Tag Archives: Texas GOP

Uncategorized

'Perry vs. Cruz' enters new phase

2 Comments

Whether the governor of Texas actually serves any jail time if he’s convicted of anything illegal remains an open question.

I doubt he’ll be eating jail food. I’m not even sure he’ll be convicted.

Rick Perry’s indictment for allegedly abusing the power of his office, however, does bring into question whether he’ll be able to challenge for the White House in 2016. Why, he’s not even the most popular Texas conservative thinking about running for the presidency.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/08/16/while-flirting-2016-perry-cruz-woo-same-groups/

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is the darling of the conservative movement these days, although Perry’s been making inroads with the Republican Party base. He deployed 1,000 National Guard troops to protect us against those children fleeing repression in Central America, which of course has the GOP faithful all fired up.

Texas GOP voters, though, seem to like Cruz’s fiery rhetoric. “As the Texas Tribune reports: Even before his recent legal troubles, Perry was already operating in Cruz’s shadow, as most conservative activists in attendance made clear they would rather see the freshman senator vie for the White House in two years than the three-term governor.”

The indictment issued in Travis County is resonating far beyond the Texas capital city. It gives the governor one more potential embarrassment that he must put behind him. His brief run for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination ended badly in a series of missteps, misstatements, forgetfulness and downright weird behavior.

Now this.

Say this, though, for Cruz. He’s coming to his friend’s defense, issuing this statement: “Unfortunately, there has been a sad history of the Travis County District Attorney’s Office engaging in politically-motivated prosecutions, and this latest indictment of the governor is extremely questionable. Rick Perry is a friend, he’s a man of integrity – I am proud to stand with Rick Perry. The Texas Constitution gives the governor the power to veto legislation, and a criminal indictment predicated on the exercise of his constitutional authority is, on its face, highly suspect.”

That statement isn’t likely to improve Perry’s possible presidential campaign chances. Look for Cruz to ramp up the conservative rhetoric, hitting every GOP base hot button he can find, even at his “friend’s” expense.

Uncategorized

Hoping for a smooth handoff

Political traditions often consist of unwritten rules of decorum and courtesy.

One of them involves the transition from one elected official to another in a particular office. Let’s take, just for kicks, the Potter County judge’s office.

Will courtesy be the rule of the day when Nancy Tanner takes over at the end of the year from her former boss, Arthur Ware?

Tanner — who served as Ware’s administrative assistant during his tenure as judge — won the Republican Party primary in March in the race to succeed Ware, who didn’t seek re-election after serving as county judge for 20-plus years. Tanner’s road to victory got a little bumpy right off the start.

She declared her intention to seek the office before Ware announced this would be his final term. She didn’t officially declare her candidacy, just let it be known she was thinking about it.

Ware then fired Tanner from her job. You’re out! he told her. Pack your stuff up and hit the road. Ware then announced he would retire from public office at the end of the year and endorsed former Amarillo Mayor Debra McCartt in the GOP primary.

Ware never has explained precisely why he fired Tanner.

Tanner won the primary outright. No Democrats are on the ballot, so pending the outcome of November election — which Tanner will win — she’ll become county judge-elect.

One of the more interesting facets of the campaign is that Tanner ran on her experience as Ware’s top hand. During a Panhandle PBS-sponsored candidate forum, Tanner declared that “only two people on Earth” know the details of the job of county judge: Arthur Ware and Nancy Tanner.

So, I cannot help but wonder if Tanner and Ware will be able to set their acrimony aside long enough for Ware to show Tanner all the ropes, the hidden tasks and responsibilities and perhaps share a secret or two with her that even she doesn’t know.

I hope for a smooth transition and seamless handoff. Hey, if presidents of the United States can be beaten senseless by challengers and then leave nice notes in the Oval Office desk drawer for them when they depart …

Surely a county judge in Texas can show some grace as he leaves the public arena.

Uncategorized

Sexual orientation is no disease

One more comment on Gov. Rick Perry’s foray into gay politics and then I’m done.

I just read Paul Burka’s blog post on the subject. Here it is:

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/rick-perry-homosexuality

Burka’s fundamental point is a simple, but quite profound, one. Alcoholism is a treatable disease; homosexuality is not.

Perry was asked at a California political gathering if he thought being gay is a disorder. He liked it to alcoholism. “I may have the genetic coding that I’m inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that. And I look at the homosexual issue in the same way,” Perry said.

I’ve noted already, so I won’t belabor the point, but the two issues simply are not connected at any level.

And yet, the Texas Republican Party has adopted a platform plank that suggests that someone can be counseled out of being gay through what the GOP calls “reparative therapy.”

Whatever has become of the Texas Republican Party? The goofballs are in charge.

There. On this subject, I’m out.

Uncategorized

Here's lookin' at ya, Gov. Perry

1 Comment

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has opened the can a little more widely as it regards homosexuality.

Oh, boy. Here we go again.

Perry went to San Francisco this week, where he attended the Commonwealth Club of California. He was asked: Is homosexuality a disorder?

His answer reportedly drew some gasps from the audience. He said that “whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that.”

He went on: “I may have the genetic coding that I’m inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way.”

http://news.msn.com/us/perry-discusses-view-of-homosexuality#tscptme

As I read those comments, I am surmising that Perry believes someone’s sexual orientation is a “lifestyle choice.” He believes people choose to be intimate with others of the same sex.

Interesting, eh?

His comments came after the Texas Republican Party went around the bend by approving a platform plank that endorses “reparative therapy” for gay people, meaning they can be counseled into becoming straight.

Oh my.

Now the governor of a major U.S. state equates sexual orientation with alcoholism.

I don’t want to repeat myself here, as I’ve covered much of this already in a previous blog post.

Allow me to just say it once more, with feeling: I do not believe one makes a conscious choice on their sexual orientation. It is part of their DNA. They are born straight or gay. There is no correlation between one’s sexual orientation and one’s affliction with drinking too much.

Uncategorized

Texas GOP's madness is catching on

It now appears that the Texas Republican Party’s insanity is a communicable disease.

The madness has taken hold of the Virginia GOP, which this week booted a tea party congressional heavyweight out of office in favor of someone who’s even more in the tea party camp.

Go figure that one out.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/11/opinion/brazile-eric-cantor-gop/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7

Donna Brazile, a noted Democratic strategist and talking head for CNN and other media outlets, believes the tea party wing of the Republican Party can declare victory in its civil war with the establishment. The battle’s over, at least for now, says Brazile.

U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor had his head handed to him by political novice David Brat. Cantor outspent Brat by a lot and still lost. Brat now is the favorite to win the House seat that Cantor occupied for seven terms.

If the tea party can knock Cantor off his feet, well, the Republican Party that many of us have grown to know and respect — at some level, at least — is a goner.

Texas Republicans met this past week and passed a party platform that includes a lot of extreme right-wing planks, one of which is to endorse something called “reparative therapy” that is supposed to persuade gay people to become, well, no longer gay.

By my way of thinking, that is a sure sign that the Texas GOP had gone around the bend.

What I guess I didn’t realize — until this week’s returns came in from Virginia — is that other state Republicans have been similarly afflicted. I had thought the tea party had talked itself out of business.

It’s ba-a-a-ck.

Uncategorized

It's official: Texas GOP has gone mad

This idea might not be a flash for some folks, but it is to me.

The Texas Republican Party has officially flipped its wig, gone bananas, become certifiably insane by adopting a plank it its party platform that endorses the notion that gay people can be made un-gay by something called “reparative therapy.”

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-gop-endorses-reparative-therapy-gays-n125471

The Texas GOP has concluded its meeting in Fort Worth. It came down hard on a lot of policy issues dealing with immigration, abortion and climate change. They disagree with Democrats on all those things. I get that.

It’s the idea, though, that gay folks can be counseled away from their orientation that simply blows my ever-loving mind.

I say this as a heterosexual male who never once — at any time in my life — decided I would prefer to be intimate with females.

And it’s that understanding of human sexuality that simply makes this Republican Party platform plank so difficult to accept.

Of all the gay people I’ve ever known or read about, never have I heard of someone choosing to be scorned, vilified, demonized, insulted, assaulted or otherwise denigrated because they choose to love someone of the same sex.

According to the Texas Republican Party, however, “reparative therapy” suggests that homosexuality is a preferred lifestyle rather than an orientation to which someone is born. The platform plank adopted by the GOP says that the party recognizes “the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling, which offers reparative therapy and treatment for those patients seeking healing and wholeness from their homosexual lifestyle.”

There you have it.

The Republican Party of Texas has slammed itself into reverse and is heading into the Dark Ages.

Amazing.

Uncategorized

Shocker! Cruz wins Texas GOP poll

Boy, that’s a shocker … not!

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tea Party, won the Texas Republican Party’s presidential straw poll.

Stop the presses!

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/06/07/cruz-runs-away-straw-poll-gop-convention/

Cruz has become the poster boy for virtually all statewide GOP office seekers this election cycle. They want his endorsement, their pictures taken with him, sound bites with Cruz saying their name, pictures of him kissing their small children … you name it, Cruz is The Man if you’re a Texas Republican.

Perhaps the real surprise of the straw poll is that Gov. Rick Perry finished fourth. Perry is now thought widely to be considering another run for the presidency in 2016. He’s a lame duck governor and he’s not going out with a whimper. He’s going out with a whoop and a holler and veiled promise to keep himself available for speaking gigs, fundraisers and other things political.

The Texas GOP gathering is wrapping in Fort Worth. Republicans have good reason to be feeling giddy. They hold every elected statewide office available. One of them, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Larry Meyers, switched to the Democratic Party this past year and is running for the state Supreme Court as such — so he doesn’t really count as a Democratic statewide officeholder.

Our state Republican infatuation with Ted Cruz, though, is fascinating to watch. The young man has hit just about every Republican hot button there is to hit.

He kind of reminds of Perry in that regard.

And think, also, of the delightful contest if both Cruz and Perry decide to run for president in two years.

I can’t wait.

Uncategorized

Texas turning blue? Maybe, but not soon

Texas Democrats think they have a shot at winning a statewide office this election year.

The governor’s race is not Opportunity One for Democrats. It’s the next race down on the ballot, the one for lieutenant governor, that’s giving Democrats some reason for hope.

I’m not sure about that optimism. Could be merely wishful thinking.

http://thehill.com/homenews/207814-dangers-lurk-for-gop-contenders-who-seek-to-build-bigger-tent

Then again …

The Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, state Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston, is giving Democrats some early-campaign ammunition. How about when he said that undocumented immigrants are “invading” Texas? And how about his assertion that they’re bringing “Third World diseases” into the state?

Here is where Democratic political operatives are beginning to see some opportunity.

It rests with Patrick’s hot-blooded rhetoric that infuriates the state’s growing Latino population, which votes Democratic overwhelmingly. One big problem, though, remains for Democrats: Those new Texas residents vote in far fewer numbers than those who tend to support Republican candidates. I refer, of course, to the WASPs who turn out in far greater numbers.

Enter a group called Battleground Texas, which wants to break the Republican vise grip on every elected office in the state. This outfit wants to exploit the fiery stump talk from Patrick and turn it into a motive for Latinos to vote in greater numbers.

State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte is the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor. She’s a pharmacist and a mother of six. She’s also a Latina. Is she the one who can crash through the GOP barrier? Texas Democrats think she’s the one.

Still, it’s a tall order for Van de Putte to succeed. Patrick is tough, relentless and he appeals to the state’s quite conservative voting base, which continues to outperform the state’s progressive base when all the votes are counted.

The top of the state ballot — with Republican Greg Abbott running against Democrat Wendy Davis for governor — remains strongly in favor of the GOP.

Given that the Texas lieutenant governor has more actual power than the governor, the second spot on the ballot ought to garner more attention, which suggests that Texas Democrats are going to channel more of their horsepower and resources into a race where a victory has the greater impact.

Uncategorized

Dewhurst a goner?

It’s looking like today is going to signal the end of a once-promising political career in Texas.

I’m still trying to figure out how it got to this point.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has been locked in a form of political mud wrestling with state Sen. Dan Patrick for, yes, Dewhurst’s job as presiding officer of the Texas Senate. The Republican runoff is today and it appears — from my vantage point — that Patrick is going to win this thing.

That means Dewhurst likely is finished as an elected political figure.

This leaves me with terribly mixed feelings.

For starters, I grew to respect Dewhurst immensely in all the years I’d reported and commented on his activities first as Texas land commissioner and then as lieutenant governor.

He came out of virtual nowhere to be elected as land commissioner, taking office in 1999. He hadn’t held any political office. He was a big-time political money man in Houston, where he developed his power base. He ran for lieutenant governor in 2002 and won that race too. He was re-elected twice and then ran for the U.S. Senate in 2012 for the seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison.

That’s where the trouble began. He got outmaneuvered on the right by Ted Cruz, whose extreme views forced Dewhurst to seek to outflank Cruz on the right — which was virtually impossible. Cruz won the GOP nomination, while Dewhurst went back to work as lieutenant governor.

Now he’s in another likely futile battle.

My respect for Dewhurst grew as I watched him work the Senate. No one could out-detail this guy when it came to the nuts and bolts of legislation. He could talk both of your ears off with legislative minutiae. Indeed, he did that to me on numerous occasions.

However, in this political climate, intimate knowledge of legislation — and an ability to work with members of both political parties — no longer is good enough to stay in public office. You need to be a quick-tongued, fire-breathing sloganeer. That’s what Ted Cruz proved to be in 2012 and what Dan Patrick has demonstrated this year.

Dewhurst has tried to fire back at Patrick — just as he tried against Cruz — but he has appeared clumsy and unsure of himself. That’s not his style.

Patrick won the March GOP primary, but didn’t get enough votes to avoid a runoff. He’s only pushed the pedal harder against the metal in the runoff.

A part of me wants Dewhurst to win, only to demonstrate that there really is value in experience and knowledge. Another part of me is disappointed in the extreme tone he has taken in this campaign to try to counter the relentless attacks by his runoff opponent.

Therein is the source of my mixed feelings about this race.

I’m afraid David Dewhurst’s time on the stage is about to end. Turn out the lights.

Uncategorized

Miserable campaign about to end

I have to agree with those who have described the Texas Republican runoff campaign as one of the most miserable in recent memory.

Heck, it might be the worst in anyone’s memory.

The lieutenant governor’s GOP runoff between incumbent David Dewhurst and state Sen. Dan Patrick has devolved into a mud fest “featuring” the release of Patrick’s medical records in an attempt to imply that the Patrick might suffer from latent emotional scars from a previous bout with depression.

The attorney general’s runoff between Dan Branch and Ken Paxton has become a contest over which guy is more crooked than the other one.

The Railroad Commission race between Ryan Sitton and Wayne Christian has brought forth allegations that one of the candidates, Christian, is a closet greenie who’s unfriendly to the state’s oil and gas industry.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/05/25/texas-conservative-candidates-ride-out-hard-hits/

The Republican Party is at war with itself. It’s the Establishment vs. the Tea Party. The Establishment has been winning statewide battles around the country. I’m not sure the civil war is playing out quite that way in Texas, where the establishment wing of the GOP has become just as conservative as the tea party wing. Watching these people trying to outflank each other on the right is akin to watching someone walking a tightrope over a bottomless abyss.

It hasn’t been much fun to watch.

I’m ready for it all to end, which it will when the ballots are counted Tuesday night.