NOW I'm a believer

When they can beat Pedro Martinez on the strength of the mighty bats of Brad Ausmus and Adam Everett, then I think the Astros might have sump'm goin' on.

20-6 in the month of July (and three of those L's came at the hands of the division-leading St. Louis Cardinals fresh off the All-Star break).

Saturday night we'll go club-leveling to see Andy Pettitte square off against Tom Glavine. One of my guests is a big Mets fan. She has reminded me twice since I acquired tickets to this game about 1986.

I might not even boo Beltran too badly if the score is not close in the late innings.

"Fight 'em 'til Hell freezes over, and then fight 'em on the ice": Paul Hackett and David Van Os

One of my fellow H-Town bloggers started an online firestorm earlier this week when he suggested that there was no race in the state, or the nation for that matter, that Democrats should let go uncontested. As proof of committing this strategy to action, I give you the following:

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Paul Hackett is a Democrat, Marine, and Iraq War veteran running for Ohio's 2nd congressional district seat (vacated by newly appointed trade representative Rob Portman, who helped DeLay and Cheney twist enough arms to put CAFTA over the top last night), against Republican Jean Schmidt in next Tuesday's special election.

Hackett thinks Bush is a chickenhawk.

Schmidt has raised and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, Bush is making recorded phone calls into the district on her behalf, she is flying on private jets to DC to raise more money, and all of the rest of the typical full-court press is being applied by the GOP to hold on to a district that has gone at least 70% Republican for the last twenty years (28% for the Democrats in 2004).

Why? Because despite all that, polls show Hackett within the margin of error.

Oh yeah, the Republicans are also attempting to Swift-Boat him.

Join me, and these other Texas bloggers, one of whom has appointed Hackett an Honorary Texan, by doing what you can to support his candidacy in these few days before the special election next week.

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David Van Os, a former general counsel of the Texas AFL-CIO, is the Democratic candidate for Texas Attorney General. He received the President’s Citation for Achievement in Civil Rights from the NAACP in 1990, and he went to Florida in 2000 to assist the Democratic Party in that state's infamous vote recount efforts. In private practice as a labor law attorney since 1984, Van Os also advised retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, he of the CBS-Dan Rather/Dubya-TANG memo fame, during that affair.

This past week, Van Os named prominent civil rights activist Rev. Peter Johnson his campaign manager and traveled to Cass County, Texas, where a hearing was held by the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference regarding the circumstances of the assault of Billy Ray Johnson, a mildly retarded African-American man who was beaten badly by four white men and left for dead atop a fire ant mound. The FBI and local law enforcement officials investigated the case and came to the conclusion that what happened to Johnson was a crime based on his mental incapacity, not his race; thus no state or federal hate crimes or civil rights charges were lodged. The men charged and tried -- one of whom was working as a guard for the Cass county jail at the time -- received deferred adjudication, probation, and brief jail sentences of 30 to 60 days. (Two other recent deaths of African-Americans, one from hanging and one from a rifle blast, were ruled suicides by local authorities under suspicious circumstances. Chillingly, empty nooses have been found hanging from tree branches in apparent warnings. These reports have enjoyed a low profile in local media; it took a story in the Chicago Tribune to elevate the Johnson case to semi-public attention.)

In 1998 Van Os ran for the Texas Supreme Court against then-Justice (now incumbent Attorney General) Greg Abbott and was defeated. In 2004 he ran again for the Texas Supreme Court against now-chief justice Scott Brister and lost 58% to 41% (Bush defeated John Kerry in Texas by a count of 60-38).

In short, Van Os knows first-hand about David vs. Goliath matchups. He has won a few battles and lost a few, but he has always fought on the side of the little guy against the big-moneyed corporate and special interests, the ones who currently hold the Texas Supreme Court and the Legislature in a hammerlock. He is a progressive populist in the grand tradition of Texas liberals like Ralph Yarbrough and Oscar Mauzy. Here's a sample from one of his recent speeches:

It is time to discard the "avoid polarization at all costs" strategy, the "take no risks" strategy, the "appeal to everybody" strategy, and the "chase the middle" strategy. It is time to remember what Jim Hightower told us 20 years ago: "there's nothin' in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos." It is time to cease the followership strategies of scripting campaigns on the basis of what pollsters say people thought yesterday, and assert the leadership strategies of campaigning for what we know to be right based on our deepest convictions of what we want for tomorrow. It is time to stop worrying about whom we might offend if we speak truth to power, and start worrying about what value are our lives if we don't speak truth to power. It is time to cherish partisan Democrats and reject nonpartisan Nothingcrats. It is time to forget "right-left" analysis and install "right-wrong" analysis. It is time to replace the "liberal-conservative" spectrum with the "liberty-tyranny" spectrum. It is time to stop worrying about how to get money from big donors and start worrying about how to get more money into working people's paychecks. It is time to fight for better lives for voters instead of peddling promises to voters. It is time to treat public office as a duty, not a promotion. We must fight for the people, not in order to win their votes, but in order to win them justice.

Van Os considers it a successful fundraiser when a group of forty club Democrats in Houston pass the hat and get enough to pay his traveling expenses from San Antonio.

Do what you can for him.

(In the interests of full disclosure, I will be serving on the steering committee of Van Os' campaign.)

Chris Bell is in

In an e-mail delivered just now to my inbox (emphasis mine):

Over the past half year, I have traveled all over Texas, literally exploring the race for governor. You have indulged me in this process as I sought the answers to some important questions, some personal (and Alison's doing better every day, thanks) and some of them public: Can a Texas Democrat win? Are Texas Democrats ready to try something different? Do people see what is happening in Texas the same way that I do?

Well, I have my answers, and today I am proud to share the news that I've decided to run for governor.

If you ever want people to question your sanity, explore running for statewide office as a Democrat in Texas. When this started, I had no clue as to how people might respond. I have not been that nervous about getting on the phone since running for Houston City Council the first time. Everyone agreed that it would be a tough road for any Democrat but, interestingly, the overwhelming majority of people with whom I spoke could also see that Rick Perry is creating a huge opportunity for a Democrat. They also agreed it wasn't enough for me to be right about Rick Perry being wrong; it would take a positive message that could unite all Texans.

As I've traveled the state, I've been talking about the "New Mainstream," the disaffected majority of Texans who know that Rick Perry couldn't lead a silent prayer. I've been talking about how budgets are moral documents that have both a fiscal impact as well as a human cost. And, as a public school parent, I've learned that parents and teachers across Texas share my frustrations with Enron-style accountability that encourages dropouts and systematic fraud by teaching our kids nothing as much as how to take yet another standardized test.

The best part of the exploration phase has been watching as people came out of their seats to cheer. Some memories have really stuck with me: the young college student who approached me in Brazos County, with tears in her eyes, telling me how inspired she was by what I had said; the pastor in Mount Pleasant who told me he would be with me all the way; the County Chair in Lubbock starting the chant, "Run Chris, run!" I won't pretend that people were responding to me so much as to hearing someone talk about the world the way it is, and not just the way it polls.

The one remaining question was whether my wife, Alison, would be up for the fight. I am happy to tell you that the prognosis after chemotherapy is as good as it can get. Ali has been my rock ever since we've been together, and there's no way I would embark on something as challenging as a race for governor without her feeling up to it. As everyone knows, she's every bit the fighter I am, and she feels strong enough to join me in this battle.

We're launching our campaign for governor on Sunday afternoon, August 14th, at 2PM in Austin, and Alison and I want you to join us there. If you would like to help organize participants from your city, please let us know. For more
information about the launch rally, visit our website:

http://www.chrisbell.com/launch

We are going in with eyes wide open, aware not only of the odds but also of the possibilities to achieve great things for Texas. I look forward to seeing you in Austin and thank you from the bottom of my heart for your friendship and support.

Sincerely, Chris Bell
http://www.chrisbell.com/

P.S. Ironically, as I was writing this letter, I received a "thought for today" e-mail from a friend. It was a quote from Anatole France that says, "To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe." I couldn't have said it better myself. I dream of a better state and believe we can build it together.

The Texas GOP came unraveled yesterday

I don't post about the goings-on of the Texas Legislature very often, because so many others do such a good job, but this diary from Glenn Smith of Drive Democracy.org is particularly cogent in its assessment of the fifth failure in four years of the all-Republican leadership to come up with a plan to finance public education:

The GOP majority in the Texas House of Representatives today fell apart, its party discipline destroyed by the stink of corruption that permeates the Bush era in Texas and across the country.

If Texas had icebergs, this would be the tip of one. I'm not talking about Karl Rove's adulterous behavior.

I'm talking about the stinging defeat suffered by the Texas GOP on the floor of the state House today. GOP leadership, helped to election by illegal corporate contributions, watched helplessly as the Democratic minority and a few frightened Republicans voted down bills that 1) raised taxes on the middle class; 2) Cut taxes for Big Insurance and other special interests involved in the scandal; 3) Stiffed school children and teachers under the guise of education reform.

This is no small matter. It should be pointed out that in the early 1970s, a political scandal called Sharpstown surfaced just ahead of a national political scandal called Watergate. By 1976, Jimmy Carter could carry Texas.

The talking points are simple: Texas Republicans are trying to raise taxes on middle class Texans and devastate public education so they can do what they were ordered to do when they accepted the illegal bribes: cut taxes for the people who paid the bribes.

Several corporations have been indicted. So have some staffers who were allegedly involved in the scheme. Tom DeLay, who lives off his aura of power, says he was powerless over a scheme that invoved his committee and its money and its contributers and that advanced his Congressional redistricting scheme. A grand jury, holding all the cards, is still meeting.

Corruption is bad enough. But when corruption is tied to taxes, education and other close-to-home issues, there's going to be trouble.

That's why some Republicans are rebelling. That's why Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick, always in over his head with this job, might be losing his head and his job. He's asked his Republican members to cast dozens of career-threatening votes just so he can tell his Bosses at Big Insurance that he was a good little boy who did what he was told.

All of the MSM -- the Texas newspapers and broadcast affiliates -- are far less revealing about this collapse of leadership, and what it means for Texas children.

I wouldn't expect them to catch up to the story, either.

Rove is about to get some of his own medicine

Via Daily Kos, from Radar Online:

For years, political insiders in the Lone Star State have whispered about Rove’s close friendship with lobbyist Karen Johnson, a never-married, forty-something GOP loyalist from Austin, Texas. The two first became close when Johnson sat on the board of then-Governor George W. Bush’s Business Council over a decade ago. Their friendship reportedly deepened after Bush appointed Johnson—a little-known spokesperson for the Texas Good Roads Association—to a seat on his Transportation Department transition team in 2000. The plum appointment enabled Johnson’s lobbying firm, Infrastructure Solutions, to snare such high-paying clients as Aetna and the City of Laredo. Sources say Johnson now frequently travels between Washington D.C. and Austin, where she frequently appears at Rove’s side at parties and unofficial functions.

Although there is no evidence that their relationship is anything but professional, the close association between the married White House aide and the comely lobbyist has long raised eyebrows in conservative Texas circles. Asked about the pair, a prominent political journalist who has written extensively about Rove says, “I’ve heard the stories, but I would never write about Karl and Karen. If you want to keep your job as a reporter in Texas, you make believe you don’t see them together.”

In the post-Lewinsky era, Washington’s press corps has mostly avoided reporting on the private lives of public officials. But as the political climate in the capitol grows more poisonous, Rove’s close friendship with the lobbyist has attracted increased scrutiny from opponents eager to prove that Bush’s dirty trickster is sitting on some dirty laundry of his own.

And kos adds:

In a fortuitious coincidence, Jerome and I have just finished interviewing a long-time Texas political writer here in Austin who says that Rove is absolutely having an affair with Karen. Rove is married and has a teenaged son. According to this writer, Rove's wife is a hardcore liberal. "I don't know how he and his wife get along," he said.

Well, quite obviously, they do not.

In a more discreet political era -- say, just a few short years ago -- I might have said that a politician's personal private life is none of our business.

But, as we are constantly reminded, 9/11 changed everything.

Meet Texas' newest precinct chair

Well, maybe not the newest, but one of them, as I accepted the appointment yesterday.

In order to maintain a tiny shred of anonymity, I won't identify it by number, but if you've been reading here and elsewhere I post for any length of time you can figure out a lot; I will tell you that my precinct flips conventional wisdom about the city I call home on its head. In fact it is even more liberal than I suspected -- in 2004 it went more than 60% for John Kerry.

And there's plenty of room to improve upon those numbers.

Heh.