The kinder, gentler Kay Bailey (with Karl Rove's help)

With the announcement of the forming of her gubernatorial exploratory committee this week, Kay Bailey Hutchison throws down the gauntlet at the feet of incumbent Republican Rick Perry, and the Clash of the Cheerleaders is engaged.

The governor's office promptly responded with a new nickname for the senator: "Kay Bailout".

And in her press release was revealed the positioning that the senator is going to be using against her Aggie rival:

"There's too much bitterness, too much anger, too little trust, too little consensus and too much infighting. And the tone comes from the top. Texans are looking for leadership and results."

And with the news that Karl Rove is quietly advising the Hutchison campaign, we can expect to see a lot of matronly outreach to the moderate middling factions of the Texas electorate.

Rove -- a man who wants to rehabilitate both the Republican brand as well as his own hard-earned reputation as a miserable scumbag -- believes that the GOP is losing, among the many other reasons, because of the "bitterness" and "anger" demonstrated by its base toward Hispanics. He knows that Republicans need to recapture women's votes and those of the squishy center and is likely prepared to sacrifice some of the frothing base to do so. That means, if she takes his advice, that Kay is going to have to straddle a fine line; she'll have to throw a little red meat with her right hand while she extends the other kidgloved one to the left. She has to attack Perry on matters of competence and temperance without abandoning the rabid Texas conservative wedge issues of illegal immigration, voter ID and lower property taxes.

(Yes, those are all wedge issues, Matt. The majority of the Texas electorate isn't as riled up about Ill Eagles and the rest as those who vote in the GOP primary.)

Anyway, while they talk amongst themselves about which way they will go, the drama is going to play out in the fight between Perry and Hutchison for the GOP nomination for governor. Winner take all -- including a future chance at the presidency in 2016, without a doubt.

If Perry can summon enough outrage at Washington and "liberals" -- a direction that has never failed the Republican Party of Texas for the last generation -- then he might be able to pull off the upset in the primary. Yes, the incumbent governor is most certainly the underdog against Hutchison. The senator, for her part, is going to try a little Barack Obama Lite to defeat him. Naturally that's a strategy contingent on the continuing popularity of the president-elect over the next two years.

But assuming Hutchison wins and faces off against Bill White for the newly-rebuilt governor's mansion in 2010, it will be hard to find any differences between the two parties' standard-bearers. Which to me would suggest a third or even fourth option on the ballot, as in 2006.

"If 'ifs and 'buts' were candy and nuts, we'd all have a Merry Christmas." It seems possible that we could have Christmas every day for the next year. Frankly, that diet makes me a little nauseous.

Dickens returns to a recovering Galveston

This weekend's Dickens on The Strand is Galveston's first major event since Hurricane Ike struck in September, and could indicate how quickly this island city can revive its vital tourism industry.

The 35th year of the festival, which recreates the 19th century with period costumes, also is an attempt by Galveston businesses to let the outside world know that most of its restaurants and hotels and many of its attractions are up and running.

We're going down for the day. I've posted about our prior trips here. There's a Chris Bell event in Galveston County at lunchtime on Saturday, and then we'll spend a few hours at one of the best street festivals in Texas before returning to Houston.

Despite the strain, all 130 vendors and booths will return along with 50 entertainment groups, said Dwayne Jones, foundation executive director.

The storm cost the foundation about $6 million in damage to its historic properties and lost revenues, Jones said, forcing it to cut in half its usual budget of $150,000 to $200,000 for Dickens on The Strand.

The foundation also had to lay off 40 of its 70-member staff and lost much of its Dickens equipment to the storm surge, he said. ...

Storm water fouled the 500 lamps that are normally scattered throughout the festival area at night, forcing the event to close three hours earlier than normal Saturday, Jones said.

Dickens on The Strand will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, he said.

The event is usually within a 10-block area between 20th Street and 25th Street on The Strand and Mechanic Street, but this year it will be limited to The Strand, Jones said.

The Galveston Historic District was inundated by more than 10 feet of sea water that left floors caked with slimy mud and store interiors in shambles.

The Festival of Lights at Moody Gardens is up and running, though also smaller:

Hurricane damage forced Moody Gardens to alter and slightly shorten the path of lights and reduce the number of exhibits from 100 to about 75, said Moody Gardens spokeswoman Jerri Hamachek.

The Festival of Lights is open Thursday through Saturday through Dec. 17 and nightly Dec. 18-31. Tickets have been reduced $2 to $3.95, she said.

Jones is expecting about half as many visitors to Dickens on The Strand this year because of the ailing national economy and the perception that nothing is open in Galveston because of the storm. Online ticket sales are less than half of last year's tally, but most of the proceeds are from gate sales anyway, he said. About 32,000 tickets were sold last year.

Gaskins said Galveston hotels were nearly full and only about 50 rooms were left on the entire island as of Thursday because of bookings for Dickens on The Strand and company Christmas parties.

Hamachek said the Festival of Lights drew about 5,000 visitors Thanksgiving weekend, about half as many as last year, but described it as a good showing considering the storm and the economy.

Several companies donated services, such as portable bathrooms, and 15 of the 17 entertainers have agreed to forgo their usual fee, Jones said.

There would be no better way to give Galveston a hand up than to pay them a visit this weekend (and drop a little coin).

The Boogie Man Rag

Dunbar's latest

"Even if you question the accuracy of my constitutional interpretation as proof of the inappropriateness of a state-created, tax-payer supported school system, still the Scriptures bear witness to such an institution’s lack of proper authority in the life of the Christian family."

That's State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar, from page 102 of her book One Nation Under God. Want more from this Jesus freak?

Dunbar (on p. 100) calls public education a “subtly deceptive tool of perversion.” She charges that the establishment of public schools is unconstitutional and even “tyrannical” because it threatens the authority of families, granted by God through Scripture, to direct the instruction of their children (p. 103). Dunbar, who has home-schooled her children and sent them to private schools, bases that charge on her belief that “the underlying authority for our constitutional form of government stems directly from biblical precedents.” (p. xv)

I know. You gotta have more...

“This battle for our nation’s children and who will control their education and training is crucial to our success for reclaiming our nation,” Dunbar writes (p. 100), after earlier condemning what she calls a secular society that resembles Nazi Germany just before the Holocaust. Those at risk today are “the devout, Bible-believing Christians,” she writes (p. 2).

Dunbar argues that the Founders created “an emphatically Christian government” (p. 18) and believed government should be guided by a “biblical litmus test.” (p. 47) She also endorses a “belief system” that would “require that any person desiring to govern have a sincere knowledge and appreciation for the Word of God in order to rightly govern.” (p. 17)

Dunbar sees public schools as a threat to that belief system: “Our children are, after all, our best and greatest assets, and we are throwing them into the enemy’s flames even as the children of Israel threw their children to Moloch.” (p. 101)

How is that a person can help govern a public education system she loathes? Because she intends -- sort of like Grover Norquist drowning government in a bathtub -- to destroy it.

Dunbar sits on the state board’s Committee on Instruction, which guides the SBOE’s policies on curriculum and textbook adoptions. Earlier this year Dunbar used her position on that committee to win approval for vague guidelines that some public schools have used to offer deeply flawed and blatantly sectarian Bible classes. Even worse, she then joined three other board members in endorsing a constitutionally suspect Bible course curriculum that Odessa public schools had been forced to remove from classrooms after being sued by local parents.

The SBOE is currently debating a revision of science curriculum standards for the state’s public schools. Dunbar is part of a bloc of creationists who want public schools to teach students that evolution is not established, mainstream science.

Texas Freedom Network today called for Dunbar to be removed from the Committee on Instruction. It can't happen fast enough.