"Ashamed of Texas" roundup

-- How to make winning Republican TV ads in Texas.  If you aren't ashamed of being from Texas after reading and watching this, then you're a TeaBagging GOP primary voter with poor spelling and grammatical skills.  But I repeat myself.

-- Dan Patrick denies that a hand-written letter, produced by the man whom he hired years ago and was undocumented at the time, is written in his hand.  This sordid display of renouncing one's previous compassion (WWJD?) is embarrassing enough for most Texans, but it still probably won't keep Patrick out of the runoff in his race.

Just to review: Dan Patrick is ashamed he once helped an immigrant, while Greg Abbott has no shame about standing with a pants-crapping, draft-dodging, virulently racist and sexist child predator.  And those two will probably be the governor and lt. governor candidates for the Republicans in November.

-- The Texas Observer has a worthy down-ballot aggregate.  It includes Debbie 'Terror Anchor Babies' Riddle, the 'my God can beat up your God' war between Baptists and Methodists in Tarrant County, and US Senate also-ran Chris Mapp, who despite calling the president a SOB and saying that "wetbacks" ought to be shot, can't get any traction in a primary race that includes Steve Stockman.  Oh, and Pete Sessions' Tea Party challenger, Katrina Pierson, is also toast.  It wasn't the Sarah Palin endorsement that finished her off, but the fact that she was once on unemployment.

-- Don Imus has endorsed Kinky Friedman for ag commissioner.  Does more need to be said?  Is that a brainer?

-- Last, the Texas Tribune, essentially the only news organization left covering the Lege and Texas politics, continues to be assaulted by people besides James Moore.  And yes, Evan Smith is a giant schmuck.  Everyone knows this.

The TexTrib is an embarrassment to media, and Evan Smith does blow goats... but they are all Texas has left for political insight, so I suppose I'll try to be a little nicer to them than some others.  Sorry, Evan: after that argument we had on the phone a few years ago about your polling -- you remember? you were banging pots and pans around in the background -- and my blog disappeared from your roll, you lost out on any donations from me.

You seem to be doing OK without them, though.  Good for you.

Hyperventilating over Kesha Rogers

There's a lot of that going on in the the blogosphere and social media this morning as a result of yesterday's poll results.  This is one of those times when the disconnect among the various caucuses in the Texas Democratic Party is painfully on display.

Black people vote for their own, y'all.  How many different ways does it need to be said?  How many times does it have to happen before y'all get it?

There's an extensive network of African American e-mail listservs (locally, D-MARS has one, Carroll Robinson has started another called Texas Politica, there are several others I'm not a member of) and they focus on their community's news.  They talk about the issues that aren't getting talked about anywhere else.  If you aren't on these lists or aren't reading the email you get from them, then you don't know these things.

Kesha Rogers is benefiting from the fact that there are no other African Americans at the top of the Texas ballot (and no, I'm not including Steve Brown at Railroad Commissioner because that's a down-ballot race).  She has by far the highest name recognition among the four US Senate hopefuls.  She has been on the ballot in Fort Bend County a couple of times, was the nominee for the Dems against Pete Olsen in 2010, she ran for chair of the Texas Democratic Party in 2006.  There's been lots of news online about her over the years.

I mean to say lots and lots of news stories about Kesha Rogers over the years, nearly none of it favorable.  What's that someone said about all publicity being good?  This same lack of understanding about what's really going on is also present in the Lloyd Oliver campaign for Harris County district attorney.  There are plenty of people who know why he won the nomination two years ago, and why he's campaigning the same way as he did two years ago.  It seems as if a whole bunch of insider Democratic Caucasians are the ones most confused about this.

Trust me when I say -- as a middle-aged white guy, mind you -- that black Democrats in Texas know exactly who Kesha Rogers is.  And if the TexTrib has properly sampled black Dems (not oversampled them) in their polling... then the results shouldn't be all that surprising to anyone.

You don't have to like it, but there it is.  In black and white.

Update:  Splitting the black caucus from the GLBTQ caucus is something some white folks know how to do.

Not the last word on Nuge

The national media finally caught up with the past week's story over the weekend (and to start the week).  Progress Texas has a good roundup.  But the last word, for now, goes to the DMN's Tod Robberson.

My guess is that Davis will not suffer long-term damage from relatively minor misstatements regarding her background. But Abbott did himself some serious damage by attaching himself to Nugent, a man who cannot seem to control his mouth and has a penchant for making racist and sexist remarks. There is also, of course, his background of affairs with underage girls and his days as a draft dodger during the Vietnam War. It’s beyond me why Abbott would see Ted Nugent as an admirable figure who would be an asset to his campaign.

But since Abbott hasn’t issued a statement of regret, I guess he’s still OK with the decision. Which means he not only demonstrates bad judgment unworthy of a leading gubernatorial candidate but also lacks the perspective of someone who knows when to stop fighting a losing battle. That’s the kind of hubris that just screams for a humiliating defeat.

Abbott's refusal to distance himself from Nugent is a tremendous, enormous mistake; maybe the biggest one he will make during the entire campaign.  Davis must tar and feather him with the child predator's slurs, and she must do so repeatedly, all the way to November.  How effective she is in pasting Ted Nugent to Greg Abbott will all but determine whether her contest is winnable in the fall.  If she lets it fade into the background...

There remains a huge well of free media still to earn (because Nugent keeps running his vile mouth publicly, and will go on doing so), and the continuing narrative helps Davis significantly with moderates and independents (precisely who she needs voting for her in order to win).  Most importantly, the episode cuts right to heart of Abbott's weakest link: his judgment and his character.

Nugent is a gift that is going to keep on giving, and you don't get too many of those in politics.