{"id":6829,"date":"2014-10-20T02:32:15","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T02:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6829"},"modified":"2014-10-20T02:32:15","modified_gmt":"2014-10-20T02:32:15","slug":"wishing-to-know-how-pols-actually-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6829","title":{"rendered":"Wishing to know how pols actually vote"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Early voting for the Texas mid-term election starts Monday and it brings to mind something that’s been on my mind of late.<\/p>\n

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

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.<\/p>\n

It’s just a hunch.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Then I asked him this question: “Governor, who are you supporting for lieutenant governor?”<\/p>\n

Before the final word of that sentence came out of my mouth, he blurted out: Rick Perry!<\/p>\n

Why bring this up? Well, it struck me odd at the moment that\u00a0Gov. 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.”<\/p>\n

No. He said, “Rick Perry” — and not a single word more.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Dan Patrick’s fiery reputation has me wondering the same thing now about those who proclaim their support for him.<\/p>\n\n

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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 … Continue reading Wishing to know how pols actually vote<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,18],"tags":[678,1255,1899,3951],"class_list":["post-6829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-news","category-state-news","tag-bob-bullock","tag-dan-patrick","tag-george-w-bush","tag-rick-perry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6829\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}