Tag Archives: Texas GOP

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Texas GOP spoils it

Just about the time I express faith that the Republican Party may be coming to its senses, along comes a veteran Texas political observer to remind me that the Texas GOP operates in a parallel universe.

Paul Burka’s most recent blog for Texas Monthly laments the “Triumph of the Know-Nothings” in this mid-term election season.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/triumph-know-nothings

He points to the “Republican civil war” raging along many fronts. GOP candidates are trying to outflank each other on the right, as if the mainstream Texas Republican Party — such as it is — isn’t conservative enough.

I’ve already noted that the GOP runoff for railroad commissioner illustrates the nastiness within the party, with foes Ryan Sitton and Wayne Christian battling to see which one of them can be seen in more photo-op shots with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. Political action groups have accused Christian of being a “greenie” as it regards energy policy — as if that’s somehow a negative.

Burka writes: “This is the worst election campaign season in my memory. Everything has been organized to elect the most radical candidates on the ballot, those who are the farthest to the right. The result will be the triumph of the know-nothings.”

With tea party candidates getting the boot in states like Kentucky, Georgia, Idaho and Oregon, I had thought that perhaps the GOP had realized the only way it could compete for the soul of the national electorate would be to nominate candidates with a modicum of sense. In Texas, according to Burka, the opposite appears to be playing out.

“Vast sums of dark money are pouring into the state to influence the election. Michael Quinn Sullivan and the tea parties are running the show.” Burka writes.

Now I’m getting scared.

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Patrick, Dewhurst get personal

Well … there goes civility.

State Sen. Dan Patrick and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst engaged in a televised debate this past week in their runoff campaign for Texas lieutenant governor.

It got ugly right off the top and it stayed that way throughout much of the 45-minute joint appearance.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/05/07/video-lieutenant-governor-runoff-debate/

The Republicans are seeking their party’s nomination for lieutenant governor. The runoff occurs on May 27. The winner will face Democratic nominee state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte this November. The winner of that race will preside over the 2015 Texas Senate and will help shape legislation important to Texans.

I guess Dewhurst’s biggest mistake might have been trying to out-shout a long-time talk radio host. My experience with those individuals is that they don’t get out-shouted by anyone.

Patrick is glib, quick-tongued, articulate and is quite ferocious in his zeal to defeat Dewhurst. For his part, the lieutenant governor is trying to remake himself into someone he hasn’t been for the 15 or so years he’s been in state government, first as land commissioner and now as lieutenant governor. He’s trying to get mean and dirty with his opponent.

The debate this past Friday was supposed to shed more light on the two men’s approaches to state government. Instead, we got more heat that revealed a serious mutual dislike.

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Pauken pulls out, paving way for Abbott in GOP primary

This just in: Tom Pauken has announced he won’t run for governor of Texas.

Man, that makes me sad.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/12/05/tom-pauken-withdraws-gop-gubernatorial-primary/

I consider Pauken to be a friend. We’ve known each other about 25 years, going back to when he wrote a column for the Dallas Times-Herald and I was editorial page editor of the Beaumont Enterprise. We’d publish his work frequently and that’s how we got acquainted.

He went on to become head of the Texas Republican Party. He’s written some books, one of which — “Bringing America Home — he signed for me. We’ve met many times over the years for breakfast or lunch. My wife and I have visited him in his Dallas office, where he practices law.

He’s a good guy, quite smart and is a very strong conservative. He’s no fan of George W. Bush or Karl Rove.

Would I want him as governor? Probably not. Then again, one shouldn’t vote for someone solely on friendship.

I just wish he could have stayed the course and challenged Attorney General Greg Abbott for his party’s nomination next spring. He bowed out today, saying he cannot compete against someone as well-financed as Abbott.

With that, Abbott now goes from prohibitive favorite for his party’s nomination to lead-pipe cinch. He won’t be challenged seriously by anyone on his right. I was hoping Tom Pauken could provide that challenge.

I hope he stays active in some fashion, perhaps to remind Texans that the state’s Republican Party doesn’t speak with one voice.

Keep ’em honest, Tom.

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Sen. Cornyn touts GOP ‘family’

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has launched his re-election campaign with a pledge to seek unity within the Republican Party “family.”

Good luck with that one, senator.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/11/15/cornyn-touts-big-tent-gop-perry/

Cornyn’s bid for another term in the Senate is likely to succeed next fall. It well might occur with some bumps and bruises along the way.

He spoke at a campaign rally this week of his disagreement with fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz over Cruz’s effort to derail the Affordable Care Act; that effort, which included the fake filibuster on the Senate floor, helped produce the 16-day partial government shutdown.

“We had a minor disagreement in the family” over the government shutdown debate, Cornyn said. But, by golly, he intends to work to ensure that Texas doesn’t elect a “Nancy Pelosi clone” as governor, meaning Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis.

Cornyn and other Republicans, though, keep talking about the so-called “big tent” philosophy they say describes the Republican Party. The big tent, they say, has produced the disagreements within the party. The tea party wing of the GOP, however, hardly seems inclusive of folks Republicans will need to win national elections in the future. I refer, of course, to immigrants, racial minorities, gays, pro-choice women and those who rely on government assistance to help them put food on their tables and clothes on their children’s backs.

Having said all these negative things about Cornyn’s party, allow me to say that I happen to like the senator. I’ve met with him many times over many years, dating back to when he ran for the Texas Supreme Court, state attorney general and then during his time as U.S. senator. We always got along well.

I fear, though, that he’s going to tack too far to the right to protect his flank against those might attack him from the extreme fringes of his party. They’re out there, waiting for the chance to draw blood.

All this unity talk, therefore, is just that. Talk.

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Immigration becoming signature Texas issue?

I am beginning to sense a centerpiece issue emerging in the race for Texas lieutenant governor.

The issue is immigration and it may reveal which of the four major Republican candidates for the state’s No. 2 elected office will become the most effective demagogue on it.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2013/10/todd-staples-next-immigration-headache/

Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples is one of the Big Four. He served in the state Senate, representing an East Texas district. He has become entangled in a vote he reportedly cast in 2001 to allow immigrants to use foreign passports and birth certificates as valid identification to obtain a Texas driver’s license.

Staples says he doesn’t remember casting such a vote. Really, commissioner? If you did, then it’s on the record in some form.

He now says such allowances are a “grave mistake” and he opposes them.

The other three GOP big dogs — state Sen. Dan Patrick, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst — also are running as quickly as they can from another issue: allowing those who came into Texas as children of those who entered the state illegally in-state tuition rates to attend public colleges and universities.

Patrick ripped that can of worms wide open when he said he is the “only candidate” to oppose such a thing. The other three pounced on him for that declaration; Patterson called him a “liar.” Dewhurst said he’s never supported in-state tuition for undocumented residents.

I happen to think these men are acting like disgusting demagogues on this issue. I believe granting such a waiver is humane and compassionate. So does Gov. Rick Perry, whose support for the waiver got him in trouble as he campaigned briefly for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

Immigration reform well might determine just how strong the tea party influence is within the Texas Republican Party. Dewhurst learned the hard way when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2012 when he got “Cruzed” by the guy who beat him in the primary, Sen. Ted Cruz. Dewhurst, who I once thought was a serious and studious politician, is now turning hard right on immigration to avoid getting outflanked yet again.

Perhaps another signature issue will emerge. For now, I’m thinking it’s going to be immigration.

It’s going to get ugly.

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‘Patriots’ becoming a perverted term

Paul Burka is among my favorite Texas political pundits — and he’s nailed it once again in criticizing a video supporting Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s campaign for governor.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/greg-abbott-freedom-worth-fighting

The video shows Abbott praising the “patriots” who fight for “freedom.” The patriots to whom he refers, of course, appear to be the tea party warriors who comprise a significant portion of the Texas Republican Party.

Abbott has enlisted as a tea party “patriot” in an attempt to tack to the far right wing of his party.

That takes me to a point that has bothered me since the tea party branch of the GOP began taking root in Texas and the rest of the country.

They call themselves “tea party patriots,” taking sole ownership of the term “patriot” they are so proud to wear. Well, I consider myself as much as a patriot as anyone who boasts of his or her tea party credentials. I am not a tea party follower. I dislike intensely the tea party wing’s view that no government is the best government. They adhere to some notion that it’s all right, for instance, to shut the government down as long as it defunds the Affordable Care Act — ignoring blatantly the effect that such a shutdown would have on those Americans who actually derive some benefit from the services that government delivers.

These folks call themselves “patriots” but their so-called “patriotism” is a version that I don’t recognize.

I kind of consider it a perversion of the term, not unlike the way Islamic terror groups have perverted their own religion or, dare I say it, some so-called Christians (e.g., the Westboro Baptist “Church”) pervert their faith.

I used to think of Greg Abbott as being above that kind of demagoguery.

Silly me.

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Explain job poaching try, Gov. Perry

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been given a top-drawer speaking assignment this fall in front of the California Republican Convention.

What an awesome development.

I am so hoping someone out there on the Left Coast will ask the governor this simple question:

“Why should California Republicans care what you say after your well-publicized effort earlier this year to poach California jobs as you sought to persuade California businesses to relocate to your home state of Texas?”

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2013/08/perry-set-for-top-speaking-slot-at-gop-convention-in-cali/

I predict no one will ask Perry to explain himself. They’ll fawn all over themselves as the tough-talking Texan vows to fight the federal government every step of the way for as long he’s governor … and beyond.

His upcoming speech, of course, is providing grist for those who think he’s planning to run for president in 2016.

Before he takes that leap, Perry may need to explain his job-poaching foray to California’s Republican Party.

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Cornyn vs. Gohmert? Really?

Texas Monthly’s Paul Burka reports that U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert is being pushed to challenge U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in next year’s Texas Republican Party primary.

Please, please, say it is so.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/gohmert-v-cornyn

Gohmert is running neck and neck with Rep. Steve Stockman of Friendswood in the contest to be Texas’s goofiest Republican member of Congress. Gohmert enjoys tremendous strength among the party’s tea party wing. Cornyn — the former Texas attorney general and state Supreme Court justice — is a more “establishment-type” Republican, meaning that his support comes from the more mainstream sources.

Gohmert remains committed to the notion that the president may have been in a foreign country. His list of idiotic statements in recent years has become the stuff of legend.

It puzzles me, though, as to why Cornyn might become a tea party target. As head of the Republican Senate Campaign Committee, Cornyn has earned his spurs criticizing President Obama at every turn. He certainly was no shrinking violet during last year’s presidential campaign, as he tried repeatedly to derail the president’s successful re-election effort.

That doesn’t appear to be good enough.

What would happen if Gohmert were to run? He’d likely lose the primary, but that would mean he’d also surrender his House seat in 2014. But whoever his East Texas constituents send to the House to succeed him remains a dicey proposition.

If next year’s Texas primary features these two gut-fighters, though, it’ll embody the intraparty warfare that’s brewing between those who want government to do something and those who want it to do nothing.

I’m hoping Gohmert runs. Texans need a good laugh.