(Kinky's campaign consultant Colin) Strother says while Friedman did consider the land commissioner post, he felt the agriculture commissioner job was "the best fit". Friedman spent the past week getting advice from his friend, former Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower."I've got a pretty detailed plan of action that we'll be rolling out later in the week," Friedman said. "From forming a statewide public defenders' office and setting a goal of at least one animal rescue facility in each county, to restoring our depleted woodlands and promoting a greater role for local producers in school cafeterias, we're going to shake things up and show folks what the office can be if you have someone there who actually cares about the job."
"He's really energetic and excited about it," said Strother. "[He's excited about] the great diversity of things it can do for rural Texas - from economic development, to land and soil conservation... The first thing he wants to do is get an animal rescue facility in every county in Texas. Biofuels and animal rescue were the clinchers."
Friedman says he'll officially file on Tuesday...
Friedman said he (had) discussed running for Texas Agriculture Commissioner with former commissioner Jim Hightower, singer Willie Nelson and Bill White.
“What I learned is that as agriculture commissioner there was almost nothing I couldn’t do that I couldn’t do as governor,” Friedman said.
“Since exploring a race for governor, Kinky has had a cigar promotion tour, a book promotion tour and a documentary released about his last run all in an attempt to promote his publishing and business interests. He doesn’t care about running for office for the sake of helping people. He’s looking for the best and most cost-efficient way of building name recognition to sell his products and himself. He’s figured out that an entertainer running for office can generate earned media to help boost his book sales and sell tickets to his shows,” he continued.
“Texas needs bold, common-sense leadership at the Texas Department of Agriculture in order to address the many issues facing consumers, family farms, food producers, and the other industries regulated by the agency. All of these issues directly effect the citizens of this state on a daily basis. People don’t need someone more concerned about self-promotion than selfless public service,” Gilbert said.
The federal government today overturned the Army's decision to shift billions of dollars in combat truck production from Texas to Wisconsin after 17 years, raising hopes that as many 10,000 jobs can be saved at the BAE Systems plant in Sealy and surrounding suppliers.
The decision by the contract appeal division of Congress' watchdog Government Accountability Office set aside the Army's decision last August to hand the potential $2.6 billion five year contract to Oshkosh Corp., a 92-year-old firm in Wisconsin that bid roughly 10 percent below the bid submitted by BAE Systems.
Michael R. Golden, GAO's managing associate general counsel for procurement law, announced that his agency had “sustained or upheld the protests” lodged by BAE Systems and Navistar, rivals for the contract that had been awarded to Oshkosh Corp. “The Army's evaluation (of the contract proposals) was flawed with regard to the evaluation of Oshkosh's proposal.”Golden said GAO recommended that the Army “make a new selection decision.”
The official added: “We also recommended that if at the conclusion of the re-evaluation Oshkosh is not found to offer the best value, the agency should terminate Oshkosh's contract for the convenience of the government.”
The Sealy-based subsidiary of British-owned BAE Systems had been hoping the GAO would reopen the contract for a second round of competitive bidding after Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Corp., won the first phase of a projected $2.6 billion deal to produce 23,000 trucks and trailers over the next five years.Oshkosh bid roughly 10 percent below the BAE Systems' subsidiary, helping the 92-year-old northern truck manufacturer to win an initial contract to produce 2,568 trucks for $281 million.
...
The Army decision to shift combat truck construction from Texas to Wisconsin was a huge blow to BAE Systems and Texas alike, after the Sealy-based operation produced more than 50,000 2.5-ton and 5-ton utility trucks for the Army for the last 17 years. Company and local officials say as many as 10,000 direct and indirect jobs could be at risk in and around Sealy if the Army were permitted to stick with the decision announced last August to move the contract to Wisconsin starting next October.
DeMint, who is positioning himself for a presidential run, has a PAC, the Senate Conservatives Fund, which will give Williams the maximum $10,000 and bundle more money for his race. "Michael Williams is the Democrat Party's worst nightmare," said DeMint.
This is a good example of how sometimes in campaigns you can try to fix a bad situation, and instead end up making it worse. Rick – for obvious reasons – didn’t want the Hutchison campaign to get video of him walking into a controversial fundraiser. But by blocking the Kay videographer’s camera, the Perry campaign provided Hutchison’s people with an even more interesting video of Rick entering the event. That, in turn, led to posts about the fundraiser in the Austin American-Statesman, The Dallas Morning News and The Texas Tribune, who probably wouldn’t have picked up the story otherwise.
“Tonight the voters of Houston have opened the doors to history,” she said. “I acknowledge that. I embrace that. I know what this win means to many of us who thought we could never achieve high office. I know what it means. I understand, because I feel it, too. But now, from this moment, let us join as one community. We are united in one goal in making this city the city that it can be, should be, might be, will be.”
Here's the bottom line, or maybe the punch line:
In Houston, it is now harder for a lawyer to be elected mayor than a lesbian.
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He was anointed as the business establishment's candidate by old-time leaders such as Ned Holmes (Locke's finance chairman) and former Mayor Bob Lanier, who effectively discouraged conservatives such as Metro critic Bill King from making the race.Their analysis of Locke's route to victory, however, turned out to be fundamentally flawed.
...His backers had nothing against Parker but did not believe she could overcome the lesbian label.
They believed Locke could win by combining the black vote with a substantial portion of Republicans who would vote against Parker because of her sexual orientation.
That turned out to be wrong. For one thing, as the low turnout indicates, neither candidate had the star power to boost voter participation.
More important for Locke, his appeals to Republicans, particularly as a law-and-order candidate, didn't stick, and the anti-lesbian vote turned out to be smaller than expected.
Greg Wythe, a bright political analyst and blogger (www.gregsopinion.com) who has joined Mayor Bill White's gubernatorial campaign, did a precinct-by-precinct analysis of the first-round of votes.
It showed Parker coming in first or second in such Republican areas as the West Side, Kingwood and Friendswood.
Locke came in a poor fourth in those areas.
I believe it was Locke's performance in those areas that led his finance team members to take the desperate step of aligning the campaign with gay-bashing Steve Hotze — thereby pushing undecided white liberals and moderates into Parker's well-run campaign without turning out enough anti-gay votes to win.
Throughout the campaign, Ms. Parker tried to avoid making an issue of her sexual orientation and emphasized her experience in overseeing the city’s finances. But she began her career as an advocate for gay rights in the 1980s, and it was lost on no one in Houston, a city of 2.2 million people, that her election marked a milestone for gay men and lesbians around the country.Several smaller cities in other regions have chosen openly gay mayors, among them Providence, R.I., Portland, Ore., and Cambridge, Mass. But Ms. Parker’s success came in a conservative state where voters have outlawed gay marriage and a city where a referendum on granting benefits to same-sex partners of city employees was soundly defeated.
The Houston Chronicle is calling the mayoral election for City Controller Annise Parker.With 89 percent of precincts counted, Parker holds a lead of nearly 8,000 voters, a divide that former City Attorney Gene Locke cannot make up with the relatively small pool of voters expected to be counted in the remainder of the night.
Parker's election-day advantage has reached nearly 11 points.
With 652 of 738 precincts reporting in Harris County and 100 percent in Fort Bend County (slightly less than half of the total), Parker leads former City Attorney Gene Locke by about three points with 52.7 percent to his 47.3 percent. About 7,000 votes separate them out of more than 145,000.
The public health insurance option died on Thursday, December 10, 2009, after a months-long struggle with Senate parliamentary procedure. The time of death was recorded as 11:12 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Its death had been rumored numerous times over the past year, but the public option repeatedly and defiantly battled back. The Senate's insistence on 60 votes, combined with President Obama's decision not to intervene on its behalf, eventually proved overwhelming.
The public option leaves behind a Medicare buy-in for people aged 55-64, an expansion of Medicaid, a quasi-public option for those under 300 percent of the poverty line and a collection of national private plans managed by the Office of Personnel Management.
But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pulled the final plug in a press briefing with reporters Thursday.
She had often said in the past that a health care bill without a public option simply wouldn't have the votes to pass the House. She was asked about that claim Thursday, in relation to the Senate compromise, and pointedly told reporters that any bill could pass as long as it met certain broad goals.
How to choose a Bum Steer of the Year in such a bummer of a year? We thought we had an answer in February, when U.S. marshals raided the Houston headquarters of Stanford Financial, the house-of-cards money-management firm of the knight from Mexia, Sir Allen Stanford. He spent two days holed up at a girlfriend’s house while we rubbed our hands together ... Ridiculous as his “outside wives,” gold helicopter, and fake British snobbery were, Stanford turned out to be more villain than clown. The sins were too serious. The victims too aggrieved. He didn’t make you want to laugh; he made you want to punch him in the face.
But not to worry. The year was young. Another candidate would come along. Sure enough, on tax day, with tea partiers making merry all around him, Governor Rick Perry obliged, hinting strongly—though erroneously—that if the federal government didn’t watch out, the State of Texas might just have to see about seceding from the union. Visions of the governor storming Washington immediately began to dance before our eyes. There would be pitchforks! There would be torches! Someone would be riding a mule! But this one wouldn’t stay funny either. Next thing we knew, Perry was tied up in a controversy about the possible execution of an innocent man. Not a lot of yuks there. Then he was proclaiming that the president was “hell-bent toward taking America towards a socialist country.” It didn’t make you want to laugh; it made you want to cry.
Meanwhile, a dark horse had entered the race. On September 21, before a television audience of 17.5 million viewers, former House majority leader Tom DeLay pranced into our plans as a contestant on season nine of Dancing With the Stars. Unlike our previous contenders, the Hammer got off to a slow start. The fact that he had made a calculated decision to appear on ABC’s hit reality show, weighing the probable humiliation against the probable goodwill it would generate, initially hindered his candidacy.
Needless to say, any doubts we had were completely obliterated by the first close-up shot of the DeLay buttocks awkwardly shaking from side to side like two elderly lap dogs fighting under a blanket. Over the next three episodes, the former majority leader showed a surprising passion for ass-shaking. Who knew? Who wanted to know? ... And his outfits! In an early Entertainment Tonight interview from the rehearsal studio he explained, “Most of my costumes are going to be really classy and tasteful and reflect the grandfather image rather than the extreme fighter image.” That made sense until he came flouncing onstage for his first cha-cha looking like an extra from Boogie Nights. Goodbye, Grandpa. Hello, Fabulous. When you were done cringing, you had to laugh, and in a year as unfunny as 2009, this was no small feat. Thanks, Tom. We needed that.
