We have two candidates vying to be the next Chair of the Williamson County Democratic Party (WCDP). They are Paul Stempko and Gregory S. Windham. The WCDP Communications Committee had the candidates put together their biographical information and their answers to several questions, which can be perused here, In Their Own Words . . .[PDF]. From the questionnaire on why the chair of the WCDP is so important.
The strength of the Texas Democratic Party depends on the hard work of volunteers and political activists
in the county parties. County Democratic parties are the focal points of political campaigns and building the Democratic Party. The people who take leadership roles in their local Democratic Parties are critical to the local, state, and national Democratic Party success.
During each Democratic Party Primary Election, Democrats throughout Texas elect the local leaders of the Democratic Party, including a Precinct Chair for each voting precinct and a County Chair to lead the local party for the next two years. The Precinct Chairs and the County Chair make up the Executive Committee that organizes Democrats in the county to support Democratic candidates, handles the finances of the local party, and runs the primary election.
County Chairs are expected to lead their county’s Executive Committee. In order to do this, they must work closely with candidates, precinct chairs, party activists, and the Texas Democratic Party staff to build a network of volunteers. They provide critical support to Democratic campaigns and are essential to turning out the Democratic vote and winning electoral victories.
The will also be appearing at a candidate forum next Saturday.
“MEET THE CANDIDATES” PUBLIC FORUM
WHO: Candidates running for County Chair of the WCDP
The Candidates are:
Paul Stempko
Gregory Scott Windham
WHEN: Saturday, February 13, 2010, 2:30-4:00
WHERE: Moody’s Restaurant
309 N Hwy 183
Leander, TX 78646
WHY: To become an informed voter!
This is the only event where both candidates are scheduled to publicly present their arguments for why we should elect them.
County Democratic Party Chairs are elected at the Primary Elections.
Your only chance to make your voice heard will be during the March 2, 2010, primary election or during early voting (begins Feb. 16).
Come. Meet them. Mark you calendar now!
SPONSORS:
West Williamson County Democrats
East Williamson County Democratic Club.
Questions?
Contact Karen Carter 512-260-6965;
KarenCarter2008@aol.com
Via Williamson County for Bill White, they are hosting a “Kick Off” event:
Williamson County For Bill White Kick off WITH MAYOR BILL WHITE!!
Please join State Representative Diana Maldonado as she hosts Mayor Bill White for the Williamson County for Bill White Campaign Kickoff!
Date: Saturday, February 6, 2010 Time: 10:30am – 1:00pm Location: Williamson County Democrats Office, 110 North Interstate 35, Suite 170, Round Rock [MAP]
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has blasted Gov. Rick Perry in recent debates and television ads as driven by the desires of lobbyists, but at least 23 former Hutchison aides have gone onto lucrative lobbying careers in Washington, according to Senate records.
And last year, Hutchison hired a former lobbyist for data company Choicepoint as a senior adviser in her Senate office.
In an ad that began airing Thursday, Hutchison’s campaign says lobbyists loom over Perry’s office, influencing major policies such as compulsory vaccinations for young girls and toll road contracts.
The senator’s attacks are hypocritical, Perry’s campaign aides argued, because of her longstanding association with lobbyists. Hutchison’s aides say that unlike the governor, she has never been unduly influenced by them.
In this corner, Rick:
Hutchison’s team highlights two former aides who lobbied for proposals that are Perry hallmarks: The Trans-Texas Corridor toll road plan, and a controversial executive order requiring young girls to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, which can cause cervical cancer.
“This mandate was driven by lobbyists and special interest in Austin,” Hutchison told a Dallas Republican women’s group Tuesday. “It was no coincidence that a former Perry chief of staff was a lobbyist for the company that manufactured the vaccine.”
Hutchison was referring to Mike Toomey, a former Perry chief of staff who was a top Austin lobbyist both before and after he worked for the governor, represented Merck, which makes an HPV vaccine.
Perry aide Dan Shelley met with state transportation officials on behalf of Spanish construction firm Cintra before going to work for Perry. Cintra won some of the state’s biggest road contracts, including for the Trans Texas Corridor, which has since been dropped.
“This is about having ethical standards so that the revolving door doesn’t start to affect policy in a way that hurts Texans,” said Jennifer Baker, a Hutchison campaign spokeswoman. “There are strict ethical guidelines in the Senate. She has fought for them, and she’ll bring those standards to Texas when she’s governor.”
In this corner Kay:
Perry’s campaign aides say his decisions weren’t influenced by lobbyists. They say the governor has enforced his own policy that prohibits former aides from lobbying his office for one year. Federal law places the same blackout period on former Senate staffers.
Earlier this week, Perry’s team tied Hutchison’s vote for the 2008 bank bailout program to lobbying by a former chief of staff, Dick Ribbentrop, who now works for Swiss bank UBS and lobbied on that issue, according to Senate records.
“It’s a clear connection,” said Mark Miner, a Perry spokesman. “The senator is being hypocritical in making accusations when the fact of the matter is her own staff is leaving to become lobbyists and she is hiring staff members who were lobbyists.”
Senate records show that Ribbentrop lobbied for the New York Stock Exchange for three years before he became her chief of staff in 2005. He left her office in 2007 to join UBS, where another former Hutchison aide, John Savercool, is a senior lobbyist. Lobbying laws don’t require lobbyists to indicate which lawmakers they contact on an issue. Ribbentrop didn’t return a message seeking comment.
In 2009, Hutchison rehired a former aide, David W. Davis, as senior adviser after he spent four years as vice president for government affairs at Choicepoint. She rehired another former aide, Lisette Mondello, whose husband once worked for Hutchison and now lobbies for Southwest Airlines and the Port of Houston Authority.
Baker said Davis never lobbied Hutchison when he worked at Choicepoint.
She added that Hutchison has supported laws that prohibit former Senate aides from lobbying the Senate for a year after leaving office.
That’s too close to call. Probably best we don’t elect either one of them as Governor of Texas. The pro-Rick blog put it this way:
More than cronyism… people hate hypocrisy. Kay is an amazingly huge hypocrite on this issue. It seriously amazes me that she would go down this path…
Better the lobbyist shill, than the hypocrite it seems.
If U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison had any hope of gaining ground on Perry in this debate, she needed to talk about education and Texas’ dropout rate. That might have stirred Texas schoolteachers to show up and vote in the Republican primary March 2.
But two debates have produced absolutely zero questions about Texas schools. Instead, the newscast-debate seemed to focus on which toll roads are dead or alive, plus something called the Texas Enterprise Fund.
We also learned about poor Gov. James Pinckney Henderson, the first governor of Texas after independence and the answer to a petty trivia question that stumped not only Hutchison but almost every Texan.
It’s probably best they skipped it. It’s not like any of them would have an answer. They likely think we spend too much already on education, and we just need to defund the TEA and we’d have plenty of money for education.
Today is the last day to register to vote in the March 2nd Primary.
Via Williamson County for Bill White, they are hosting a “Kick Off” event:
Williamson County For Bill White Kick off WITH MAYOR BILL WHITE!!
Please join State Representative Diana Maldonado as she hosts Mayor Bill White for the Williamson County for Bill White Campaign Kickoff!
Date: Saturday, February 6, 2010 Time: 10:30am – 1:00pm Location: Williamson County Democrats Office, 110 North Interstate 35, Suite 170, Round Rock [MAP]
Gordon and attorney Roy Minton, who is defending [Alyssa] Eacono in the lawsuit Gordon filed earlier this month, each confirmed Thursday that the third and possibly final round in this GOP slugfest will be played out in front of a jury.
“We decided we had to go to a jury trial,” Gordon said, recalling the unfavorable ruling he received Jan. 19 from visiting District Court Judge James Clawson. “We’d rather stand our chances in front of a jury of citizens.”
[...]
Gordon and Minton each said that due to scheduling and time needed for preparation, the case might not go to trial until after the primary has already been held.
How all this will affect primary election results remains to be seen.
Grits has a wrap-up of Friday’s Forensic Sciences Commission in Harlingen where Williamson County DA continued his delaying tactics in the Willingham case.
That was really quite a display. I’ll give him this. John Bradley came into Harlingen with an agenda; he was on his A-game when other commissioners were back on their heels and didn’t know what to expect; and as a result he got what he wanted out of the meeting: Delay discussing anything substantive about flawed forensic science and a new “process” in which he can bury the Willingham case in committee until after the November election.
It was a pretty brazen performance, but judging by minimalist MSM media coverage, the Williamson County DA clearly made a good bet that – by moving the meeting to the Rio Grande Valley on a Friday and waiting to produce the rules until the last minute – he would get away with such bold hectoring of the commission. It’s not a great start to Bradley’s relationship with his fellow commissioners, but he’s obviously not there to make friends. He’s there to delay the commission’s work and to impede the Willingham investigation by hook or by crook. And he’s succeeding.
And last Rep. John Carter is still running around taking credit for projects he voted against. From an LTE from The Cameron Herald.
Congressman John Carter ought to be ashamed of himself. He showed up in Rockdale last week brandishing one of those larger-than-life “checks” from the federal government, as if he personally made sure struggling and laid off Alcoa workers would be able to get the jobs training they need.
The funny thing is, Rep. Carter voted against the legislation that authorized the $2.5 million that funds the jobs package for our area. He actively campaigned against it and now the hypocrite wants to take credit for legislation he voted against.
If you didn’t see it and want to watch it can be viewed here. Again this debate was hard to watch for a Democrat. All of them are either proposing more of the same or worse. None of them has a coherent plan for transportation, and they all seem to think all of our state’s woes can be blamed on illegal immigration. They spoke little about the issues that effect the struggling workers in Texas – education, health care, etc..
