Tag Archives: GOP

local news, political news

A Texas Senate race may start smoldering soon

Well, well, well …

Not only are there three men setting up a stout challenge for a Randall County court at law judge this coming spring, it turns out that a veteran West Texas state senator is going to be “primaried” as well in 2018.

The potential Senate contest poses an interesting political dynamic worth watching verrry closely.

Republican state Sen. Kel Seliger has represented Senate District 31 since 2004. He is a former Amarillo city commissioner and mayor who once ran — with his brother — a steel company in Amarillo. Seliger has risen to a significant leadership position in the Texas Senate, chairing the Senate Higher Education Committee for the past couple of legislative sessions.

He’s a solid legislator who picked up the unique language of legislation right away upon his first election to the Senate. He is nuanced, detail-oriented and smart. Yes, he’s also a friend of mine. So there, I’ve laid out my bias.

He’s got two challengers — presuming he chooses to seek re-election next year.

One of them is former Midland Mayor Mike Canon, who ran against Seliger in the GOP primary in 2014. Canon’s a nice enough fellow. He’s a lawyer by training. I had a chance to visit with Canon prior to a Panhandle PBS candidate forum in the spring of 2014; I was among the journalists who questioned Canon and Seliger.

My primary takeaway from that forum was pretty straightforward: Canon’s TEA Party affiliation became apparent as he answered our questions with talking points, platitudes and clichés. Seliger’s answers were far more detailed and he exhibited a keen understanding of the complexities of legislation.

Still, Canon’s Permian Basin base stood behind him when the primary votes were counted and he came within fewer than 5 percentage points of defeating Seliger, whose Panhandle base turned out even more strongly behind the incumbent.

Enter another challenger to Seliger. That would be Victor Leal, an Amarillo business owner and a fellow with fairly high name recognition throughout a decent portion of Senate District 31. Why is that? He once served as mayor of Muleshoe. Plus, he ran for Texas House District 87 in 2011 in an effort to succeed David Swinford, who bowed out of a re-election campaign.

But an issue emerged with Leal’s candidacy. His residency came into question. He had resided for several years in Randall County, which is not part of House District 87. He rented a small house in Potter County, but there remained some question about whether he actually was residing in the Potter County dwelling.

Leal lost the GOP primary that year to Amarillo lawyer Four Price, who’s still serving in the Texas House (and who himself has a GOP primary challenger). The residency issue won’t come up in this Senate race, as District 31 includes both Randall and Potter counties.

I’m curious about the possible impact Leal’s candidacy is going to have on this campaign mix. Leal figures to bite a bit into Seliger’s Panhandle base of support. The question, too, is whether he’ll also be able to siphon enough votes from the Permian Basin to make life uncomfortable for Canon.

Seliger’s reputation as a GOP moderate just might — in Canon’s mind and perhaps in Leal’s too — present an inviting target for primary challengers seeking to appeal to the hard-core conservative wing of the Republican Party.

We’ll now wait for word on Seliger’s intentions. I’m a tiny bit anxious to know what the senator plans to do.

legal news, local news

Plenty of stirring in this Randall County judge contest

A highly unusual political event appears to be shaping up in little ol’ Randall County, Texas.

It involves a trial judge who’s drawn three — count ’em, three — challengers to the seat he has occupied since 2007.

I’ve been watching county-level contests in Texas for more than three decades, first in Beaumont and then here in Amarillo. It’s a rare event when an incumbent judge who’s doing a good job on the bench gets this kind of election-year challenge.

Court at Law No. 2 Judge Ronnie Walker is the man in the hot seat. Three lawyers are running against him. I know one of the legal eagles fairly well, Stewart Werner of Amarillo; I don’t know the other two, Matt Martindale and James Abbott.

All of them are planning to run in the Republican Party primary next spring, which of course is no surprise, given that no Democrat ever runs for anything these days in Randall County — the unofficial capital of the GOP in West Texas.

I won’t pass judgment on any of the candidates — including Judge Walker. I have been out of the game officially for five years now, so my local political radar likely needs some fine-tuning.

What I have witnessed regarding local politics in two disparate regions of Texas over these many years, however, tells me there might be some issues about the incumbent that need some serious examination.

national news

Are mainstream Republicans wising up to Trump?

Peter Wehner is no Republican in Name Only.

Neither is John Danforth, or Mitt Romney, or Jeb Bush, or John McCain. They are among an increasing number of serious-minded individuals — some of whom have been in public service for decades — who are speaking out finally against another prominent member of their political party.

I refer to the president of the United States of America, Donald John Trump.

I mention Wehner in this post because I want to include an essay he’s written for the New York Times.

Here it is.

The overarching issue for the president seems, in my mind, to be fairly clear cut. He’s not a Republican. He’s a classic RINO. He attached himself to a political party because it suited his personal ambition. Besides, he had spent years defaming a Democratic president, Barack Obama, suggesting he wasn’t a “natural born” American, that he was born overseas and, therefore, wasn’t qualified to hold his high office.

It didn’t stop there. He questioned President Obama’s academic credentials. He suggested that the president really didn’t earn Harvard law degree, or that he didn’t excel academically. He said Obama was a fraud.

So, he sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Then, of course, he was elected.

But he’s no Republican. Wehner, who has served under three GOP presidents, laments the wreckage that Trump has brought to the presidency. It’s almost as if Trump has formed a sort of de facto political party that is neither Republican or Democratic. As Wehner writes in the Times:

“The more offensive Mr. Trump is to the rest of America, the more popular he becomes with his core supporters. One policy example: At a recent rally in Phoenix, the president said he was willing to shut down the government over the question of funding for a border wall, which most of his base favors but only about a third of all Americans want.”

Yes, his base — even though it is shrinking — still loves the guy. They cheer his idiotic rants. They proclaim their adherence to an individual who “tells it like it is.” They dismiss any notion that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, that he doesn’t understand how government works, that he has spent his entire adult professional life with one mission only: to enrich himself.

I have conceded many times that this guy has defied the laws of conventional political gravity. The idea that he could be elected after hurling the insults, defaming his foes, and lying virtually daily is in itself a stunning testimony to the national mood — which Trump managed to mine.

Peter Wehner’s essay, though, is worth reading. It reminds us — or at least it should remind us — that governance requires a depth of knowledge and an understanding of history that the 45th president has demonstrated repeatedly that he lacks.

Just think, too, that this criticism is coming from a member of the president’s own political party.

national news

GOP taken over by ‘this hateful man’

We haven’t heard much from John Danforth since he left the U.S. Senate.

The highly respected former lawmaker — who also happens to be an Episcopal minister — has weighed in heavily against the president of the United States.

Sen. Danforth is urging the Republican Party — to which he is a member — to toss aside the principles espoused by Donald John Trump Sr., who he described as “this hateful man” who promotes division and disunity in the nation he governs.

One must accept that political figures from opposing parties are going to criticize those in high office. Danforth’s critique, which he offered in an essay published in the Washington Post, is another of a stunning array of criticism coming from politicians within the president’s own party.

It makes me ponder whether Trump actually is seen by Republicans as one of their own. Or is he a major-league anomaly, a political freak who elected president by a series of flukes that no one saw coming?

Danforth has laid down an important marker for his fellow Republicans. He writes of Trump: “He stands in opposition to the founding principle of our party — that of a united country.”

Read Danforth’s essay here.

Look back just a few days to the rhetoric he has spouted. He talked of “many sides” being responsible for the violence in Charlottesville. He doubled down a few days later by declaring that “both sides” were at fault and that “both sides” had “good people” clashing in the Virginia community, which brings to mind the question: What kind of “good person” marches with Klansmen, Nazis and white supremacists?

Such language from the president drives huge wedges between groups of Americans, which is what I believe Sen. Danforth seeks to underscore in his essay.

“For the sake of our party and our nation, we Republicans must disassociate ourselves from Trump by expressing our opposition to his divisive tactics and by clearly and strongly insisting that he does not represent what it means to be a Republican,” Danforth writes.
Nor does he “represent” anything about the presidency of the greatest nation on Earth.
national news, political news

McCain’s ‘no’ vote on ACA repeal appears to be personal

This is a brief tale of two politicians.

One of them is Donald J. Trump; the other is John S. McCain III. They have an intense dislike for each other. They’re both of the same political party; they’re Republicans.

Trump entered politics in June 2015 when he decided to run for president of the United States. It was his first political campaign. He’d never sought any other public office. He touted his wealth and his business acumen. He promised to “make America great again.”

He got elected president.

McCain has been in politics for a long time. He retired from the Navy and then was elected to the U.S. House from Arizona. Then he went on to the Senate. He’s been in public office for more than three decades. Oh, and he was a fighter pilot who in 1967 got shot down over Hanoi, North Vietnam. He was captured and held as a prisoner for the rest of the Vietnam War.

While running for president, Trump was asked about McCain’s service and whether he considered the former POW a “war hero.” Trump’s answer is still echoing. “He’s a war hero because he got captured,” Trump said. “I like people who aren’t captured.”

McCain heard that. I’m wondering: Do you suppose he took serious offense at that snarky response? Do you believe he felt disrespected, that the candidate denigrated his service? And how do you suppose McCain felt knowing that Trump avoided service in the war that took such a savage toll on his own body? McCain was injured badly when his plane was shot down. He suffered broken limbs that never were set properly by his captors. He endured torture, isolation, and intense verbal and emotional abuse.

The public service stories of these two men cannot be more different. One of them had zero public service experience until he assumed his high office; the other man spent years in the military before becoming a politician. He paid dearly for his military service.

The men’s political journeys crossed not long ago when McCain ended up voting “no” on a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, something that Trump wanted. He had banked on McCain to be on his side. McCain would have none of it.

McCain, by the way, had just been diagnosed as having a malignant brain tumor. He came back to the Capitol Building to cast his “no” vote.

I am left to ponder now — weeks after Sen. McCain cast that fateful vote against ACA repeal — whether Donald Trump doomed the ACA vote with that idiotic, disrespectful and utterly gratuitous dig at a war hero’s service to his country.

In a perfect world, public policy shouldn’t hinge on personal slights. I think it did this time. I’m glad it did. John McCain deserved better than he got from the man who would become president. But he delivered his response with perfection.

Donald Trump had it coming.

national news, political news

Anger will get POTUS nowhere — in a hurry

Presidents of the United States usually manage to cultivate friendships in the least-expected places.

Democrat Lyndon Johnson had strong alliances with Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen; Republican Ronald Reagan had a marvelous after-hours social friendship with Democratic House Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill; Democrat Bill Clinton worked with Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich to produce a balanced federal budget; Republican George W. Bush and Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy worked hand-in-glove to craft education reform legislation.

They all sought each other out in the search for common ground. It worked. The government found a way to get things done. The outreach extends in both directions.

That’s how good government works.

Donald Trump’s approach? Bash ’em all. Democrats and Republicans alike all feel the sting of Trump’s Twitter tirade. Criticize the president on policy differences? You’d better don your hard hat to avoid getting your bell rung by rhetorical abuse delivered — of course! — via Twitter.

Trump is at it again. He calls for “national unity.” Then unleashes yet another Twitter broadside.

The president is an angry man. His anger is threatening to stall everything in Congress. He has impugned the very people he needs: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain … and on and on it goes.

Everyone has his or her limits to their level of anger. How far is Donald Trump going to take his myriad feuds with members of both parties in Congress?

I’m going to presume we’ll know when it occurs when Trump’s anger hits the proverbial wall.

political news

It helps to know what you don’t know

One of the gazillion things that have been said of Donald John Trump is that the president of the United States “doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.”

He seems to be the Bubble Boy of American politics, insulated from the effects of the barbs and boulders tossed at him. Or so he thinks.

Now comes former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich to offer a bit of specificity, which is that Trump doesn’t realize just how “isolated” he has become.

Critics of this blog will recall that I’ve dismissed Newt in the past as a know-nothing has-been, a philanderer who in the late 1990s made a big case against former President Clinton over his, um, philandering. 

On this one, though, Newt might be on to something. He said on Fox News: “On the Hill, he has far more people willing to sit to one side and not help him right now, and I think that he needs to recognize he’s taken a good first step with bringing in Gen. (John) Kelly (as chief of staff), but he needs to think about what has not worked.”

Trump’s term as president is in trouble. He has declared open warfare on fellow Republicans. Democrats detest him already, so they need zero push to resist every single thing he proposes. He cannot fill key deputy Cabinet posts, or senior White House staff jobs. The roster of federal judgeships remains largely vacant.

The president’s legislative agenda has high-centered. It has no traction. Tax reform is likely to get stalled. He won’t get the money he wants to build that wall along our southern border. Congressional leaders are going to increase the budgetary debt ceiling despite what the president says.

Trump once boasted that “I, alone” can fix what’s wrong.

No, Mr. President. You cannot. It is impossible.

He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know … which is dangerous not just for him, but for the country.

national news

It’s a ‘team sport,’ Mr. President

Donald John “Tweeter in Chief” Trump Sr. posted this little gem today via Twitter: The only problem I have with Mitch McConnell is that, after hearing Repeal & Replace for 7 years, he failed!That should NEVER have happened!

Let me remind the president once again that winning and losing political battles are shared responsibilities. Normally.

The president and the Senate majority leader, both Republicans, own the failure of the GOP members of the Senate to approve an overhaul of the Affordable Care Act. Again, normally.

Trump is the head of the Republican Party. He is the nation’s top Republican officeholder. He won the 2016 presidential election and took with him to the White House the hopes and dreams of his party faithful. He carried them on his back.

They wanted the ACA repealed and they looked to the president to push that load over the finish line.

He failed. Right along with the Senate, and the House, and the rest of the nation that wanted to see the ACA repealed and replaced with something else. I was not one of those Americans, by the way … as if readers of this blog needed reminding.

Governance is a team sport, Mr. President. It involves the legislative and executive branches of government working together for the common good. The country depends on everyone involved.

Trump and McConnell reportedly are estranged politically. McConnell is reported to have stated privately that he doubts Trump can “salvage” his presidency. Why? Trump lacks the political knowledge and skill required to do the job to which he was elected.

Yes, Sen. McConnell and the GOP members of both congressional chambers deserve a lot of the blame for what Trump believes went wrong with repealing and replacing the ACA.

But not nearly all of it.

national news

GOP silence is getting louder

You can understand that Democrats are angry with Donald J. Trump.

The president won an election he was supposed to lose to the Democratic Party nominee. Congressional Democrats haven’t gotten over it … yet!

Republicans, though, are demonstrating their angst and anger at Trump differently than their colleagues on the other side of the chasm.

They are staying quiet. More or less. A few congressional Republicans are speaking against the president, namely over his stated reaction to the Charlottesville mayhem. However, except for a few on the far right wing of the party, one is hearing damn little comment that even remotely resembles support for the president’s equating of Nazis and Klansmen to those who protested their march in Charlottesville.

If I were Donald Trump — and I am so glad to be far away from this guy — I would be worried to the max about the GOP silence. Trump has demonstrated already he doesn’t give a damn about Democrats; nor do Democrats, to be fair, give a damn about him. Now, though, he is providing evidence that he doesn’t care about Republicans, either; the GOP silence suggests to me the feeling is increasingly mutual.

Trump has gone after the Senate majority leader; he’s attacked GOP Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona; he lashes out at Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; he even attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a former senator from Alabama, and a good friend of many in the Senate — on both sides of the aisle.

GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine now says she isn’t even sure Trump will be the party’s presidential nominee in 2020.

The Republican Party’s relative silence may deliver more damage to the president than the howling we’re getting from the other side.

national news

Nice try, Mitt; don’t wait for an apology

Mitt Romney gave it a shot.

The  Republican Party presidential nominee wants the current president to say he’s sorry for the despicable comments he has made about the Charlottesville riot. It amazes me, to be candid, that anyone would even think Donald John Trump is capable of apologizing.

I’ll give Romney credit for at least putting his request out there on the record.

As a matter of fact, I think I should say that given what the country has endured since the election of the current Republican president, the immediate past GOP presidential nominee is looking better all the time.

CNBC reported: “Regardless of whether he intended it, Trump’s words ’caused racists to rejoice, minorities to weep, and the vast heart of America to mourn,’ the former Republican presidential nominee and Massachusetts governor wrote in a Facebook post. Romney called on the president to apologize for his remarks.”

Again, from CNBC: “‘He should address the American people, acknowledge that he was wrong, apologize,’ Romney wrote. ‘State forcefully and unequivocally that racists are 100% to blame for the murder and violence in Charlottesville. Testify that there is no conceivable comparison or moral equivalency between the Nazis — who brutally murdered millions of Jews and who hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives to defeat — and the counter-protestors who were outraged to see fools parading the Nazi flag, Nazi armband and Nazi salute.'”

Here is the CNBC story.

There’s one serious drawback to Romney’s plea: It requires the president to feel a sense of shame. To feel shame, one must possess humility. One also must possess a conscience and a certain ability to look inward.

I keep waiting for some evidence of any of that from the president. I cannot find it. It’s nowhere to be seen in public. The man is without shame, conscience, humility or introspection. Didn’t he once say he never had sought forgiveness? For anything? Ever in his life?

An apology is a form of asking to be forgiven. Does anyone — even Mitt Romney — believe now is the time we’re going to hear such a thing from Donald Trump?

Thanks nevertheless for making the demand, Mitt.