http://amarillo.com/news/local-news/2012-10-02/beilue-mud-slinging-it-used-be-worse-political-campaigns

My pal Jon Mark Beilue makes a critical point in his latest column: You might think Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are tough on each other, but their attacks seem downright tame compared to what’s been done before.

Romney in particular has been whining about the personal nature of the president’s attacks. He ought to gaze back through history to see what tough campaigning really looks like.

For my money, the most negative presidential campaign was the George H.W. Bush-Michael Dukakis mudfest in 1988. That contest featured a murderer named Willie Horton, for whom Dukakis granted a furlough when he was governor of Massachusetts. Horton killed someone while on furlough from prison. Bush seized on the issue and pounded Dukakis mercilessly over a matter that was brought to light during the Democratic primary by none other than U.S. Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee.

President Lyndon Johnson’s campaign in 1964 portrayed Republican challenger Barry Goldwater as a war-monger who would destroy the world in a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. And go back even farther and you’ll find political brutality the likes of which we haven’t seen since.

A larger point of Beilue’s column is that negativity works, which is why campaigns use it to make whatever point they want to make. If voters didn’t respond to negative campaigns the candidates wouldn’t take their campaigns in that direction.

But is this campaign among the most negative in history? Not even close.

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-newspaper/texas-news/brief-top-texas-news-oct-3-2012/

I wish it hadn’t come to this. Former Democratic Texas state Rep. Paul Sadler and former Republican state Solicitor General Ted Cruz engaged in a debate last night and Sadler resorted to cheap name-calling.

“What you don’t do is do your job as a legislator worried that some troll will come along 10 years later or 20 years later and try to run a campaign against you,” Sadler said of Cruz, his opponent in the race to become the state’s next U.S. senator.

I always thought Sadler was better than that. Remember when Gov. Ann Richards referred to George W. Bush as a “jerk” back in 1994 when she ran for re-election. That was an unseemly utterance and it might have played a part in Bush defeating Richards that year.

It’s not as though Cruz and Sadler are locked in a tight match. Every poll under the broad Texas sky shows Cruz is the prohibitive favorite to take the seat held by fellow Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Some have seized on the troll comment as a shot at Cruz’s height; he’s a good bit shorter than Sadler. Let’s not go there. No, the troll reference merely is a gratuitous bit of petulance that should not have become part of what is supposed to be a serious public policy discussion.

Many regions in Texas and the South boast of being the “buckle of the Bible Belt.” Deep East Texas just might be the real deal.

A dust-up has occurred at Kountze High School, just a few miles north of Beaumont, over whether cheerleaders can display Bible verses on banners during football games. The case has made national headlines and has created a bit of a stir in that part of the world.

I consulted recently with my pal Tom Taschinger, the editorial page editor of the Beaumont Enterprise – where I used to work – about his take on the story. He responded with an email that said in part, that the paper sided with those who say the display of the Scripture verses is a “clearcut violation of church-state separation.” He complained that the “local judge, and now the Texas AG are refusing to call a spade a spade and are leaving that job to a higher court.”

But then Tom offered this bit of a back story: “Lost in all this nonsense is the fact that the run-through banners are trampled into the mud and then thrown into the trash with soda cups and popcorn boxes – a clearly disrespectful way to treat Scripture. Yikes!”

I guess I would disagree respectfully with my friend’s view that the banners violate the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, given that the displays are a result of the students’ initiative and not a demand placed on them by school authorities.

But he’s totally right to chide the kids for treating these holy verses in such a – dare I say it – blasphemous manner.

My wife and I recently were the victims of what could be called a form of profiling.

The brief tale I’m about to tell is true and it provides an example of the deep divisions within our country.

We recently welcomed a relatively new friend into our home. She was visiting Amarillo from the Permian Basin, where she lives with her husband. She came here for a quick overnight stay before returning home.

Our friend, who we haven’t known all that long, entered our home and noticed the stars-and-stripes banner in the front window, the flag hanging on a back window and a small banner hanging next to the front porch. She took note of the displays. “Oh yes, we’re flag-wavers around here,” I said. “That’s a good thing. I’m glad to know that,” she answered before telling us how concerned she is that the president of the United States “doesn’t have a heart for this country.”

“Oh really?” I asked. Our friend wondered about my response and began immediately to sense she might have stepped into some tricky territory. “Are you Obama supporters?” she asked. We said yes.

We engaged in a brief political joust over whether the president really loves America. I noted that he has proclaimed his love of country repeatedly during his time in office. Our friend, a lifelong Republican active in party politics in her hometown, harbors some doubt about his sincerity.

We moved on quickly to other topics, all of us sensing that we didn’t want this discussion to get out of hand.

My point? The divisions that exist in this country have succeeded in labeling people on the other side incorrectly far too many times. Our friend seemed to assume that because we are admitted flag-wavers that we necessarily oppose the re-election of President Obama. That, of course, is a dangerous assumption to make. It reminds me a bit of another friend, a true-blue Democrat, who once chided me for wearing a flag pin in the lapel of my jacket. He seemed to suggest that only Republicans wear those cheesy lapel pins. I reminded him that wearing the flag pin has no bearing on my own political proclivity.

We take a back seat to no one in expressing our love of country. We fly our flag proudly. My eyes still well up at the sound of patriotic music. I love military parades.

Outward expressions of patriotism aren’t the exclusive domain of any single political party. It would do us good to appreciate that patriots come in all forms and political persuasions.

And have no concern about our relationship with our friend. We remain very fond of her.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/us/politics/romney-energy-agenda-shifted.html?hp&_r=0

I like the Old Mitt Romney, the one who governed Massachusetts as a moderate Republican.

The New Mitt Romney – the one running for president of the United States – has become a creature of what must be called the Whack Job Wing of the Republican Party. The link above, taken from the New York Times, points out how Old Mitt used to think a lot about energy conservation. The New Mitt has blown it off as a sop to those who say it’s OK to “drill baby, drill.”

Old Mitt hired true-blue environmentalists to his gubernatorial cabinet. New Mitt seemingly would hire true-blue industrialists to his presidential cabinet.

Old Mitt used to extol the virtues of making cars that drove incredibly long distances on a single tank of gasoline. New Mitt never mentions it.

All this shows how candidates must appeal to their base to win their party’s presidential nomination. Mitt Romney is just the latest example, perhaps just as Barack Obama has sought to curry favor with his base while campaigning for re-election.

But this Old vs. New Mitt should be troublesome to those who want to see Romney elected president. They don’t know who they’ll get if he’s elected. Is it the Old Mitt who once thought reasonably about the need to conserve our nation’s finite energy supply? Or is it the New Mitt who hues to the dictates of the tea party faithful who dislike government spending on programs to develop clean alternate energy sources – solar and wind for example – in addition to drilling for fossil fuels.

As the NY Times article attached to this post notes, Old Mitt produced “Nixon goes to China” moments on occasion. To my ears, New Mitt sounds like a panderer.

I’m having trouble remembering when a presidential campaign face-off generated as much pre-event buzz as the Wednesday encounter between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

I was a bit young to recall the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debate, although I do remember it vaguely as a not-quite-11-year-old. The next debate occurred in 1976 and we’ve had them every election year since.

They’ve all produced sound bite legacies. There’ve been a vice-presidential debate or two worthy of the history books. But the expectations for this latest one are a bit different, perhaps owing to the apparent closeness of the contest between an incumbent Democratic president and his Republican challenger.

My take on it is this: Romney might be able to wipe much of his recent stumble-bum record with a solid performance. He doesn’t need to hit it out of the park; he just needs to avoid the kind of careless utterances that give the president an opening – although the POTUS has plenty of ammunition in his arsenal already to fire at Mitt.

Yes, Romney has his own cache of weapons to fire at Obama. The issue for Romney, though, will be whether he can make them stick against a very nimble and quick-thinking opponent. Romney, nice fellow he he seems to be, has provided ample evidence that he isn’t nearly as quick on his feet as the president.

Is nimble-mindedness alone a reason to elect someone Leader of the Free World? No. But this trait does provide a gauge as to whether someone can negotiate clearly with friends and foes around the world and can articulate a cogent policy. I see Romney’s challenge in that regard as steeper than the one facing the president.

This first encounter has the potential of bringing Romney back into the game (which appears to be slipping away from him). It also could seal the deal for Obama, no matter what happens in either of the two remaining debates.

And what if it’s a tie? Think of it as a championship boxing match. The champ keeps his title in the event of a draw … yes?

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-transportation/transportation/85-mph-speed-limit-trucks-may-avoid-new-toll-road/

Texas transportation officials had this bright idea: Let’s build a toll road and then post the fastest speed limits in the country.

Fine. The speed demons among us love the idea of being able to drive 85 mph – or faster – on this new road between Austin and San Antonio.

Ah, but wait. Some of the more reasonable among us are deciding they just might stay away. And in the case of Texas 130 – the aforementioned toll road – it’s going to cost the state money in lost toll-road revenue. Seems that Texas trucking outfits don’t like the high speed and their long-haul drivers are going to stay away from Texas 130. And given that toll road authorities charge more for trucks than they do, say, for family vehicles, the state is going to lose some revenue.

The 85-mph speed limit is a nutty idea on its face. Everyone in America knows that speed limits generally are ignored by many millions of drivers – maybe even most of them. Tell them to drive 70 and they’ll go 75, maybe 80. Put up an 85-mph speed limit sign and God only knows how fast some of these motor-driven idiots will go.

Truckers think the Texas Department of Transportation has created a monster with this toll road, which is designed to relieve traffic congestion on the perpetually crowded Interstate 35 demolition derby track.

The highway is going to open very soon. Truckers are trying to persuade TxDOT to change its mind on the breakneck speed limit.

I hereby join them in that call. Slow it down, TxDOT.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/burkablog/?p=14185

Paul Burka has it exactly right. Rick Perry’s latest pronouncement about church/state separation will doom any future bid he might launch for the presidency.

The Republican Texas governor calls the notion of such separation as the work of the devil. He sounds so much like those on the far right who keep positing a goofy notion about what the Constitution says about the separation of church and state.

A former colleague of mine is fond of saying that the U.S. Constitution does not contain the words “church and state separation.” He’s right about that very narrow point. But the Constitution does say in its very first amendment that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” And virtually every legal scholar – including some of those “strict constructionists” – since has affirmed that the First Amendment means that the state and the church must be separate. I’m no legal scholar, but I do understand fully what the framers meant when they wrote that amendment.

Were they the spawns of Satan? No, they sought to create a secular nation that governs a people who are free to worship – or not worship – as they please.

Back to the polls.

They’re beginning to show a trend, which is that President Obama is looking more like a lock for re-election. I harken back again to the RealClearPolitics poll average. Today, Obama ticked up to 4 percent over Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

Let’s look ahead to next week, to the first of three presidential joint appearances. Romney’s must score a “There you go again” moment against Obama if he expects a shot at capturing this election. Don’t look for the president to expose himself to such a thing the way Jimmy Carter did against Ronald Reagan back in 1980.

If the president fends off Romney and scores some hits of his own – and he’ll have plenty of ammo to fire at the challenger – then we might see the beginning of the end of Romney’s White House quest.

Oh, and what about Ohio? Remember how the late Tim Russert declared “Florida, Florida, Florida” when handicapping how the 2000 race would go down? I think the Buckeye State is this election’s Florida, meaning that it all turns right there. Republicans need it to win; Democrats can win without it. Polls are showing Obama with a lead of as much as 10 points in the Buckeye State, give or take a point or two.

Here’s what I think might occur Election Night. If the TV networks call Ohio early for the president, we might be looking at a blowout. Ohio will be among the first states to close its polling places, giving the networks time to consider whether it’s too close to call or whether they can declare it for either candidate. If it’s a nail-biter, look for a long night of suspense.

But if it goes early for Obama – given his apparent lead in the polls and even more commanding lead in the Electoral College – then it’s lights out in a hurry.

But hey, it’s six weeks away. How many political lifetimes is that?

I had to chuckle when I read the story about Republican officials questioning the polls that show President Obama with a widening lead over GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

They say the polls are “skewed” in favor of the Democratic incumbent.

Why did I chuckle? Because if the polls had shown Romney leading, it would be Democrats howling about skewed results.

But RealClearPolitics.com is a website I check daily to track the status of the campaign. RCP does something few political sites do: It averages out all the major polls. As of this morning, the RCP poll average had Obama with a nearly 4 percent lead over Romney, which might be just outside the margin of error for all the polls taken into consideration. And those error margins vary widely as well, with some polls declaring a 2 percent margin and others citing as much as a 5 percent margin of error. A 5-point margin of error could produce as much as a 10-point swing, meaning that a 50-50 race could end up 55-45 percent for either candidate.

The RCP average of all those major polls has been trending in the president’s favor for several weeks, owing mostly to the string of Romney verbal mistakes and, I should add, obvious signs of improvement in the nation’s economy.

Let’s also stipulate that the RCP average does include several traditionally Republican-leaning pollsters. The Rasmussen poll – which is the in-house polling firm used by the right-leaning Fox News Channel – generally tilts significantly in Romney’s favor. Rasmussen’s results tend to tighten the overall average. Without Rasmussen, the president would enjoy an even larger lead.

So, here’s the question of the day: Why the silly Republican complaints about the polls?