Sifting the Speaker's election

Leonard Cohen?

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Or My Chemical Romance (hat tip Vince)?

And we will send you reeling from decimated dreams
Your misery and hate will kill us all.
So paint it black and take it back,
Let's shout it loud and clear
Do you fight it to the end?
We hear the call to, to carry on;


And on we carry, through the fears
Ooh oh ohhhh
Disappointed faces of your peers,
Ooh oh ohhhh,
Take a look at me, 'cause I could not care at all;


Do or die, you'll never make me.
Because the world will never take my heart.
You can try; you'll never break me.
You want it all, I'm gonna play this part;
I won't explain or say I'm sorry
I'm not ashamed, I'm gonna show my scar
You're the chair, for all the broken
Listen here, because it's only...
I'm just a man, I'm not a hero!

Yesterday's outcome will be sliced, diced, sorted and stored a few thousand ways.

Jocularity first: Pink does the live-blog of the live-blogging some of us did yesterday. It was exactly like that. The Austin Chronic also broke it down, with a skosh more contempt.

This number -- 80-68 -- was as close as Craddick came to losing. That's almost precisely the partisan split in the House, but there were 14 Republicans who voted against the Speaker, and 15 Democrats who voted with him. Here are their names.

Paul Burka got a lot of credit for calling it early, even from Rep. Will Hartnett on the floor of the House. Quite a few people feel like a little payback against the fifteen Craddickrats is in order, in the form of primary challenges.

Those 15 Democrats rationalize that their support of Tom Craddick translates into positions of power on important committees, and thus the pork they can bring home to their district is by extension 'good for their constituents'. That is at least a plausible rationale; it may even be accurate.

But it does not serve the greater good, as others have also pointed out.

This style of cronyism and patronage is what Al Edwards got booted out for. And yesterday his replacement, Borris Miles, bussed 450 of his constituents to Austin -- another 200 drove themselves over -- for his swearing-in. And he fed them breakfast, lunch and dinner, gave them lapel pins and t-shirts, and arranged for tours of the Capitol. Seniors, students, his extended network of family and friends and supporters and well-wishers all crowded into a picture with him on the South Steps. And I mean crowded.

And shortly thereafter, Representative Miles went into the building and with twenty-seven of his colleagues (now officially the Courage Caucus) cast his ballot against Speaker Craddick.

That's what taking care of your constituents -- and for that matter, good government -- looks like.

Special note to Aaron Pena: if you're sneaking down the alley, ducking through the back door, wearing a jogging suit and baseball cap pulled down low, you might be sending a subliminal message about your pride in seconding the Speaker's nomination.

Live-blogging the Lege

I'm in E2.030, one of the Capitol's hearing rooms, with Greg and about a hundred of Borris Miles's supporters, awaiting his swearing-in.

More as we move along.

Update (12:31 pm): The Pledges, roll call, and swearing-in of the Texas House members has completed.

Update (12:39 pm): Vince is, as always, doing the repetitive exercises. Matt is hosting a party in Senator Gallegos' office, and I'm about to go over there for something to eat.

Update (1:10 pm): I'm fed, and the resolution for the rules for the speaker election is being read. Nothing special; it follows protocol from sessions past and is adopted unanimously.

Update (1:58 pm): Phillip doesn't think it's supposed to be taking so long, but HR 35 is finally being read with the "agreed language". It's going to be a paper ballot, signed by each respective member.

Update: (3:08 pm): Republican Reps. Will Hartnett and Robert Talton just exchanged pleasantries over Hartnett's amendment to make the voting record public immediately. Talton exclaimed several times, "Don't you want to protect the members (from retribution from Craddick)?" FTR, Hartnett is a Craddick supporter, Talton is not. Talton is followed by Mondo Martinez, Dan Branch, Paul Moreno, and Scott Hochberg in similar vein.

Update (3:30 pm): Sadly, my live-blogging is coming to an end, as our bus for Houston departs shortly. Check in at BOR and Capitol Annex for the finale.

In Austin today for SDEC

After four days of twelve-hour shifts at the hospital, I'm headed to Austin this morning for the SDEC winter conclave. While I was on the conference call yesterday with Boyd Richie, Amber Moon, and Hector Nieto of the TDP, Anna was in the room and filed the report.

TexBlog-observation: With the addition of high-profile writers Anna -- she had her own place but has moved over to TK -- and Boadicea, Texas Kaos is currently doing the best investigative and analytical blogging from the progressive perspective about the developments down here in Deep-In-The-Hearta. BOR is evolving once more as one student generation (Karl-T) departs and another (Phillip Martin) assumes the day-to-day responsibility, and has lately become the go-to for insider dope on all things Lege as well as other Texas Democratic scuttlebutt.

So while TK is sharpening its swords for progress, BOR is becoming the agent for the majority (read Democrats). Before anyone gets excited: this isn't a criticism or even necessarily a bad thing.

My beeves with the state party have received plenty of airing and I won't repeat them now. As Bo states, the best thing blogs can do is offer our opinion on the visibility, the accountability, and the effectiveness of the state apparatus.

And perhaps influence those in another ways.

More to write later, when I can find the time.

The usual insomnia

-- As I have spent much of the past few days in the Texas Medical Center waiting while chemotherapy bags drained into my father-in-law, I understand this completely. My take is that it isn't even so much the time lost by the patient but by his caregivers.

Update (1/5): For those who have sent me their kind thoughts, an update on my father-in-law's condition is posted in the comments.

-- The contest for speaker of the Texas House occupies much blog bandwidth lately. Too many to link to; you can follow the play-by-play over in the Texas Blogwire in the right column. I do better with color commentary (though I'll be in Austin next Tuesday when the Lege convenes to watch the action, and post here about it). The conventional wisdom holds that Tom Craddick is toast. I don't think he is, yet. Here's my observation/projection as of the moment:

Jim Pitts will have a press conference in roughly twelve hours to announce that he and Brian McCall will join their forces to defeat Craddick under one flag -- his. Senfronia Thompson is poised to re-enter the race in order to manage a voting bloc of around fifty Democrats who committed first to her, then to McCall when she withdrew, but are lukewarm at best about Pitts.

If Senfronia controls those fifty-ish votes, she (and Texas Dems) are in a pretty sweet bargaining position. Unless, because the GOP loathes the idea of the Democrats controlling the outcome of the speaker's election, they suddenly coalesce again around Craddick. Then they have all the votes they need -- there are around ten or so Democrats who are firmly with the incumbent speaker -- and in the process ram it down everybody else's throats.

So my point is: pay close attention during the Capitol presser this afternoon to which Republicans are standing with Pitts. Not just the announced names of those who signed his pledge card, but which ones are actually standing there behind him. The ones that are not present are the real swing voters, and they are much more critical here than the Democratic members who have sold themselves out to Speaker Craddick.

Sylvester Turner, Harold Dutton, Dawnna Dukes, Kevin Bailey, Aaron Pena, etc. aren't even pawns in this game; they're drones -- the same as any of Craddick's mindless GOP supporters -- and as such they don't have the significant influence on the result that is believed. Honestly, only the Republican insurgents do. If Craddick buys back the support of the rebels -- literally buys them back, with promises of chairmanships, unfunded primary opponents in 2008 and so on like that -- then together with the Democratic sold-outs it's over.

This poker match is going to have the stakes raised several times over the next few days. Craddick is far from finished. And once the smoke clears next week there will be precious little "bipartisanship" to be had in this session, no matter the outcome.

Of course, I could be wrong about everything.

Update (90 minutes after this posting): Senfronia claims to have sixty votes, though McCall had less than that, and his tally had as many as 19 Republicans. I still think her number is closer to 50.

Update (1/5): No names and no supporters at the press conference yesterday. That's not good for anybody but Craddick.

-- It's Thomas Jefferson's Quran. You can't attach a value to irony this priceless.

-- The same with this level of deceit (though the price to ExxonMobil was apparently a paltry $16 million). Please remember this every time you need to fill your gas tank.

Happy National Hangover Day!

I didn't even consider a year-end rantrospective. My reputation as a curmudgeon is pervasive enough as it is. I still feel like giggling along with some of these ...

-- Bob Woodward snags a gallows Q and A with Saddam. A brief excerpt:

“In fact,” Saddam added, “I could empathize with George the elder, since I also had to suffer the indignity of two idiot sons.”

-- Never poke at an angry wildcat with a stick.

-- Speaking of stupid, here are the 2006 Darwin Award winners. No, Steve Irwin isn't listed, but he ought to be.

-- I thought we just said farewell to this douchebag ...

In what some called a desperate gambit to retain Republican control of the Senate, Majority Leader Bill Frist announced today that he had examined a videotape and pronounced recovering Senator Tim Johnson dead.

"I will remain Majority Leader and the Republicans will continue to hold the Senate," he said in a press conference this morning.

-- the official statement from the president on the passing of Gerald Ford:

Laura and I were kind of saddened by the news of President Ford's death. The American people will occasionally admire Gerald Ford's devotion to duty, his character and the relatively honorable conduct of his Administration. The 38th President will be vaguely remembered by our nation. We offer our sympathies to Betty Ford and and some of President Ford's family. Our thoughts and prayers will be elsewhere in the hours and days ahead.

-- and yesterday's Funnies.

A Farewell to Douchebags

(Sorry; I know I promised to stay away...)



It seems so apropos that Butterqueen Crowley is the first one you see.

They will be counting down in Crawford in a few hours...

I'm confused. Was Gerald Ford hanged?

I wasn't particularly troubled by his pardon of Richard Nixon, but to execute him for that seems overly harsh.

Perhaps I'm mixing up my mainstream media propaganda campaigns.

Why are the flags at half-staff for Saddam's passing? Is there a reason why January 2nd is being declared a federal holiday for James Brown? When will CNN go back to their regular programming: Britney's beaver shots and the latest in the life of Brangelina?

Maybe I ought to just stick to the bowl games, you say? Pass.

Now I'm really outta here until next week.

Post-Christmas postpourri

-- Thanks for the memories, Saddam. You were good for us -- some of us, anyway. Though like any other dysfunctional relationship, you weren't good to us, and that's why we had to find someone new.

-- As an ice shelf 25 square miles in size breaks off from the Canadian Arctic, Bush's former interior secretary, Gale Norton, takes a job at Shell.

I'm so old I remember when this kind of cronyism generated outrage.

-- In other science news, the National Park Service is not allowed to give an estimate of the age of the Grand Canyon so as not to offend religious fundamentalists. You can also buy a book at the national park which explains how Noah's flood created the canyon. Really.

-- We're going to watch the Rockets play on New Year's Eve, a tradition we started back when they were still playing at Lakewood Church.

See you next year.

You may have noticed

that John Edwards declared. It's been omni-blog-present.

He sent me the embed code for this YouTube of his announcement (me and about a hundred billion other people):



Before that, he sent me an e-mail -- dated December 23 -- asking me to tell him what I thought about his Possibly Running for President. It was just simple text; no flashy pictures, the same kind of e-mail I would send to you -- and he signed it "Your friend, John."

He also has links from his website to MySpace and Facebook and an RSS feed and a blog and podcasts and a contribution page at ActBlue. To say that he hired some web-savvy people in the past five days (after asking me if I thought him running for president was a good idea) is a little understated.

In the video above -- it's filmed in New Orleans' 9th Ward -- he even worked in a slam on "the McCain Doctrine" of increasing troop strength in Iraq.

I like John Edwards a lot; he's certainly in my top three prospects (the other two are Wesley Clark and Al Gore). In fact I think he will very probably be on the ticket in 2008. He has the unqualified support of the biggest dog in Texas Democratic politics, Fred Baron.

John Edwards has kicked off the 2008 race in earnest, and will factor strongly in the Democratic nominee's selection.

One way or another.

Yao-za

It's so f***ed I can't believe it
If there's a way I wish we'd see it
How could it work just can't conceive it
Oh what a mess it's best to leave it


-- Dinosaur Jr., "Freak Scene"

So right after I posted this, Yao breaks a leg. Then The Truth went down, T-Mac made a comeback but still has a bad sacroiliac, and AK-47 impersonated Rocky Balboa. J-Smooth caught a hernia, The Answer couldn't catch a flight to snowed-in Denver, and nearly everybody else in the NBA caught the flu.

Ron Artest has sore knees. Ray Allen has a new baby. Saddam is going to be hanged any day now.

Oh wait, he's not in the Association ...

"I am a Ford, not a Lincoln"

Nobody failed to get the joke.

Here's some from the WaPo on the passing of Gerald Ford, 38th President of the United States and the only one never elected:

In the 2 1/2 years of his presidency, Ford ended the U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam, helped mediate a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Egypt, signed the Helsinki human rights convention with the Soviet Union and traveled to Vladivostok in the Soviet Far East to sign an arms limitation agreement with Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet president. Ford also sent the Marines to free the crew of the Mayaguez, a U.S. merchant vessel that was captured by Cambodian communists.

On the domestic front, he faced some of the most difficult economic conditions since the Great Depression, with the inflation rate approaching 12 percent. Chronic energy shortages and price increases produced long lines and angry citizens at gas pumps. In the field of civil rights, the sense of optimism that had characterized the 1960s had been replaced by an increasing sense of alienation, particularly in inner cities. The new president also faced a political landscape in which Democrats held large majorities in both the House and the Senate.

What I remember Ford for was the "WIN" buttons he advocated for the nation. He wore one pinned to himself. WIN stood for "Whip Inflation Now."

This of course demonstrated Ford's understanding of monetary policy. Even my dad -- no financial whiz himself -- laughed at the idiocy of a lapel button helping the nation's economic ills.

More excerpts from the NYT:

He was a man more fundamental than flashy, more immutable than immodest. He served undefeated through 13 elections to the House of Representatives and rose to be its Republican leader, yet in 25 years in Congress he did not write a major piece of legislation. He was overwhelmingly confirmed as vice president, the first to be appointed under the 25th Amendment, yet he owed his selection by Nixon to the likelihood that he would prove inoffensive in the job.

The Warren Commission. Ford is at right.

Ford's presidency was an extension of his own political personality: reactive rather than activist, instinctive instead of intellectual, humanistic but within the fiscal limits of conservative dogma.

(Jerald) terHorst, the biographer, puzzled over the seeming contradiction between the president's personal and professional philosophies: "The problem with him — he doesn't like to be kidded about it — but the fact is, this guy would, if he saw a schoolkid in front of the White House who needed clothing, if he was the right size, he'd give him the shirt off his back, literally. Then he'd go right in the White House and veto the school lunch bill."

John Hersey, after spending a week in close observation of the president, wrote in The New York Times Magazine of April 20, 1975: "What is it in him? Is it an inability to extend compassion far beyond the faces directly in view? Is it a failure of imagination? Is it something obdurate he was born with, alongside the energy and serenity?"

Chief of staff Dick Cheney and Ford '76 chairman James Baker with the president (announcing his bid for re-election from the golf course). Again, a personal aside:

Ford ran for election in 1976, narrowly defeating a vigorous primary challenge from former California governor Ronald Reagan. During the election season in 1975 Reagan gave a speech at a dinner restaurant in Beaumont, Texas where I worked as a busboy. I had been promoted to waiter solely for the occasion since we were short-staffed, and just minutes prior to the event we all struck for an extra .25 an hour (management caved to our demands). I was 16 years old, an active Optimist Club oratorical contest participant, and as the old actor addressed the two hundred attendees for 45 minutes, I stood at the back of the room and listened, enrapt.

The room was completely still. No one coughed, not one fork clinked against a plate.

That was the night I became a Republican. Reagan fell short of the nomination of course, but my first presidential ballot was cast in 1976 for Jerry Ford.



Rumsfeld, Ford, Cheney. From the AP:

When Agnew resigned in a bribery scandal in October 1973, Ford was one of four finalists to succeed him: Texan John Connally, New York's Nelson Rockefeller and California's Ronald Reagan.

"Personal factors enter into such a decision," Nixon recalled for a Ford biographer in 1991. "I knew all of the final four personally and had great respect for each one of them, but I had known Jerry Ford longer and better than any of the rest.

"We had served in Congress together. I had often campaigned for him in his district," Nixon continued. But Ford had something the others didn't: he would be easily confirmed by Congress, something that could not be said of Rockefeller, Reagan and Connally.

And this:

While Ford had not sought the job, he came to relish it. He had once told Congress that even if he succeeded Nixon he would not run for president in 1976. Within weeks of taking the oath, he changed his mind.

He was undaunted even after the two attempts on his life in September 1975. Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a 26-year-old follower of Charles Manson, was arrested after she aimed a semiautomatic pistol at Ford on Sept. 5 in Sacramento, Calif. A Secret Service agent grabbed her and Ford was unharmed.

Seventeen days later, Sara Jane Moore, a 45-year-old political activist, was arrested in San Francisco after she fired a gun at the president. Again, Ford was unhurt.

And this:

In office, Ford's living tastes were modest. When he became vice president, he chose to remain in the same Alexandria, Va., home — unpretentious except for a swimming pool — that he shared with his family as a congressman.

After leaving the White House, however, he took up residence in the desert resort of Rancho Mirage, picked up $1 million for his memoir and another $1 million in a five-year NBC television contract, and served on a number of corporate boards. By 1987, he was on eight such boards, at fees up to $30,000 a year, and was consulting for others, at fees up to $100,000. After criticism, he cut back on such activity.

Ford was also the subject of parody for his clumsiness, both physical and verbal. Chevy Chase made his initial fame by portraying the president as a chronic stumblebum on 'Saturday Night Live'. LBJ described the House minority leader as unable "to chew gum and walk at the same time", a phrase that entered pop culture as the generic description of an idiot.

But Ford very likely was the perfect man for the job in August of 1974, when the United States was suffering its most extreme constitutional crisis. Even Ford's pardon of Nixon, which cost him re-election, was viewed in hindsight as the tonic for the nation's psychological ills.

Godspeed to Gerald Ford and prayers of condolences to all of his family.

"If you strike the king, you must kill him"

The Speaker of the Texas House gets a challenger. Muse and many others led with the news that broke on Christmas Eve.

Rick Casey has these insights:

There is a consensus that if the vote for House speaker were secret, no plotting would be necessary. Craddick would be a former speaker soon after the session opens Jan. 9. But it is a record vote. And nobody wants to take a chance on publicly opposing Craddick unless it's clear he will lose.

The speaker not only can deny opponents any meaningful committee assignments, he can also make sure none of their pet legislation sees the light of day. So, as the saying goes, if you're going to plot against the king, you'd better bloody well kill him.

Tom Craddick became the first Republican speaker in Texas history, replacing Pete Laney when the GOP became the majority in 2003. Since that time his tenure has been pocked with controversy: record state budget deficits, corrosive political machinations regarding congressional redistricting, an inability to find a solution to public school financing -- the list goes on. But what really has him in trouble is his iron-fisted rule. Casey again, also with the whip count:

"Craddick is very good at breaking arms," said one House member. "That's why if it's going to pop, it has to be at the last minute, when spouses are present and many of the members have their children sitting in their laps. The only time you can neutralize the speaker is when it's done in front of a thousand people."

...

Needed are enough Republicans — 10 or more moderates and conservatives — to join the overwhelming majority of the House's 69 Democrats to deny Craddick the 76 votes he needs for re-election.

Why would Republicans do that? What has Craddick done? Here are some of the things that are cited:

• He failed at what is considered the first job of a speaker: to protect his members. When the state Republican Party ran polls to see how vulnerable some moderate Republicans were, Craddick did nothing to stop it. Then San Antonio billionaire James Leininger spent more than $2.5 million to target five moderate Republicans in the primary because they had voted against school vouchers. Leininger-backed candidates won two of the five races.

Craddick gave lip service to supporting the incumbents, but it is widely believed he could have sent signals that such a bald attack on incumbents was not considered civilized behavior and would make it harder for Leininger to get a hearing next session.

• He pressured members to vote "against their districts" on key issues. One technique: his lieutenants would gather around members who voted wrong and suggest that their button had malfunctioned. Not-so-subtle threats of, among other things, well-funded opposition in the next primary were sometimes conveyed.

Among Republicans who lost to Democrats or more moderate Republicans were Kent Gruesendorf, who chaired the education committee, Houston's Martha Wong, who lost partly because of her votes on children's health insurance, Todd Baxter and Toby Goodman.

"Tom has been one of the best Democratic organizers we've had in a long time," said one Democratic member. He noted that the Republican margin in the House has shrunk by half in the four years since Craddick was elected speaker.

• Craddick's relentless drive in 2003 to champion Tom DeLay's mid-decade congressional redistricting destroyed a long-standing bipartisan culture in the Legislature. Members on both sides of the aisle have talked about a decidedly unpleasant loss of collegiality. "It's not fun anymore," said one member. "It's mean."

The speaker's most recent legal dilemma comes by way of a judge's order that he produce an appointments calendar from his campaign office to determine whether it contains references to state business -- a no-no in Texas.

Neither Governor MoFo nor Lite Gov. Dewface are pals with Craddick. In fact, the only friends he seems to have are corporate lobbyists. Indeed, there are few Speakers that have avoided corruption scandals just in my lifetime (Laney is exceptionally noted, serving at a time when the Texas was going from blue to red and he was forced to work with rabidly partisan conservatives). Gus Mutscher, Bill Clayton, Gib Lewis -- again, the list is lengthy. They seem to get fouled by one-party rule and lengthy terms, though Craddick has gone bad in record time.

I'll be in the gallery in the Capitol on January 9, watching to see if the Republicans can kill the king.