Category Archives: political news

national news, political news, State news

Wondering about endorsements' value

Joni Ernst is stiff-arming Iowa newspaper editorial boards in her bid to become that state’s next U.S. senator.

She is following the trail blazed four years ago right here in Texas by Gov. Rick Perry, who did the very same thing, watched most of the papers around the state endorse his opponent, and then won re-election by a healthy margin.

I’ve taken note of this already in a blog post.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/10/23/ernst-follows-perry-model-who-needs-editorial-boards/

Now comes the corollary question: Do these endorsements matter any longer?

I wrestled with the question for many years before my daily journalism career came to a screeching halt in August 2012.

It’s no secret to anyone that newspapers are changing before our eyes. Their role as community leaders is changing as well. Sadly, many companies that run newspapers are giving in to this trend and are devaluing their opinion pages and retreatingĀ from their traditional role as community leaders.

So, Republicans Ernst and Perry have decided to forgo the ritual that politicians used to say they enjoyed, which was to seek newspaper endorsements in their election and/or re-election campaigns. They seem to understand that newspapers no longer carry the clout they once did. Politicians used to call on editorial boards, proclaiming that they relished the give-and-take these meetings produced.

Newspaper editors — and you can count me as one of them — also used to get much from these encounters. I worked at the Amarillo Globe-News for 17 years, and 8 months and participated in many more of these meetings that I can remember. And I always, without question, learned something new about my community or my state during every election cycle.

We would reach consensus on who to recommend for public office, craft our statement, publish it and then let the chips fall.

That process now seems to be slipping away as politicians decide they don’t need these endorsements.

Rick Perry didn’t need them in 2010. I’m betting Joni Ernst — win or lose — won’t need them now.

People are forming their opinions using other media. They scour the Internet in search of their version of the truth, which isn’t hard to find, no matter your political orientation.

It’s interesting to me that politicians most likely to blow off these endorsement interviews lean heavily to the right, such as Perry and Ernst.

We’ll know for certain that editorial board endorsements really no longer matter when progressives stop seeking them.

political news, State news

Sen. Patrick getting scarier all the time

The more I read about Texas’s next probable lieutenant governor, the more concerned I become over our state’s future.

Dan Patrick is likely to be elected to the No. 2 position among all Texas politicians on Nov. 4. He’s the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor. He’s a state senator from Houston who’s running against his colleague, Democratic state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio.

Mother Jones hasĀ assembled a glossary of some of the more outrageous things Patrick has said and done during his time in the Senate.

Man Who Believes God Speaks to Us Through “Duck Dynasty” Is About to Be Texas’ Second-in-Command

OK, before we go any further, I’ll concede that Mother Jones is not friendly toward Patrick or those who agree with his world view.

But some of this stuff is utterly mind-blowing.

He talks about immigrants bringing “Third World diseases” into the United States; he walked out of a Senate invocation that was being delivered by a Muslim cleric; he once joked, in 1992, that Asian-American broadcast journalist Connie Chung’s show “Eye to Eye” should be called “Slanted Eye to Eye”; he once declared “there is no such thing as separation of church and state.”

Mother Jones lists other bizarre statements that have flown out of Patrick’s mouthĀ over the years.

He comes from a radio background, which I supposeĀ says plentyĀ about how a guy with a machine-gun mouthĀ occasionally lets the rhetorical bullets fly with abandon.

Some folks find himĀ entertaining, I suppose.Ā I prefer someone who is more thoughtful.

If he wins — and it’s looking as though he will — he’s going to turn the Texas Senate, over which the lieutenant governor presides, into a much-less collegial body. Patrick has all but guaranteed that by vowing to do away with the two-thirds rule — which requires at least 21 senators to support a bill before it goes to a vote; the idea is to promote bipartisan support for legislation. He’s also suggested he’ll appoint only Republicans to committee chairmanships, doing away with the custom that lieutenant governors of both parties have followed of appointing members of the minority party to lead Senate committees.

Texas’s legislative branch of government — at least one half-half of it — is likely to become a hostile work environment for those who don’t like the way it’s going to be run.

local news, national news, political news, State news

Ernst follows Perry model: Who needs editorial boards?

1 Comment

Joni Ernst is staking out an interesting — but not unprecedented — tactic inĀ her campaign for the U.S. Senate in Iowa.

The Republican is forgoing interviews with major Iowa newspaper editorial boards. Media observers in the Hawkeye State are wondering whether she’s afraid of being questioned by the editorial boards. She’s canceling interview appointments left and right.

Her opponent, Democrat Bruce Braley, is meeting with them, hoping — I can assume — to gather up newspaper endorsements.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/10/23/iowa-newspapers-speak-out-over-joni-ernst-snubb/201292

Do you remember when Gov.Rick Perry kissed off newspaper endorsements in 2010 when he was running for re-election in Texas? He stiffed newspaper editorial boards all over the state. He was quite clear: I don’t need no stinkin’ editorial endorsements; I’m going to “talk directly” to Texans.

Texas newspaper editors and publishers took the snub personally, with most of them endorsing his Democratic opponent, former Houston Mayor Bill White. The paper where I worked at the time, the Amarillo Globe-News, followed suit. We backed White and when we did, you’d have thought Planet Earth had just spun off its axis. The reaction from our deeply RepublicanĀ readers in the heart of the Texas Panhandle was ferocious.

Not to fear, Perry’s handlers reckoned — correctly, I should add.

The governor was re-elected handily four years ago with a 13 percent victory over White.

I figure, though, that Perry knows Texas voters as well as any politician who’s ever held public office.

Does Joni Ernst know Iowans as well? We’ll find out in about 12 days.

political news, State news

Voter ID laws miss real culprit

Texas’s voter identification law is in place to guard against voter fraud.

Is it working? Does it seek out the most common culprit? Frontline, the acclaimed PBS news documentary series, suggests it doesn’t.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/why-voter-id-laws-arent-really-about-fraud/?elq=0cc302db5c214170a765a52f0c448eb8&elqCampaignId=1064

The most common abusers are absentee voters, according to Frontline. The Texas law, which has been upheld by the courts, targets those who show up at the polls without proper identification or who have false ID and seek to pass themselves off as someone else.

Yes, those incidences do occur — rarely.

The more common element of fraud occurs away from the polling place.

Frontline notes that most absentee votes are white and older than the rest of the voting population. Accordingly, voter ID laws draw their aim on those who are least able to afford to pay for the kinds of identification that many states now require. As Frontline reports:

“Laws that require photo ID at the polls vary, but the strictest laws limit the forms of acceptable documentation to only a handful of cards. For example, in Texas, voters must show one of seven formsĀ of state or federal-issue photo ID, with a valid expiration date: a driverā€™s license, a personal ID card issued by the state, a concealed handgun license, a military ID, citizenship certificate or a passport. The name on the ID must exactly match the one on the voter rolls.

“African-Americans and Latinos are more likely to lack one of these qualifying IDs, according to several estimates. Even when the state offers a free photo ID, these voters, who are disproportionately low-income, may not be able to procure the underlying documents, such as a birth certificate, to obtain one.”

Therein lies the problem that some see in these voter ID laws. They make it harder for some Americans to vote and those Americans happen to be among the more disadvantaged among us.

Didn’t we pass a constitutional amendment to prohibit such a thing?

national news, political news

R.I.P., Ben Bradlee

I came of age during a most interesting and turbulent time.

Being near the leading edge of the baby boom, I was born not long after World War II. I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s as the nation was being shaped into the greatest economic and military power in world history.

Then came the turbulent time of Vietnam, a war that divided Americans. I did my tiny part in that war, came home andĀ re-enrolled in college. Dad asked me, “Do you have any idea what you want to major in?” I said no. He offered a suggestion: Why not journalism? “You wrote such descriptive letters when you were away,” he told me, “that I think you might want to try journalism as a career.”

So, I did take some entry-level journalism courses in college. I fell in love with the written word.

Then a burglary occurred on June 17, 1972. It was at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Some goofballs had been caught breaking into the Democratic National Headquarters. The Washington Post covered the event as a “cop shop” story initially. The paper buried it.

Then a couple of young reporters began sniffing around. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein smelled a rat. This is bigger than we think, they told their editor, Ben Bradlee, who died today.

The reporters had to talk their editor into letting them go hard after the story.

Bradlee eventually relented. He turned the young men loose. They uncoveredĀ the greatest constitutional crisis of the 20th century.

It was a good time to be a journalist.

I’ll make an admission. I was among the thousands ofĀ  young journalism aspirants who became star-struck by the notion of breaking the “big story” because of the work that Bradlee, Woodward and Bernstein did in uncovering the Watergate story.

I trust others in their mid-20s, such as myself, were as smitten as I was at the intrepid nature of the reporting that was done in the field and the tough decisions the reporters’ editor had to make to ensure that they got it right.

Brother, did they ever get it right.

They can thank Ben Bradlee for guiding them, pushing them, perhaps even goading them into telling this story completely.

My own career, of course, didn’t produce that kind of notoriety. I am grateful, however, for the nudge my dear father gave me in late 1970 toĀ seek an educational course that would enable me to enjoy the career I would have. I also am grateful that Ben Bradlee had the courage to seek the truth in a story known as Watergate and gave young reporters all across the land further incentive to pursue a noble craft.

Thank you, Ben.

national news, political news, State news

Where does Davis go from here?

This is not a particularly bold prediction: Wendy Davis is likely to lose her bid to become Texas’s next governor.

The Democratic nominee is being whipsawed by a combination of circumstances: She’s running in a heavily Republican state; she hasn’t gotten serious traction on the serious issues she’s sought to raise; her opponent, Greg Abbott, has proven to be unflappable in the face of intense criticism.

My question now is this: Where does the state senator go from here?

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/wendy-davis-2014-texas-elections-112027.html?hp=l23

Some observers had speculated that Davis could emerge with a moral victory even in defeat. She’s made a name for herself. She gained national fame with that notable filibuster in 2013 of a strict anti-abortion bill. She is an articulate spokeswoman for her party.

The problem is that the Texas Democratic Party is in shambles. Republicans have grabbed every statewide office and have tightened the vise-grip they hold.

Davis had been seen as a possible leader of a Democratic resurgence. Trouble is that the resurgence has failed to take hold.

Davis’s future as a political star in Texas is questionable at best, and not because of anything she’s said or done, but because the party cannot seem to pull itself off the deck.

If she’s going to maintain a future in elected politics, it looks to me as though she ought to follow the Scott Brown model up yonder in New England. Brown, a Republican,Ā lost his U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts to Democrat Elizabeth Warren. Then he moved to neighboring New Hampshire and is mounting a serious challenge to Democratic U.S. Sen. Jean Shaheen.

Sen. Davis? New Mexico might be beckoning.

medical news, national news, political news

Oops! GOP governor tells truth, then backs off

Hey, I always thought Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich was a straight shooter.

Turns out he needs to get his sights re-set.

Kasich told The Associated Press that the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, is here to stay, that Republicans have no hope of repealing it, even if they win control of the U.S. Senate after the Nov. 4 mid-term election.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/20/politics/kasich-obamacare-here-to-stay/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

‘AP reported this: “‘The opposition to it was really either political or ideological,’ Kasich said of Obamacare. “I don’t think that holds water against real flesh and blood, and real improvements in people’s lives.'”

That sounds pretty darn reasonable. But wait! Gov. Kasich’s people said AP got it wrong. The governor was referring to the ACA’s Medicaid expansion.

The ACA should be repealed and replaced, the governor’s office said — speaking for Kasich.

Here’s the deal, folks.

The ACA is working. Millions of Americans have signed up for health insurance who didn’t have it before. It’s providing comfort to those who prior to the law’s enactment couldn’t afford to be insured.

The ACA rollout was a Keystone Kops affair, to be sure. The computerized system crashed. It was a mess.

Then it got fixed. Yes, the rollout likely caused Kathleen Sebelius her job as health and human services secretary.

I’ll stick with Kasich’s initial view that repeal of the ACA ain’t going to happen.

Congressional Republicans, I’m quite certain, will have no trouble finding other issues with which to pick fights with the president. It’s in their DNA.

national news, political news

'Kissing congressman' testing voters' values

By all rights, Vance McAllister should be toast. Done. A goner from public life.

The Louisiana Republican congressman got caught on a video laying a seriously wet kiss on a female staffer. They were making out, man. Oh, McAllister and the staffer have spouses. The woman’s husband was so angry he declared their marriage to be over; I haven’t heard the latest on that one.

As for McAllister, he apparently is still married to the mother of their five children. He had declared his intention to leave office after this term, then he changed his mind. He’s running in that free-for-all Louisiana system in which Democrats and Republicans run against each other in the general election.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/vance-mcallister-the-kissing-congressman-112015.html?hp=t1

You know what? The guy just might win — again.

It looks as though the congressman is testing his constituents’ tolerance for misbehavior.

He represents a reliably Republican district. His constituent base is generally quite conservative. So, I’ll presume that under most circumstances they’d frown terribly on their elected representative in Congress making out with someone other than his wife.

Doesn’t Scripture tell us that “adultery” results even when we look lustfully at someone other than our spouse? By that measure, McAllister has committed a serious sin, correct? What’s more, McAllister campaign for election while declaring himself to be a God-fearing, wife-and-children-loving family man.

Well, he’s back in the game. He’s running hard for re-election, only he’s kissing babies this time.

This will be most intriguing. The incumbent’s constituents reportedly are looking pastĀ the kind of misbehavior that used to get politicians into serious trouble.

Wow!

local news, political news

Sucking it up for an early vote

Grumble, grumble.

That’s me, griping about a task I have to perform this election season.

Duty calls and I’m going to be forced to vote early in this year’s Texas mid-term election.

A polling research company has hired me as an exit pollster on Election Day. I’ll be working at a Randall County precinct, giving confidential questionnaires to voters as they leave the polling place. It’s a 12-plus-hour gig that day and I’ll be unable to go to my regular polling place to cast my ballot.

Readers of this blog know how I feel about early voting. I detest it. No, I actually hate voting early. My fear is that voting early exposes voters to being surprised when their candidate gets caught doing something naughty, or illegal — or both — before Election Day. Yes, I know that an Election Day vote doesn’t prevent someone from misbehaving between that day and the day he or she takes office, but I want to hedge my bet as much as is humanly possible.

Texas secretaries of state have proclaimed the virtues of voting early. They want to make it easier for Texans to cast their ballots, even though the state now has a voter identification law that — some have said — will make it more difficult for some Texans to exercise their rights as citizens. But that’s another story.

The blunt truth about early voting, though, is that it doesn’t boost the total number of voters. Texas still ranks among the lowest-turnout states in the Union. All it does is enable more Texans to vote early rather than wait this year until Nov. 4.

So …

I’m going to suck it up and vote early. Just to be true to my belief in hedging my bet against something bad happening to the candidates of my choice, I’m going to wait until the very last day of early voting.

See? Pay attention, tea party Republican members of Congress: This proves you can compromise without sacrificing your principles.

political news, State news

Wishing to know how pols actually vote

Early voting for the Texas mid-term election starts Monday and it brings to mind something that’s been on my mind of late.

It’s my wish that I could learn how people in high public political places vote for their peers … other high-profile political figures.

I pose the notion with state Sen. Dan Patrick in mind. Patrick is the Republican candidate for Texas lieutenant governor, who I believe has as many foes on his side of the aisle as he has on the other side.

It’s just a hunch.

I must stipulate that I’ve never met Patrick. I know about him based only on what I’ve read in the media. What do I know about him? That he’s mercurial; he’s a fiery conservative who’s all but acknowledged he doesn’t care about any public official who doesn’t share his philosophy; he is quick with the quip and short on compassion.

So I wonder whether he’s going to get the full-throated support of Texas senators from within his own party.

Yes, we vote in private. I cannot in good conscience ask a state or Panhandle public official whether they actually are going to vote for someone such as Patrick. We call them “secret ballots” for a reason, even though such secrecy hasn’t stopped the critics over in Kentucky from wondering why Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes won’t say whether she voted for Barack Obama for president.

In 1998, George W. Bush was running for re-election as governor. He came to the Amarillo Globe-News to meet with its editorial board for the purpose of obtaining the newspaper’s endorsement. Gov. Bush was affable, talkative, well-versed on the issues and we had a thoroughly engaging and sometimes-frank discussion of his candidacy.

Then I asked him this question: “Governor, who are you supporting for lieutenant governor?”

Before the final word of that sentence came out of my mouth, he blurted out: Rick Perry!

Why bring this up? Well, it struck me odd at the moment thatĀ Gov. Bush didn’t elaborate on why he backed his fellow Republican over Democrat John Sharp. He didn’t say, “I’m supporting Rick Perry because he’ll continue the tradition of working across the aisle, as Bob Bullock has done,” or even that “Rick Perry is a friend of mine and he and I share the same conservative values that most Texans hold dear.”

No. He said, “Rick Perry” — and not a single word more.

I’ve long had this notion that despite that public pronouncement that Gov. Bush well could have voted differently when he stepped into the voting booth.

Dan Patrick’s fiery reputation has me wondering the same thing now about those who proclaim their support for him.