Politex

Patrick says he's likely not running for US Senate

State Sen. Dan Patrick said Thursday evening he is in all likelihood not running for US Senate and is strongly considering a run for Lieutenant Governor in 2014.

"I think I can be more effective here in Texas than the US Senate," Patrick said, speaking to the Arlington Republican Club. "I’m going to keep an eye on it because I’m not sure that everyone [who has] announced in it is going to stay."

The Houston Republican has been openly considering joining the race to replace US Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for months. Other candidates in the race include Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, and former Solicitor General Ted Cruz, all Republicans, and retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, a Democrat.

Patrick said he’ll make his "final decision" on whether to run for the US Senate next week. He said he thinks he would end up in a runoff with Dewhurst if he ran.

"I'm going to keep a close eye on the field but it’s not about races you think you can win or you want to win," Patrick said. "It’s about where you can best serve and I think I can best serve the issues I believe in in Texas and maybe as Lieutenant Governor in 2014, but if I just stay in the Texas Senate...that’s fine.

"So the door is pretty much closed but everyday something changes," Patrick said.

Patrick also said he’d rather live in Texas than Washington, D.C.

The conservative radio host predicted that Attorney General Greg Abbott will be elected governor of Texas in 2014. Patrick said he's discussed the possibility of serving as Lieutenant Governor with Abbott in the state’s top post.

"I would never want to run against him," Patrick said. "And I told the Attorney General, 'I’m happy to be your copilot. As long as you believe in the things I believe, then I don’t have to be in the driver's seat. I’m happy to push the cart.'"

-Aman Batheja

Kinky Friedman on the Texas economy, then and now

Humorist and former gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman endorsed Gov. Rick Perry for president yesterday, a move that should surprise no one who's been following the odd political path Friedman has taken in recent years.

First, Friedman ran for governor as an independent in 2006. Then he ran as a Democrat in 2010. When he lost the primary that year, he endorsed the Libertarian in the race.

The only consistency through it all has been Friedman's criticism of Perry in office...until now.

But what may be most striking about Friedman's essay endorsing Perry in The Daily Beast is his new take on Perry's key issue: the economy.

"Compared with the rest of the country, Texas is kicking major ass in terms of jobs and the economy, and Rick should get credit for that, just as Obama should get credit for saying 'No comment' to the young people of the Iranian revolution.

More to the point, could Rick Perry fix the economy? Hell, yes! Texas is exhibit A; Rick’s fingerprints are all over it. He’s been governor since Christ was a cowboy. The Lone Star State is booming."

Just two years ago, Friedman was complaining that Perry takes too much credit for the Texas economy.

"A baboon could have led us and we'd still be doing OK," Friedman said in 2009. "It's a big rich state. Good weather. A lot of people like to come here."

-Aman Batheja

Kinky development in presidential race: Friedman endorses Perry

Yes, that Kinky Friedman. The entertainer who once challenged Rick Perry for Texas' top elected job. Friedman is now endorsing Perry, and did so in his typical style with a column that appeared yesterday on The Daily Beast website.

As always with Kinky, it's best to let him do his own talking. Here are some excerpts:

"Rick Perry has never lost an election; I’ve never won one. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with the world. On the other hand, I’ve long been friends with Bill Clinton and George W., and Rick Perry and I, though at times bitter adversaries, have remained friends as well ...

"I have been quoted as saying that when I die, I am to be cremated, and the ashes are to be thrown in Rick Perry’s hair. Yet, simply put, Rick Perry and I are incapable of resisting each other’s charm. He is not only a good sport, he is a good, kindhearted man, and he once sat in on drums with ZZ Top. A guy like that can’t be all bad. When I ran for governor of Texas as an independent in 2006, the Crips and the Bloods ganged up on me. When I lost, I drove off in a 1937 Snit, refusing to concede to Perry. Three days later Rick called to give me a gracious little pep talk, effectively talking me down from jumping off the bridge of my nose. Very few others were calling at that time, by the way. Such is the nature of winning and losing and politicians and life. You might call what Rick did an act of random kindness. Yet in my mind it made him more than a politician, more than a musician; it made him a mensch.

"These days, of course, I would support Charlie Sheen over Obama ... Obama has been perpetually behind the curve. If the issue of the day is jobs and the economy, Rick Perry is certainly the nuts-and-bolts kind of guy you want in there.

"More to the point, could Rick Perry fix the economy? Hell, yes! Texas is exhibit A; Rick’s fingerprints are all over it. He’s been governor since Christ was a cowboy. The Lone Star State is booming."

-- John Gravois

Nolan Ryan for president? (No!)

DALLAS -- If U.S. Rep. Joe Barton could have his choice of presidential candidates, he'd choose longtime baseball pitcher turned Texas Rangers owner Nolan Ryan.

"I want Nolan Ryan to run," Barton said Thursday during a Dallas Regional Chamber congressional forum at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Dallas. But "he says he wants to get the Ranges back into the World Series."

Fair enough, said Barton, R-Arlington, who has already endorsed Newt Gingrich.

Barton noted that he did talk to Texas Gov. Rick Perry before throwing his support behind Gingrich, asking Perry if he planned to run for president. 

At the time, Perry said no.

-- Anna M. Tinsley

Perry Leader of the Pack in latest Gallup Poll: trounces Romney 29% to 17%

Rick Perry is trouncing all GOP contenders in the latest Gallup Poll, beating his closest competitor, Mitt Romney, by 29% to 17%. It's a big swing from last month's poll, where the Texas governor was at 18%, trailing then-frontrunner Romney who led with 23%.

But after a tumultuous August, with an Iowa debate (that did not include the not-yet-announced Perry), Ames straw poll and Perry's formal entry into the race, it's all about the Texas governor. Well, the other Texan in the race, Rep. Ron Paul, also logged in at a respectable 13% while Ames poll winner Rep. Michele Bachmann came in at 10%

The telephone interviews were conducted Aug. 17-21, 2011, on the Gallup Daily tracking survey, with a random sample of 1,040 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, aged 18 and older, in all 50 U.S. states and D.C. The margin of error of +, - 4%.

 LInk to Gallup Poll:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/149180/Perry-Zooms-Front-Pack-2012-GOP-Nomination.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=All%20Gallup%20Headlines%20-%20Politics

-- Maria Recio

Vasquez launches primary challenge against Burnam

Fort Worth School Board trustee Carlos Vasquez has announced he will challenge state Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, in next year's Democratic primary.

Vasquez, a former elementary school principal, has been on the board since 2008 representing the district's north side.

"After careful consideration I have come to the conclusion that many of the problems faced with public education are attributable to a broken State Government in Austin," Vasquez wrote on Facebook. "With over four billion dollars cut in public education we need to refocus on what matters most, a strong public school system.

"Today, I am announcing my candidacy for State Representative in District 90 in the Democratic Primary of 2012."

District 90 is a heavily Hispanic district and some prominent Hispanics in the community have long complained that the district has been represented by Burnam, an Anglo, since 1996.

Along with Vasquez, City Councilman Sal Espino has discussed running against Burnam in the past.

-Aman Batheja and Eva-Marie Ayala

Rick Perry gets some love from Club for Growth, with caveats.

 

The conservative Club for Growth, which advocates for low taxes and small government, likes what it sees in Texas Gov. Rick Perry, up to a point. In the latest "white paper" of presidential candidates released today, the influential group finds Perry "pro-growth" but faults him for "aggressively" using government spending to attract jobs to Texas. 

“It is likely that Rick Perry would seek to move the country in a much more pro-growth direction,” said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola. “However, his support for taxpayer-subsidized funds to lure jobs away from other states and his contradictory stance on energy mandates reveals an interventionist streak rather than a consistent dedication to free-market principles. With a more hostile legislature to deal with in Congress -- and an even worse economic climate -- it is debatable whether a President Perry would maintain his generally conservative fiscal approach. In any case, Congress could learn a thing or two about economic growth from the Lone Star State, and that’s partly because of Governor Perry.”

While the Club for Growth ranks members of Congress based on their votes, the group turned to the Cato Institute ratings of governors for Perry, since the Texas governor has never served in Congress. The libertarian Cato Institute's biennial scorecard on the nation’s governors based on tax and spending policie gave Perry a solid "B."

Perry's scores:

2010 – “B”
2008 – “B”
2006 – “B”
2004 – “B”
2002 – N/A (Took office too late to be graded)

http://www.clubforgrowth.org/whitepapers

 

-- Maria Recio

Roger Williams: 'Donkey Whisperer'

U.S. House District 33 candidate Roger Williams on reaching out to Democrats: 

 

- Anna M. Tinsley

 

 

The information age? Not in Texas.

Love him or hate him, there’s no disputing that under Gov. Rick Perry, Texas has created a million more jobs than the nation. But in one category, the state has performed worse than the U.S. average: information.

That sector includes publishers of newspapers, books and directories, whose troubles have been well-documented. But it also includes telecommunications, data processing, Internet hosting and software publishing. Those vaunted info-tech industries were supposed to be economic drivers.

From July 2000 to July 2011, 27 percent of the jobs in information were lost nationwide, including 551,000 in telecom, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over the same time, the info sector declined 32 percent in Texas, a reduction of 88,000 jobs.

The Dallas-Plano-Irving area was hit especially hard. Jobs in telecom and Internet services fell 45 percent.

Bill Sproull of the Richardson Chamber of Commerce can’t believe those numbers. While tech companies have become ruthlessly efficient since the dot-com bubble, Richardson’s Telecom Corridor is alive and well, he says, despite the exit of Nortel.

Many high-tech workers are classified in other categories: computer system design, for instance, added almost 14,000 jobs statewide. And many companies hire contract workers today, so they can expand and shrink more easily. Sproull theorizes that many tech jobs are recorded elsewhere in the BLS survey.

-- Mitchell Schnurman

Fort Worth's West 7th Street Bridge to be torn down in July 2013

The $25.9 million bridge project, which was originally scheduled to be completed in 2012, was pushed back a year after the project had to be rebid. The bridge will now close in July 2013 and will take five months to build the new bridge. It is scheduled to reopen in November 2013. Council members also heard a briefing Tuesday morning on the three Trinity River Vision bridges needed to span the $909 million project's bypass channel. The Henderson Street Bridge, which will be the first to be constructed, is scheduled to start in the fall of 2012. The West 7th Street Bridge is not part of the Trinity River Vision Project.

Bill Hanna