We saw the first team tonight. It is hard to look at Bill Clinton without remembering the flaws that ruined his legacy, but on this night, he reminded us of his mastery of rhetoric and his ability to make the perfect closing argument. The highlight of the speech came when he said, “Sixteen years ago you gave me the profound honor to lead our party to victory. The Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander in chief. [pause] Sound familiar? It didn’t work in 1992 because we were on the right side of history, and it won’t work now.” This turned out to be something of a rope-a-dope ploy, because Hillary, who herself had made that criticism, did not defend Obama on that point last night, and the Republicans rushed to make that point on late night television last night. Now here comes Bill off the ropes to deliver the counterpunch.

I have been pretty critical of this convention, but I have to say, as we see the script unfold, that the Democrats have produced some good theater. The audience was on the edge of their seats to see if Hillary was sincere in endorsing Obama, and the suspense was there. We couldn’t really tell, yes or no, and Michelle wasn’t smiling. And then tonight, Bill delivered his lines perfectly. And he had Michelle, you could see it on her face. So the great drama of the convention, whether the Clintons would sabotage Obama, has been resolved. Obama has to like the way this convention has developed. And I confess to being surprised.

I watched Hillary Clinton’s speech with a mixture of fascination and repulsion. It was, as everyone knew it would be, all about her. She did not say one positive thing about Barack Obama, except that Democrats should unite to support him. She said “unite” but the placards in the audience all said “Hillary.” They should have said “Obama.” What matters in the television age is not the words but the images on the screen, and the images reinforced the reality of division in the Democratic party.

It was a big-time speech, brilliantly written to highlight her and to shunt Obama to the background, and brilliantly delivered. She got straight to the point: “My friends, I stand before you as a proud mother, a proud Democrat, a proud senator from New York, a proud American, and a proud supporter of Barack Obama.” During the applause, the camera focused on Michelle. Her face said she wasn’t buying it. “Whether you voted for me”–look who came first–”or for Barack Obama, my friends, it is time to take back the country we love. We must unite as a single party for a single purpose. This is a fight for the future and it is a fight we must win together.” And that was pretty much the end of the unity part of the speech. Then came the Hillary part. And, for most of the the rest of her time, there wasn’t any other part. She did say a few things about Obama:

* We need to elect Barack Obama because we need a president who understands that America can’t compete in the global economy by padding the pockets of energy speculators while ignoring the workers whose jobs have been shipped overseas. We need a president who understands that we can’t solve the problems of global warming by giving windfall profits to the oil companies while ignoring opportunities to invest in the new technologies that will build a green economy.

* We need a president who understands that the genius of America has always depended on the strength and vitality of the middle class.

* Barack Obama began his career fighting for workers displaced by the global economy. He built his campaign on a fundamental belief that change in this country must start from the ground up, not the top down. And he knows government must be about “We the people” not “We the favored few.”

* And when Barack Obama is in the White House, he’ll revitalize our economy, defend the working people of America, and meet the global challenges of our time. Democrats know how to do this. As I recall, we did it before with President Clinton and the Democrats. And if we do our part, we’ll do it again with President Obama and the Democrats. There was more, but even here, she turned the spotlight on the Clintons.

And there it stayed:

I haven’t spent the past 35 years in the trenches advocating for children, campaigning for universal health care, helping parents balance work and family and fighting for women’s rights here at home and around the world . . . to see another Republican in the White House squander our promise of a country that really fulfills the hopes of our people. And you haven’t worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership. No way. No how. No McCain.

And she talked, on and on, about why SHE ran for president: “to renew the promise of America, to renew the American dream, to promote a clean energy economy, to create a health care system that is universal and affordable….” Then she said what I thought was her best line: “Most of all, I ran to stand up for all the people who were invisible to their government.” She mentioned a few of the people she had encountered: a cancer survivor who adopted two autistic children; a man in a Marine Corps T-shirt, and she said–another terrific line–”I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me, or were you in it for [the people we were trying to help]. It will be impossible if we don’t elect Barack Obama.”

I thought that the talking heads who gushed so effusively at Hillary’s speech forgot a basic rule of evaluating political oratory: Don’t just look at what they say. Look at what they don’t say. And what Hillary didn’t say was that Barack Obama was ready to be president. This was the point of her 3 a.m. ad telephone call ad, and this is the point that the Republicans have been making. It’s fair game, of course, when she is running for president against him, but when she is speaking to the nation, supposedly on his behalf, this was the time to say the magic words. She didn’t say them. And this was duly noted by the Republicans, who made much of the omission on the Larry King show.

She did throw some pretty good zingers McCain’s way, after describing him as “my friend”–an appellation she did not apply to Obama:

Now, John McCain is my colleague and my friend. He has served our country with honor and courage. But we don’t need four more years of the last eight years. More economic stagnation and less affordable health care. More high gas prices and less alternative energy. More jobs getting shipped overseas and fewer jobs created here at home. More skyrocketing debt and home foreclosures and mounting bills that are crushing our middle class families. More war and less diplomacy. More of a government where the privileged come first and everyone else comes last.

Well, John McCain says the economy is fundamentally sound. John McCain doesn’t think that 47 million people without health insurance is a crisis. John McCain wants to privatize Social Security. And in 2008, he still thinks it’s OK when women don’t earn equal pay for equal work.

Now, with an agenda like that, it makes perfect sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities. Because these days they’re awfully hard to tell apart.

At the end of her speech, she exhorted the crowd to follow the lead of Harriet Tubman, who before the Civil War helped lead runaway slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad.

If you hear the dogs, keep going.
If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.
If they’re shouting after you, keep going.
Don’t ever stop. Keep going.
If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.
And even in the darkest of moments, that is what Americans have done. We have found the faith to keep going.
I’ve seen it . I’ve seen it in our teachers and firefighters, nurses and police officers, small business owners and union workers, I’ve seen it in the men and women of our military. In America, you always keep going.

This was the metaphor for the Clintons themselves. They always keep going. They never quit. That was Hillary’s real message. She’ll be back.

I didn’t think much of Day 1 of the Democratic convention. What a wasted opportunity. This was a night to begin making the dual case of why the Republicans had failed and what Obama would do about it. That opportunity–one of four precious days–was squandered. Back in the spring, after the Ohio debate, I wrote that Obama has spent too much time believing in his own press clippings, that he’s a new kind of candidate offering a new kind of politics. He didn’t want to get his hands dirty against Hillary Clinton, and he doesn’t want to get his hands dirty now against John McCain. He is in trouble in this race–the Republicans are in much better shape than they have any right to be–and yet he goes right on trying to stay above the fray. At some point you have to wonder whether “hope” and “change” have any concrete meaning or whether Obama is just a pied piper leading a youth parade to nowhere. I started out as a believer–I thought Obama was Tiger Woods, someone who transcended race because of his skills–but Tiger has the killer instinct and Obama doesn’t.

Michelle Obama gave a good speech, a very good speech, but the problem is that the speech was necessary because of what she said last February: “What we have learned this year is that hope is making a comeback, and for the first time in my adult life, I’m proud of my country.” They have been married for nineteen years, so she’s been an adult for a long time. Perhaps it is unfair to hold her to the same parsing of language that presidential candidates are subjected to, but that is the way the game is played. So enthusiastically did Michelle Obama embrace the American dream that it had to remind people of her earlier comment.
* “I know from the strength of their lives that the American dream endures.”
* “America should be a place where you can make it if you try.”
* “The world as it is just won’t do. We have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be. That is why I love this country.”
* “My piece of the American dream was hard won by those who came before me.”

The best line of her speech came at the end: “I hope my daughters will remember that this time America listened to hope, not fear; that this time America could stop doubting and start dreaming.”
And the candid moments when her daughters joined her on stage and interacted with the giant video of their father were the best part of the day for the Democrats.

The commenters afterward raved about Michelle (though only Candy Crowley mentioned Michelle’s original statement about not being proud of her country). But they were very critical of the Democrats. James Carville was furious that the Democrats had not attacked the policies of the Bush administration, and Jeffrey Toobin referred to “one big missing piece: Why should America throw the bums out?” All that they accomplished today was to raise the stakes so that everything is riding on Obama’s acceptance speech Thursday night.

The information I received said that the sample size was 400 and a majority of the respondents were Republicans. All candidates were identified by party. The margin of error was not given.

Chris Bell 42%
Joan Huffman 8%
Austen Furse 5%
Grant Harpold 4%
Undecided 40%

Bell only needs to persuade one out of four undecided voters in order to win on election day. That seems well within reach, especially since the Republican electorate is split.

I doubt whether Rick Perry, David Dewhurst, or Tom Craddick has ever heard of the Lane Cove Tunnel in Sidney, Australia. If they had, they might not be so eager to raid the teacher and state employee retirement funds to build toll roads.

On the day the Olympics opened (08/08/08), the Sidney Morning Herald carried the news that the tunnel “is rapidly turning into a bottomless pit for its financial backers….” Two credit rating agencies, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s, have warned that the toll road could default on its $1.1 billion debt with a year. The tunnel has suffered three consecutive monthly dropoffs in traffic usage. The estimated usage before the road was built was 100,000 vehicles per day; actual numbers in June and July barely exceeded 50,000. A Standard & Poor’s analyst predicted that unless the project gets fresh capital (at least half a billion dollars), it will default within 10 to 16 months. Perhaps TxDOT, since it is such a believer in such projects, would like to invest.

The problem with the financial wheeling and dealing with retirees’ funds that Perry, Dewhurst, and Craddick have proposed is that toll road projects are risky investments. They are risky for two reasons. One is that they are subject to economic fluctuations that affect people’s driving habits, such as the price of gasoline or the pace of development. The second reason is that, when government is involved, they are vulnerable to political pressure and favoritism. Google “toll road defaults” and you will find a trove of stories with unhappy endings. The Camino Columbia toll road in Laredo, which was rife with political intrigue over which landowners would benefit from having a road go through their property, opened in 2000 and defaulted in 2004. Cost: $90 million. Auctioned off for: $12 million. Tx-DOT bail out acquisition payment: $20 million. The Dulles Greenway toll road to Washington’s Dulles Airport defaulted on its bonds within a year of its opening in 1995. The private owner, Toll Road Investors Partnership II, have lost money every year since the road opened. When toll roads lose money, tolls go up–in this case, to $4.80 by 2012. That works out to an astronomical 35 cents per mile. There are similar stories in Orange County, California (where the state had to buy failing toll lanes), and along Florida’s west coast, and near Richmond, Virginia, where the 8.8-mile Pocohantas Parkway, financed with tax-free bonds, has suffered around a 50% shortfall in projected toll receipts; the state has had to maintain the road because the private owners don’t have the money. Bond ratings have been lowered to below investment grade. To pay off the bonds, the toll was increased by 50%.

It is true that many toll roads have been success stories. In Texas these include the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike, which paid off bondholderes with toll revenues after thirty years and became free Interstate 30; the Dallas North Tollway and its northern extension; and the Sam Houston Tollway on the west side of Houston. The issue here is not toll roads per se. It is toll roads built with pension funds (and probably other investment funds as well, such as the Permanent School Fund and the Permanent University Fund). These are trust funds. They belong to the members. It is morally wrong to require fund managers to invest them in risky ventures like toll roads. Does anybody doubt that there will be pressure on the pension funds to invest in certain projects that favor certain people and certain contractors and certain areas? We all know what kind of people we are dealing with here. Rick Perry can’t resist it. He appointed the members of the boards that oversee the pension funds. These deals will be neck-deep in politics.

The Statesman’s story on the leadership’s plan quotes Britt Harris, the chief investment officer of the Teacher Retirement System, as saying that investments in infrastructure made sense if the proposal was “equal or better than something we can get [in another project].” Harris then pointed out that the fund’s “ultimate loyalty is to the members,” not to target investments based on geography or politics. The last clause does not appear in quotation marks in the article. Bravo for Britt Harris, but I think he should keep his resume updated.

The biggest risk in toll roads as investments is political pressure. The pressure comes in two forms. The first is pressure on the consultants to provide favorable projections for use of proposed toll roads. Does anybody trust TxDOT–or the consultants they hire, or the private entities they seek to contract with–to do hardnosed, accurate projections? If you do, then consider these comments from an article in Business Week several years ago, at about the time Rick Perry was unveiling his proposal for the Trans-Texas Corridor:

* “There is a history of feasibility studies for toll roads being overly optimistic,” says John J. Hallacy III, director of municipal bond research for Merrill Lynch and Co.

* “Of the 10 major private toll roads constructed since the mid-1990s, nearly half carry far less traffic than projected. Some $4 billion in toll road bonds risk default over the next five years unless they’re refinanced,” estimates Robert H. Mueller, a municipal bond analyst at the J.P. Morgan securities Inc.

What about financing toll roads with bonds? Well, don’t expect bond raters to give the bonds a good rating. I’m quoting here from an article that appeared eight years ago in a tollroad industry publication, so it is possible that things may have changed, though I doubt it. Credit is much harder to get today than it was in 2000.

Fitch-ICBA, the New York bond rating agency says that there is a permanent bifurcation of the toll road bond market. Established systems of toll facilities can expect to be rated in the range A to AA, whereas most standalone and startup toll facilities will be rated BB- to BBB. They see a continuing demand for new toll road financings because of what they call a “seemingly unbridgeable gap” between highway needs and the ability to finance them with tax monies that toll projects can often help to fill.

According to BondsOnline, bonds rated BBB are “lower medium grade” and bonds rated BB- are “speculative.” The lower the bond rating, of course, the higher the interest rate that bond buyers demand. No one is going to be getting any bargains on toll road bonds. And AAA ratings are just a dream: “Fitch says that the ever present possibility of state governments siphoning off surplus toll revenues or leveraging them for other borrowings prevents state owned turnpikes from achieving the AAA rating.” So how can asking pension funds to invest in these bonds ever be a prudent investment? It can’t.

The article continues: Another problem with bonds for highways is that bond rating houses distrust state governments. It is unlikely that any state owned turnpikes will ever reach AAA: The key reason is susceptibility to political interventions.

I have said this before, and I will say it again. There is a sensible way to finance roads. It is to increase the gasoline tax and index it to inflation in the highway construction index. The gasoline tax has some weaknesses. Part of it is diverted to public education. People drive less when gasoline prices go through the roof. Cars are more fuel-efficient. All of this cuts into the revenue potential of the tax. Nevertheless, Texans still love their cars. The suburban lifestyle here is designed around the automobile. Even if the revenue per mile driven is declining, there is a lot of life left in the tax. A portion of the revenue could be dedicated to paying off the bonds for toll roads. This should be capped to ensure that money will still be available for free roads. While the resistance to tax increases is formidable, so is the resistance to toll roads. If you can persuade the public that a gasoline tax increase will reduce the need for toll roads, I think that proposition could be sold. Anything is better than insisting that the savings of retired teachers and state employees be invested in risky ventures like toll roads.

You know what that means.

Readers may recall that I posted several items from Washington in July during a week of interviewing members of Congress. One was a discussion of Chet Edwards’ prospects to become Barack Obama’s vice-presidential nominee. Here is what I wrote on July 21, slightly edited:

It may seem far-fetched back home, but here in Washington there is a good case to be made for Edwards. Basically, it’s this: He is a “strong national defense” Democrat. Edwards became chairman of the House Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee in 2007. He championed an $11.8 billion in veterans’ health care and benefits, which is billed as the largest increase in veterans funding in the history of the Department of Veterans Affairs, going back 77 years. The American Legion gave him its Distinguished Service Award for 2008; it goes to only one of the 535 members of Congress. These are significant credentials for a party, and a presidential nominee, that are vulnerable on the issues of national security and support for the military.

Edwards’ name was entered in the vice-presidential sweepstakes by Nancy Pelosi, who encouraged Obama to consider him. They got to know each other when they had adjacent offices some years ago. Pelosi is a strong supporter of veterans’ issues, which are popular with groups of swing voters such as “security moms”; being pro-vet is a way to oppose the war but “revere the warrior.” Many in Washington have dismissed Pelosi’s support for Edwards as simply an effort to keep the House in the game, but there is more to it than that. Edwards has always been good on television, and, while he is not as conservative as the blue dogs, he is far from a liberal. Edwards reminded me at the time that only two Democratic presidents since 1900 have been elected when there was no Southerner on the ticket–Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. True, but four of the five other Democrats to occupy the White House had southern ties: Truman was born in Missouri, a border state, and LBJ, Carter, and Clinton all came from states that were part of the Confederacy. Since Wilson was born in Virginia, the only true exception was JFK.

Edwards told me off the record that he was told that he was a serious candidate. This was not just a case of Obama throwing a bone to Pelosi. I already knew he was being vetted, because I heard it from a prominent Texas Republican (not an officeholder) whom I had run into at the Austin airport shortly before departure for Washington.

If Obama picks Edwards, the reasons will be obvious: (1) He wants a Southerner (although a lot of southerners who haven’t been to Waco won’t regard it as Southern–how wrong they are!); he wants somebody with a strong record on defense and veterans’ issues; he wants somebody with a demonstrated appeal to Republicans (Edwards is the Democrat who occupies the most Republican congressional district in the country); and he wants a fresh face. At 57, Edwards is still quite youthful looking.

The thing that is peculiar about Edwards’ candidacy is that we had heard almost nothing about him for a month–until today. Then suddenly his name was everywhere, including Huffingtonpost. It would be quite weird, not to say cruel, if Obama were merely using him as a decoy. Still, I wonder what the talking heads’ reaction to Edwards will be? Won’t it be a let-down? Won’t the first question be whether he is prepared to be president?

Edwards should not be underrated. The Republicans come after him every election year, and he beats them every time. The brass at Fort Hood always support him. ion? Here circumstances might favor Edwards. Some of the major contenders are from red states: senators Bayh of Indiana and Webb of Virginia, and governor Sebelius of Kansas. Democrats don’t want to risk losing these key positions. On the other hand, the 17th congressional district of Texas is not so crucial to the fortunes of the Democratic party. There are other possibilities out there, such the other Edwards (or is Chet the “other” Edwards?), who is from North Carolina. But John couldn’t deliver his home state in 2000. Nor can Chet deliver Texas. I think, in the end, Obama will look for a bigger name, but Edwards is a serious contender.

I was clicking on my backspace arrow, going back through the Quorum Report as I tried to get back to the page containing Brimer’s filing with the Fort Worth Court of Appeals in his lawsuit against Wendy Davis, when all of a sudden, after several successful clicks, my computer screen went blank and this message came up:

Your actions violate the Federal computer crime law (18 U.S.C. 1030, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act). The entire text of the Act can be viewed at: http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/1030_new.html. Your IP address (208.191.152.182) and actions have been noted.

I hope that the feds will allow my plea of technological incompetence. Better yet, I hope that Harvey, who appears to be the injured party, will drop any charges. In the meantime, I intend to go into hiding September 1-4 at the Republican National Convention.

To say that the race to fill the Houston-area state Senate seat being vacated by Kyle Janek has heated up is an understatement. Melted down is more like it. Most readers know the lineup: four candidates, three of them Republicans (Austen Furse, who served in the Bush 41 White House in the area of domestic policy planning; Joan Huffman, a former state district judge; and Grant Harpold, an attorney and GOP precinct chair) and a lone but formidable Democrat: Chris Bell, the former congressman and 2006 gubernatorial nominee. Rumors continue to circulate that another Democrat may enter the race, perhaps with Republican funding, with the intention of dividing the Democratic vote and forcing Bell into a runoff.

Governor Perry set the special election for November 4, the same day as the general election but on a separate ballot. Some believe this format may benefit Republicans because new voters, presumably Obamamaniacs, may vote for president and forego the special election entirely. Bell hopes that his advantage in name ID will allow him to pile up enough votes on election day to avoid a runoff; if not, the two candidates who receive the most votes will meet in a runoff.

The real heat in this race is generated by what amounts to a Republican primary between Furse and Huffman for the right to take on Bell in a runoff. Janek has aroused some resentment by trying to handpick his successor. First he embraced former Houston oiler and TV commentator Spencer Tillman, only to find at the last minute that Tillman did not live in the district. Then he turned to Furse. This was too much for Jim Hotze, a former SREC member for District 17, who wrote a long article detailing Janek’s maneuvers for the Texas Conservative Review, an online newsletter edited by Gary Polland, whom Janek defeated to win his Senate seat. I have included a few of Jim Hotze’s comments; for the full article click here:

* The former Republican Senator for SD 17, Kyle Janek, resigned from office in the middle of a 4 year term to become a lobbyist. This means that there will be a special election for the seat in November. Janek, who wants to cash in on his contacts and experience, raises major concerns with the way he has orchestrated his resignation and his attempt to hand pick a successor who will be his man in the Senate.

* … I think Janek was deceptive when he asked voters to elect him to another 4 year term when he knew he was resigning. My father taught me that I could not quit in the middle of a commitment. I believe that this is a breach of trust.

* … I have a problem with the fact that Janek was not candid with many of us when he was questioned about his potential resignation during the last few months. When several of his constituents asked if he was planning to resign, he responded with a number of cover stories while he was executing his move. This behavior can be termed disingenuous and borderline deceitful.

* Janek sold his home in West University in May of 2007, which immediately raised questions regarding his tenure in Office. His first cover story was that he was going to move to another home in the district where his boys would have a larger yard. He told the reporter that story even though he had already purchased a home in Austin. The story changed at a precinct chair dinner in the Grotto in Houston on September 13, 2007 when he told several precinct chairs from the district that he was moving his family to Austin, but wasn’t resigning his Senate seat. He said he would keep a home in Galveston, so he could maintain the required residency.

* At this point, Mr. Janek made a 180 degree turn and had to retract his cover story. He now claimed that having the election in a short time frame would not allow many of the candidates who were interested in the race the time they needed to get into the race. In reality, this translates as – “[Janek's consultant Allen] Blakemore and I need some time to find another candidate for us to endorse and fund so we will have influence with the next SD 17 Senator.”

* The winner of the 1st “SD17 Idol” competition was Austen Furse. He is supported by some of the “powers that be” in the Party establishment and Mr. Janek has committed to use the over $300,000 left in his political account against any Republican competitors. By trying to hand pick his replacement so he would have a friendly vote in the Texas Senate, I believe Mr. Janek has put this seat at extreme peril in the next election.

* I do not necessarily fault Austen Furse for this strategy. Others are also interested in representing SD 17. I congratulate my fellow precinct chair Grant Harpold for his interest in the position and there are other good candidates like former District Judge Joan Huffman and State Representative Charlie Howard who have expressed interest in the race.

* In addition, Allen Blakemore is in the business of making money as a consultant who represents successful candidates. He makes no bones about it and wants to add another office holder to his stable. My main problem is with Mr. Janek, who should not have tried to “play a game” and deceive the voters who trusted him.

* … I am not ready to “Make Nice.” I am “mad as hell” and tired of being manipulated by the GOP Establishment. The voters and conservative activists in Senatorial District 17 deserve the truth from their elected officials and they should be able to expect that the elected official to serve out the term they have asked to be elected to, regardless of the financial gain they may be able to gain by resigning.

* All of us must look critically at the qualifications of candidates to replace Mr. Janek and support someone who has both conservative credentials and a good chance of winning in November. We cannot allow ourselves to be defeated because the manipulative tactics of someone who is concerned with personal gains over philosophy.

Readers will, of course, recognize the author’s last name. Jim Hotze is a brother of the well known Republican activist Dr. Steven Hotze, who, as it happens, is supporting Austin Furse, and whose remarks on the race appear below. Jim Hotze told me that he has not made an endorsement. He said he believes that Janek, whom he regards as a friend, tried to be “too clever by half” and that the backlash will benefit Ms. Huffman, whom he expects to make the runoff. I was told early in the campaign that the Furse camp would attack Ms. Huffman for her participation in what will be portrayed as lenient plea bargains for sex offenders. Meanwhile, Steve Hotze has unleashed his fury at Huffman on another issue, gambling [I am indebted to "Houston Politics," the Houston Chronicle's political blog, as the source of Steven Hotze's comments and the response by State Representative Dennis Bonnen in an e-mail to Brazoria County GOP Chairwoman Yvonne Dewey]. Dr. Hotze’s comments first:

Recently, there have been a series of letters sent by individuals who have scurrilously attacked Senator Janek and Austen Furse. These attacks may undermine our chances to keep the SD 17 seat Republican. It is my intention to set the record straight by providing you with the following verifiable facts about this race.

(1) One of the most ardent supporters for Joan Huffman is Robert Miller, lobbyist for Landry’s Restaurants, as disclosed on the Texas Ethics Commission Website. Miller is lobbying for Landry’s owner, Tillman Fertita, who wants gambling expanded in Texas and brought to Galveston. Miller served as CEO of METRO and was the man who pushed through the Main Street Light Rail line.

(2) According to Joan Huffman’s campaign finance report, she raised almost half of her money from a single $100,000 contribution from Herbert Graham. If you Google Mr. Graham, the first thing you see is his bio on the Texas Horse Racing Museum and Hall Of Fame website. Here is a line from that: “Herbert Graham worked extensively with the late Pinkie Ruden to get pari-mutual racing passed and was one of the original 10 to invest $10,000 to start pari-mutual racing in Texas. Herb has been long active in various horse racing associations and active politically on the state and national levels.” Mr. Graham also owns the Graham Central Station chain of nightclubs.

(3) It is important to follow the money. Approximately 60% of Joan Huffman’s contributions are tied DIRECTLY to gambling, liquor, and nightclubs. This does not include the $500,000 loan Joan Huffman and her husband Keith Lawyer made to her campaign. Since Joan is a homemaker, it is reasonable to assume that $500,000 comes from the profits her husband Keith Lawyer makes from his nightclubs

(4) It also seems reasonable to assume that the $160,000 from outside gambling, liquor and nightclub interests, and the $500,000 in personal loans financed by liquor and nightclub profits, may cause Joan Huffman to look favorably upon legislation promoting gambling, liquor and nightclub interests in the Texas Senate, if not promote them outright. It does not seem that the gambling and night club interests would finance the Huffman campaign if they thought that she would oppose them.

(5) Some of Huffman’s supporters have written that “Joan is the only person able to stand up to Senator John Whitmire on crime.” That is an interesting comment because Joan Huffman and her husband Keith Lawyer are personal friends of Senator Whitmire. Not only has John Whitmire been a guest on several occasions to Joan and Keith’s ranch, but Joan and her husband Keith have been guests in John Whitmire’s seats at Astro’s games - the same seats John Whitmire is under Ethics Commission Investigation for buying with campaign funds.

Joan’s first Republican endorsement came from Representative Dennis Bonnen, who not only supports gambling, but has repeatedly filed bills to expand gambling in Texas. Dennis Bonnen is also sponsoring a fundraiser in Austin on August 26, 2008 to raise money from the Austin liquor, gambling and union lobbyists for Huffman.

You can tell a lot about a person and her political philosophy by looking at the persons who support them. It appears that Joan Huffman has shown her true colors by seeking the support of those who push gambling, like her $100,000 contributor Herbert Graham, and by taking over $600,000 in nightclub money to finance her campaign, as well as taking campaign advice from Robert Miller, who makes over $1 million every year lobbying for liquor, gambling and other “business” interests. Also, on top of the $10,500 Joan and her husband Keith Lawyer gave to John Whitmire, they gave money to other Democrats like Senator Eddie Lucio and to the failed Lt. Governor campaign of Democrat John Sharp.

In contrast, Austen Furse has been endorsed by . . . conservatives and conservative organizations [Furse touts an endorsement by Ann Coulter on his web site]. Austen has been a financial contributor to numerous conservative organizations, such as C.L.O.U.T., Texans for Lawsuit Reform, Associated Republicans of Texas, as well as to various stalwart conservatives like Representative Debbie Riddle and State Board of Education Member Terri Leo….

Dennis Bonnen fired back in his e-mail to chairwoman Dewey:

Thank you for visiting with me about Dr. Hotze’s slanderous email. It is interesting that Dr. Hotze begins his attack piece by bemoaning recent attacks against Kyle Janek and Austin Furse, III because these attacks may undermine our chances to keep the SD17 seat Republican. If Dr. Hotze is concerned that these attacks may undermine Republican efforts, then why launch untrue allegations about me and the leading Republican candidate, former Judge Joan Huffman?

The truth is Dr. Hotze is a direct surrogate for Furse’s campaign. Furse’s candidacy is floundering by any measure. He has watched from the sidelines as his largest contributors [reportedly John Nau and Bob Perry--pb] and several grassroots conservatives have abandoned his campaign to support Huffman. As the August heat and desperation set in, it appears that the Furse campaign decided to launch an attack on me and Huffman as a last ditch effort to gain some semblance of momentum. The problem for Furse is that no amount of attacks will change the fact that most observers, including myself, believe that Furse is unlikely to defeat Chris Bell this fall.

First, Furse recklessly attacks Huffman for being supported by “union lobbyists.” For you and me, Yvonne, that would be Sheriff Wagner and his deputies or Chief Hromadka and his officers. I myself, have never met a candidate, who wouldn’t be proud of the support of the thousands of
law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line to protect Kim and the boys.

Second, Furse would have us believe that a contribution to a candidate or offer of support indicates total agreement between candidate and supporter. If this is true, then we are left to assume that Furse’s wife’s contribution to Obama and participation in the Democrat Primary indicates her support of Obama’s policies and the Democrat Party Platform. Should we assume that Furse’s wife extends this influence to Furse himself?

The truth is these and other lazy assumptions/accusations are rarely true and only act to undermine the credibility of all conservative campaigns. Former Judge Huffman is no more responsible for her
husband’s political contributions than Furse is responsible for his wife’s. Huffman is an honorable conservative who has pledged to run a positive campaign on the issues and to seek positive change. The entire process will be better served if Furse would dispense with destructive and baseless negative attacks. His actions thus far do not provide much hope.

Finally, I have spoken with former Judge Huffman regarding gambling. Former Judge Huffman is unequivocally opposed to gambling and the expansion of gambling and will not vote to expand gambling under any circumstance as our state senator.

The truth is that the top lobbyist advocating expanded gambling in Texas is Mike Toomey of the Texas Lobby Group, who represents Sam Houston Race Park and Charles Hurwitz. The Texas Lobby Group recently hosted a lobby fundraiser in Austin for Furse and contributed $2,500 to Furse’s campaign. Would it surprise you to know that the Special Guest at the fundraiser was former Sen. Kyle Janek? Would it surprise you to know that Janek has told people that he will be lobbying next session, and that he will be officing with Mike Toomey?

I regret that the Furse campaign has launched this negative attack. The only beneficiary is Chris Bell and the Democrats. Nevertheless, I did feel compelled to set the record straight and again thank you for the opportunity.

This race-within-a-race between Furse and Huffman is very much to Bell’s advantage. The result could be that the embittered supporters of whichever R does not make the runoff will not return to the polls. Yet, Bell by no means is a sure bet to win. If he is forced into a runoff, his chances diminish substantially. Remember what happened to San Antonio Republican congressman Henry Bonilla in 06. On Election Day he ran in a special election in a new court-ordered district and came within a fraction of a percentage point of winning a majority. But he fell just short, the Democrats swept the national elections, and Ciro Rodriguez beat Bonilla in the runoff as demoralized R’s stayed home. That scenario could repeat itself in the 17th district if Obama loses. In fact, this race is a very large gamble for Bell. State senator is a great job–oodles of influence, short hours, and great rainmaking opportunities for a lawyer like Bell)–but his longterm goal has always been statewide office. Bell would likely be a candidate for U.S. Senate after Kay Bailey Hutchison resigns her seat, or he might focus on a major statewide office in 2010 (light guv, AG). His loss to Perry in the 2006 governor’s race was a “good” loss, but a loss in this race would be a step backwards.

I had briefly posted an item here that was skeptical about whether Wendy Davis could get a fair hearing before the Texas Supreme Court. Shame on me for being such a cynic. I just received a call from an attorney in the case who said that the Court has denied all relief sought by Brimer.

Brimer had asked for expedited handling of the case by the Supreme Court. The denial means that the case will return to the Fort Worth Court of Appeals, which has called for briefs to be submitted. One of the reasons that Brimer sought an expedited hearing was his concern that the Court of Appeals could not hear the case and produce a decision before the date after which a candidate’s name could not be removed from the ballot.

The politics of this maneuvering are very bad for Brimer. Political pros know the risks of asking the courts to knock your opponent off the ballot. Voters regard this as unfair play, and if it fails, they are very likely to punish the candidate who goes to court–and loses–at the ballot box. The Brimer camp had to know this before they went to court, so the logical conclusion is that they were sufficiently worried about the race that they were willing to take the risk–even after Brimer lost his case in the trial court. They also must have known that winning was a long shot, because courts strictly construe election laws against ineligibility.

The game is not quite over, because the Supreme Court action was not a decision on the merits. The Court of Appeals could still come to Brimer’s rescue. Don’t bet on it.

The Texas Politics project is the work of the UT government department. Its polls, directed by professors Jim Henson and Daron Shaw, will be a quarterly fixture on the Texas political scene. (Evan Smith commented on the poll Thursday in his “State of Mine” blog.) This is an Internet poll; Henson believes that telephone polling is no longer reliable due to caller ID, which allows targeted households to refuse calls, and the preference of young voters for cell phones. I will publish the methodology at the end of this discussion.

Here is what I found most interesting in the poll:

1a. Party identification (unscreened)

Strong D 25%
Not very strong D 14%
Independent leaning D 7%

Strong R 20%
Not very strong R 13%
Independent leaning R 9%

D 46%
R 42%
I 8%
Other 4%

This is eye-opening. The Democrats’ edge is accounted for by their advantage in “strong” adherents. While it is hard to conceive of Texas as a blue-trending state, there is evidence to support it: the tarnishing of the Republican brand in the suburbs (see More Numbers: R’s Lose but D’s Can’t Gain,), and the Democrats’ 2 to 1 edge in primary turnout. Whether this will translate into success at the ballot box is yet to be seen. As we will see from another question in this poll, the ideological makeup of the Democratic party is majority conservative.

1b. Party identification (registered voters)

Strong Democrat 24%
Not very strong Democrat 12%
Independent leaning Democrat 7%

Strong Republican 21%
Not very strong Republican 14%
Independent leaning Republican 10%

D 43%
R 45%
I 7%
Other 7%

Among all respondents, D’s held a +4 advantage. The restriction to registered voters gives Republicans a small edge. R +2 strikes me as a very credible estimate of where the state is right now. The poll shows Republicans have a five-point advantage (24-19) over Democrats among voters whose party ties are weak (”not very strong” or “independent leaning”). These categories apply to the disillusioned Republicans who are gravitating away from the GOP but not toward the Democrats. This is the most volatile segment of the electorate.

2. Ideology (by party and by the state as a whole)

Among strong Democrats, 42% consider themselves liberal.
Among strong Republicans, 88% consider themselves conservative.

Only 42% of strong Democrats are liberals! This is an amazingly small number.

Liberal 20%
Conservative 39%
Moderate 41%

3. Major Statewide Races

President
McCain 42.5%
Obama 33.3%
Barr 4.9%
Nader 2.2%
Don’t know 17%

U.S. Senate
Cornyn 44.3%
Noriega 30.9%
Don’t know 24.9%

These numbers are in line with previous polling that showed Cornyn with a double-digit lead.

4. Presidential Race (party affiliation)

For all the unhappiness with McCain among Texas Republicans, strong R’s are staying hitched: 90% support McCain, and you need a magifying glass to see the thin strip of blue at the bottom of the bar graph for Obama. Only 82% of strong D’s support Obama. McCain gets around 5% of this group and 17% of not very strong D’s. But McCain gets virtually no support from independent leaning D’s, which suggests that this group may be dominated by young voters who are loyal to Obama.

5. Better off/Worse off than last year

Better off 17%, must be the oil and gas industry.
Worse off 48%
About the same 34%

These are pretty gloomy numbers for a state that is leading the nation in creating jobs.

6. Most Important Issue

Economy 27%
Immigration 25%
Energy 17%, there’s the oil and gas industry again

7. Politicians (approve/disapprove)

Rick Perry
Strongly approve 14%
Somewhat approve 30%
Somewhat disapprove 15%
Strongly disapprove 18%
Don’t Know 22%

Tom Craddick
Strongly approve 2%
Somewhat approve 15%
Somewhat disapprove 10%
Strongly disapprove 10%
Don’t know 63%

David Dewhurst
Strongly approve 7%
Somewhat approve 19%
Somewhat disapprove 13%
Strongly disapprove 4%
Don’t know 60%

Texas Legislature
Strongly approve 6%
Somewhat approve 25%
Somewhat disapprove 24%
Strongly disapprove 14%
Don’t know 31%

The middle of an interim is not the best time to poll about state officials. These numbers don’t tell us much, except that the public isn’t paying attention at all. More than one in five have no opinion about the longest-serving governor in Texas history. Democrats are going to have a hard time making Craddick an election issue this fall, and Dewhurst’s efforts to get media coverage haven’t been rewarded in name ID. Perry’s positive numbers will surprise some. If you look at the “Most Important Issue” category above, you will notice that the top three issues–economy, immigration, energy–are topics on which Perry has been very active. Think what you like about him, but he is a seasoned professional politician.

POLL METHODOLOGY

The UT-Austin Texas Politics Poll is designed by researchers at UT-Austin and conducted by YouGovPolimetrix, a firm with demonstrated success in internet polling. YouGovPolimetrix accomplishes internet polling through a unique sampling procedure known as “matched random sampling.” The firm begins with two lists: (1) a list of all consumers in Texas (covering approximately 95 percent of the adult population), and (2) a list of people who have agreed to take YouGovPolimetrix’s surveys. For each list, Polimetrix has an extensive set of demographics.

The sampling procedure then progresses in two stages. First, a random sample of consumers is drawn. For each person drawn from this sample a list of key demographics is recorded. In essence, each individual drawn is represented as a cluster of demographic characteristics, including age, income, education, race, gender, longitude and latitude, etc. Second, YouGovPolimetrix uses a matching algorithm to find the PollingPoint panelist who is the closest match to the person drawn off the consumer file. In this way an entire matched random sample is constructed for all people in the sample.

The current poll of 800 adult Texans has a margin of error of +/- 3.46 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The poll includes interviews with 677 registered voters, with an attendant margin of error of +/- 3.77 percentage points. Response rates are almost 100% given the matching methodology. The YouGovPolimetrix pool includes people who are much less likely to have access to the Internet or a personal computer. They have been especially assiduous at enlisting people with lower incomes and ethnic and racial minorities, part of an attempt to bolster the representativeness of their samples.

* * * *

I hope that readers who have expertise in the mathematics of polling will share their thoughts about this methodology. While I agree with the founders of the Texas Politics project that traditional telephone polling faces a crisis of reliability, I have some qualms about polls that allow people to self-select to be poll participants. It seems to me that this compromises the randomness of the sample. Notwithstanding this concern, this particular poll seems to be in the ball park for Texas politics today.

His name is Joe Weber, and he is a retired Marine Corps general. This appointment by President Elsa Murano, which was approved by the Board of Regents earlier today, reflects Perry’s penchant for filling high-ranking administrative positions at A&M with his friends and cronies. That Perry wanted to bring Weber to A&M has been common knowledge for months on campus. After the Regents disregarded the work of the official search committee last year, I was told that there was a period during which the regents, who took over the search, interviewed “the generals,” a category that included Weber.

President Murano issued a statement yesterday about Weber’s appointment which I find very revealing. This is an excerpt:

Last month, with the assistance of the Division of Student Affairs, I hosted a couple of focus groups with students to get their perspective on the qualities they would like to see in the next Vice President. Over and over again, these students expressed the desire for someone who would be approachable and down-to-earth, inclusive of all students, passionate about his or her job, able to communicate and innovate, and exhibit tremendous care for students, while serving as a staunch advocate and champion for their best interests. And foremost, the next Vice President must have an in-depth understanding and great appreciation for Texas A&M’s values and traditions.

Frankly, these comments were not surprising to me, for they are qualities that I also value in the Vice President for Student Affairs. These are similar themes that I have heard from various other groups of students and former students over the past eight months and in my previous role as a Vice Chancellor and Dean. It is evident that Texas A&M needs an effective administrator in this position who works across the various divisions and academic units on our campus, and manages a diverse portfolio of student services in an efficient and fiscally responsible manner.

Since my appointment as President in January, I have also been approached by students, both current and former, who are concerned about the slow decline in the practice of some of Texas A&M’s most valued and recognizable traditions. I have observed this decline for myself and it also concerns me.

A decline in traditions? What decline? Fish camp (A&M’s highly successful orientation program) is the same as ever. The Corps of Cadets still sets the tone for the campus. Muster? Silver Taps? These remain the same. Go to a football game: the same yells, the same strange gestures, the same band music, the same fan reaction. The remarkable thing about Texas A&M is how little it has changed.

There are two exceptions to the steadfastness of traditions at Aggieland. One, everybody agrees, is that people don’t greet each other with “Howdy” the way they used to. I don’t think Joe Weber was hired to get people to say “Howdy.”

Now let’s cut to the chase. The ONLY tradition that is different today is Bonfire. The last two presidents of A&M, Ray Bowen and Robert Gates, recognized that Bonfire was a tradition that had gone wrong. A&M administrators delegated total responsibility to students. The student leaders, known as Redpots (for the color of their hard hats) answered to no one. They changed the design of the stack to the layered “wedding cake” that led to the deaths of twelve people in 1999. I interviewed an engineering professor who tried to warn the Redpots, and they patronized him. The same professor brought his concerns to a previous vice-president of student affairs and was told that the students were in charge. Over the years the Redpots violated the longstanding practice that freshmen should not be allowed on the stack. They likewise violated height restrictions. They acted like demigods; I read a report in which a female student complained that she had been knocked to the ground by a Redpot because she had unwittingly set foot in the area reserved for Redpots.

All Aggies want A&M to be the school that they remember, and the school that Rick Perry remembers was a school where Bonfire brought people together. On weekends there was Cut: trips into the countryside to saw down the logs. During the week the stack was constructed. Students worked twelve hour shifts. The Corps supervised the construction in Perry’s day; once A&M began to grow, though, it became an activity for anyone who wanted to participate.

There are two things wrong with bringing back Bonfire. One is that it is incompatible with academics. Students miss class, or stay up all night, and they fall behind. The second is that it is far too dangerous an activity to be entrusted to students. Ray Bowen established a protocol that if it were to come back to campus, it would have to be professionally designed and supervised, using a permanent superstructure. One might add a third issue: If it comes back to campus, who is going to insure A&M against liability for negligence?

I hope I’m wrong about this. I hope Perry realizes that safety is more important than traditions. But I wouldn’t count on it.

The web site politicalwire.com carries a discussion today about the significance of a Pew Research poll that shows Obama leading McCain by 46% to 43%. Since the 3% difference is within the margin of error, does this mean, as pundits often claim, that the race is a “statistical dead heat?” Another way to put this question is: With what confidence can we say that Obama is actually ahead?

Political Wire links to a August 2004 article in the Washington Monthly about a poll showing Kerry two points ahead of Bush (49-47). The article contains a chart that may help clear this up:

If a candidate’s lead is 1%
–and the MOE is 3%, the probability that the leading candidate is really ahead is 83%
–and the MOE is 4%, the probability that the leading candidate is really ahead is 60%
–and the MOE is 5%, the probability that the leading candidate is really ahead is 58%

If a candidate’s lead is 2%
–and the MOE is 3%, the probability that the leading candidate is really ahead is 75%
–and the MOE is 4%, the probability that the leading candidate is really ahead is 69%
–and the MOE is 5%, the probability that the leading candidate is really ahead is 66%

For a 3% lead
MOE 3% = 85% probability of leading
MOE 4% = 78% probability of leading
MOE 5% = 73% probability of leading

For a 4% lead
MOE 3% = 92% probability of leading
MOE 4% = 85% probability of leading
MOE 5% = 79% probability of leading

For a 5% lead
MOE 3% = 96% probability of leading
MOE 4% = 90% probability of leading
MOE 5% = 85% probability of leading

For a 6% lead
MOE 3% = 98% probability of leading
MOE 4% = 94% probability of leading
MOE 5% = 89% probability of leading

In other words, with a 46%-43% lead over McCain, in a poll with a large sample size and a low MOE, the probability that Obama is really ahead, in the Pew poll, is around 94%.

These numbers represent the electorate’s favorable/unfavorable view of the political parties. As with the previous post, these come from a Republican shop.

Rural Texas:
2000: Republicans 59% favorable, 26% unfavorable
2008: Republicans 56% favorable, 34% unfavorable

The erosion is negligible.

Urban-Suburban Texas:
2000: Republicans 62% favorable, 27% unfavorable
2008: Republicans 47% favorable, 42% unfavorable

This is a drop of fifteen points.

2000: Democrats 49% favorable, 39% unfavorable
2008: Democrats 47% favorable, 43% unfavorable

Democrats have actually lost ground. The big question that the pundits keep asking is why Obama can’t close the deal. (Hey, it’s August. Voters don’t really pay attention until after the conventions.) But the problem may not be Obama at all. In Texas, at least, it appears that the Democrats are still not viewed as credible. And for a very good reason: They don’t have a recognizable name on the ballot. Rick Noriega isn’t it. The Republican brand has been decimated, but the Democrats have not benefited.

As D’s and R’s prepare for an all-out battle for supremacy in Harris County, the numbers for party identification in Harris County today track what was happening in Dallas over the previous two election cycles. These are from a Republican campaign shop:

Dallas County 2004:
R’s +6

Dallas County 2006:
R’s +2

This was the situation when Democrats swept every contested courthouse race in the county two years ago.

Harris County 2006:
R’s + 6

Harris County 2008:
R’s + 2

In short, Harris County today is where Dallas County was two years ago. However, Dallas County R’s were caught totally by surprise. That will not be the case in Harris County. When I was in Houston for the state Republican convention in June, a local consultant told me that R’s had already bought four weeks of TV time for judicial races in the fall. Furthermore, Harris County is a much more complex battleground than Dallas. It has a bigger population than 24 states. It is the 14th largest county in area (1,734 square miles); of those that are larger, many are sparsely populated West Texas counties. It is a stew of demographic change. All of this makes it difficult for parties to identify their voters and get them to the polls.