Obama's in town today, but only for the money

Using Texas as an ATM, the same as John Kerry and Al Gore and Bill Clinton before him. This is precisely the reason why we have been a one-party state for the past fourteen years. Taking money out of Texas and spending it on teevee advertising in Michigan and Ohio and Florida doesn't get a single Democrat elected to the statehouse or the courthouse here.

After conducting a midday public forum on the economy in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Barack Obama will head later today to Houston, whose metropolitan area has more registered voters than all of the Hawkeye State.

But Obama has no scheduled public events in Houston. Instead, he will collect donations for his Democratic presidential campaign and the Democratic Party at two private gatherings.

Of the $287 million raised across the nation by the Obama campaign, only a quarter has come from contributors of at least $2,300, according to the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Federal law puts a $2,300 cap on the amount an individual can give for a primary or general election, for a maximum total of $4,600.

The Houston events fall into the big-money category. They start at $2,300 per person, with amounts above $4,600 going to the party. The receptions take place at the River Oaks home of trial lawyer Richard Mithoff and his philanthropist wife, Ginni, and the Memorial area home of energy company chief John Thrash and his philanthropist wife, Becca Cason Thrash. Top donors at each event will get a chance to have their photographs taken with the Illinois senator.

Whether you have $23 or $2.300 to give a political candidate, we're all much better off if you give it to Rick Noriega or David Mincberg or C. O. Bradford or Diane Trautman, or Sherrie Matula or Kevin Murphy or Joe Montemayor or Larry Hunter, or Chris Bell or Joe Jaworski, or Mike Engelhart or Jim Sharp or Linda Yanez.

Obama is going to have all the money he needs to get elected, believe me.

Update (8/1): At least $1.5 million ...

Barack Obama collected more than $1.5 million in campaign funding Thursday night in two Houston neighborhoods built by oil and natural gas profits while telling his audiences that America needs to liberate itself from those fuels.

... Standing on a platform just above the water level of a lighted indoor pool at a Memorial home, Obama said the nation needs to develop wind and solar energy and other alternative sources. He spoke to about 55 paying guests at candlelit, round dinner tables under skylights in the 18,000-square-foot home of John Thrash, chief of a natural gas infrastructure company, and wife Becca Cason Thrash.

...

On Thursday morning in Iowa, Obama told a public audience that amid record-high oil profits, Republican opponent John McCain's proposal to lower corporate taxes is wrong and that the Republican Party is bereft of ideas that would help steer the nation to long-term energy independence.

At his other closed-door stop in Houston, the River Oaks home of trial lawyer Richard Mithoff and wife Ginni, Obama vaguely outlined a desire to work with both major parties to fashion short-term oil and gas usage policies. ...

Mithoff ... said the event had raised $1.5 million for Obama's campaign and the Democratic Party. Donations started at $2,300 per person and the total raised at the Thrash home was unknown.

The River Oaks audience was a multiethnic blend of lawyers, politicians, business people and others.

I removed some of Alan Bernstein's more egregious sneering. Click over for the full Republican effect.

Person Linda Yanez

Right click for SmartMenu shortcuts

Four hundred and eighty two billion.

And that's after he inherited a $286 billion surplus:

The government's budget deficit will surge past a half-trillion dollars next year, according to gloomy new estimates, a record flood of red ink that promises to force the winner of the presidential race to dramatically alter his economic agenda.

The deficit will hit $482 billion in the 2009 budget year that will be inherited by Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain, the White House estimated Monday. That figure is sure to rise after adding the tens of billions of dollars in additional Iraq war funding it doesn't include, and the total could be higher yet if the economy fails to recover as the administration predicts.

Iraq and Afghanistan war budgets are supplementals, and the deficit calculation includes an estimate of tax revenues based on an economic model that forecasts more growth (and thus more tax revenue) than is likely. But the truth-telling is buried at the end of the article. I'll emphasize it in bold:

Monday's figures capped a remarkable deterioration in the United States' budgetary health under Bush's time in office.

He inherited a budget seen as producing endless huge surpluses after four straight years in positive territory. That stretch of surpluses represented a period when the country's finances had been bolstered by a 10-year period of uninterrupted economic growth, the longest expansion in U.S. history.

In his first year in office, helped by projections of continuing surpluses, Bush drove through a 10-year, $1.35 trillion package of tax cuts.

However, faulty estimates, a recession in March 2001 and government spending to fight the war on terrorism contributed to pushing the deficit to a record in dollar terms in 2004.

The guy had a track record of running companies into the ground. We shouldn't be surprised.

But beyond the mismanagement of our national security (endless wars in the Middle East are not making us safer), of the country's treasury, and the curtailment of civil rights at home and abroad (torture, holding prisoners without due process, wiretapping Americans without just cause) there's several things much more grave about the Bush legacy. Let's consider just one ...

The economic dismantling of the middle class -- not just the lack of decent jobs at decent wages with decent health and retirement benefits, but people losing their homes, unable to afford gas to get to work, dying for lack of affordable health care -- is the sort of thing that revolutions in the past were begun over.

It's really looking more and more like the United States needs a little of the "blood of patriots and tyrants to fertilize the tree of liberty", to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson.

Veep speculation

Monica Langley at the WSJ:

Before leaving on his overseas trip, Sen. Barack Obama reviewed information on several prospects and narrowed the field. His focus now includes five colleagues in the U.S. Senate -- Joseph Biden, Evan Bayh, Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton and Jack Reed -- and two governors, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, according to Democratic operatives, though he could still make a different pick.

On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain also is understood to be narrowing his list, with speculation focused on about the same number of choices. They include ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a rival during the Republican primaries; Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, with whom he has a strong friendship; and former Rep. Rob Portman of the battleground state of Ohio. Republicans also are touting Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, and campaign adviser Carly Fiorina, ex-CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co., among others.

Booman, on those names:

I would be very pleased with the selection of Sebelius, Dodd, or Reed. I'd be okay with the selection of Kaine. Biden, Bayh, or Clinton I would consider poor choices. Bayh and Clinton would be personally demoralizing.

On the Republican side, I'll be brief. ... None of these picks particularly frighten me. John Thune is probably the safest choice, but I can't see him fundamentally changing the game. Fiorina is untested as a campaigner and her qualifications are dubious. Romney would be a disaster. Crist has to overcome rumors about his sexuality. And Pawlenty just doesn't carry much juice.

I think it will be Biden for Obama (and I will be happy with that, agreeing with Booman otherwise even though I would love it if it were Dodd or Richardson, who is getting no buzz whatsoever) and Portman for McCain, although the WSJ article really makes it sound like McCain is being talked into Romney. poblano says:

If Bob Novak is circulating internal polls showing Mitt Romney helping John McCain in Michigan, you can be pretty sure that the Republican establishment is behind the idea of making Romney McCain's VP. It's easy enough to understand why. Romney has been a good team player: an excellent fundraiser and a tireless campaigner. He is unlikely to embarrass either himself or the ticket. And he could potentially be an asset in several states, among them Michigan, New Hampshire and Nevada.

But Romney also comes with several liabilities which, when combined with his strengths, would tend to produce a very interesting electoral map.

Go read it; it's cogent (as always). grantcart points out the similarities between Obama and Tim Kaine, concluding with his belief that the Virginia governor will be the one.

Who do you think will be the second bananas? Post a comment.

The Weekly Wrangle

Here are the TPA Round-Up blog highlights for the week of July 28:

TXsharon challenges you to view these pictures of domestic drilling Armageddon in the Barnett Shale and still support the Drill and Burn domestic drilling agenda.

U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez' Republican challenger for the 23rd Congressional seat is taken to task by Mike Thomas of Rhetoric & Rhythm for shirking his responsibility on a critical hospital expansion vote before the Bexar County Commissioner's Court.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the GOP's "latest" energy plan in Carter, Oil, & Hair Of The Dog.

Neil at Texas Liberal asks what would be the impact if polar bears could vote.

Off the Kuff looks at a Texas Monthly overview of the effects of the presidential race on downballot elections in Texas and offers his criticism of it.

Guest columnist JR Behrman at Texas Kaos has a few strong words about Energy Policy: Democrats Routed. He also has a Texas plan.

Julie Pippert of MOMocrats asks the Obama campaign to explain its absence in Texas after they announced the roll-out of their Spanish language ads as an outreach to Hispanic voters, then discusses a Senate proposal that would require 50% of US cars to have a flexible fuel system by 2012, and finally the MOMocrats share the draft of their position paper to be submitted to the Democratic National Committee for inclusion in the party platform.

McBlogger had a great time at the subprime panel at Netroots Nation. So good in fact that he decided to offer some of his own solutions since the panelists, including the dimwitted Rep. Brad Miller, decided to offer nothing of substance.

XicanoPwr reports on the latest poll by the Pew Hispanic Center on the Latino vote. Polling shows that 66% of Latino registered voters will support Obama.

Burnt Orange Report points out that commissioner of agriculture Todd Staples finally comes around to what Democrat (and future Ag Commissioner) Hank Gilbert has been saying all along: Texans are being overcharged at the gas pump due to lack of state inspections.

BossKitty at TruthHugger dreams about the "Count Down To Accountability - Bush, Cheney Indictments".

refinish69 from Doing My Part For The Left invites everyone to meet Annette Taddeo -- A true progressive Democrat.

jobsanger writes about how, after years of the Bush presidency, even our closest traditional ally gives the US no credibility in Brits Don't Trust Bush On Torture.

Obama and the down-ballot races in Texas are the focus of two articles by R.G. Ratcliffe of the Houston Chronicle. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs summarizes, and finds some to agree with and some not.

Mean Rachel writes an open letter to Rep. Elliot Naishtat, encouraging him to consider joining the technology age and starting an inexpensive, user-friendly website, designed specifically for state legislators, with Wired for Change's DLCCWeb, a Netroots exhibitor.

nytexan at BlueBloggin keeps an eye on Mitch McConnell, the GOP king of distortion and extortion. McConnell plans to block legislation that can impact Americans now and push for a bill whose product will not be seen for 10 years in McConnell Extorts Senate For Off Shore Drilling. McConnell never fails to please Bush and his corporate buddies.

WhosPlayin looks at a new USGS petroleum estimate for the Arctic Circle, and notes that only a small portion of ANWR is estimated to be productive, and that the study doesn't address economic feasibility.

Vince from Capitol Annex tells us that, while indicted former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Sugar Land) won't accept a presidential pardon, he'd love one from Texas Governor Rick Perry.

CouldBeTrue from South Texas Chisme gets upset with a crappy newspaper article.