More Texas Republican one-upsmanship

-- Chris Christie will be in the Metroplex today, raising money for the Republican Governors Association.  And neither Rick Perry nor Greg Abbott is going to meet him while he's in town.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) will not be at Christie's events in Dallas and Fort Worth. A spokesman for Perry told the Dallas Morning News Perry was "pleased" Christie would be visiting Texas.

"Governors come to our state regularly for a variety of reasons and we’re pleased to have them here," the spokesman said.

Greg Abbott, the likely Republican nominee in Texas' gubernatorial race this year also will not be at Christie's event. A spokesman for Abbott told the Dallas Morning News he would be in Houston for an appearance on immigration.

There was a third Republican who wasn't going to be able to meet Christie also, but nobody can remember who it is.  Oops.

-- Abbott does have his plate full, to be sure.  In a remarkable gaffe earlier this week, he revealed that South Texas is like a whole other country... a third-world one.  From my inbox:

Speaking from Dallas on Tuesday, February 4, Abbott also singled out the elected leadership and people of the Texas border region and neighboring Mexico, which is the largest trading partner with Texas, as being dishonest.

“This creeping corruption resembles third-world county practices that erode the social fabric of our communities,” Abbott said.

State Rep. Terry Canales of Edinburg took exception.

“What kind of Texas leader tells the whole world that the most important state in America has “Third-World” conditions, which sends the extremely damaging message that Texans are uneducated, unskilled, controlled by drug lords and other thugs, and served by incompetent local and county governments?” Canales asked. “It shows how much contempt that Greg Abbott has for millions of his fellow citizens. With so-called friends like Greg Abbott, who needs enemies?”

I don't think even Abbott's Latina wife is going to be able to help him out with this. That mistake is going to cost him another couple of million bucks in Spanish-language media, and Aaron Peña will be sent back out on the road again.

-- Not to be outdone, Congresscritters Pete Sessions and Joe Barton stepped up and tried to take the heat off Abbott with malaprops of their own.

Sessions:

Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas, called long-term unemployment insurance “immoral” on Tuesday.

“I believe it is immoral for this country to have, as a policy, extending long-term unemployment [insurance] to people rather than us working on the creation of jobs,” he said on the House floor. “[People must] be able to have a job, to learn to take care of themselves, to be able to meet their needs, to be able to become engaged in their community and have self-respect enough to know that jobs are important.”

Sessions’ statements were first reported by the Huffington Post on Tuesday. As Rules Committee chairman, he wields significant influence in crafting the House’s agenda. In January, the Senate failed to pass a Democratic-sponsored bill that would extend federal benefits for more than 1.3 million Americans who have been out of work for more than 26 weeks.

Barton:

At a question-and-answer session with reporters, Representative Joe Barton said Republicans should push for deficit reduction in exchange for a debt-limit increase.

Barton, a Texas Republican who has been in Congress since 1985, said his party should push for curbs in spending on entitlement programs such as Social Security.

"A clean debt ceiling, I think, is capitulation," Barton said at "Conversation with Conservatives," a monthly forum moderated by the Heritage Foundation.

No UI, no SS.  Just go live under a bridge and starve while we find more tax cuts for oil companies, so that they can eventually create some jobs for you poor slobs in steerage class.  And if you get sick, then die quickly and reduce the surplus population.

If I hadn't linked it, you'd think I was making it up.  You would say to yourself: 'nobody could possibly be this cold-blooded'.

-- Finally, comprehensive immigration reform is dead in the US House until after the election.

Conservative Republicans on Wednesday ruled out any immigration legislation in the House this year, insisting that the GOP should wait until next year when the party might also control the Senate.

[...]

But several of the conservatives were adamant that the House should do nothing on the issue this year, a midterm election year when the GOP is angling to gain six seats in the Senate and seize majority control. Democrats currently have a 55-45 advantage but are defending more seats, including ones in Republican-leaning states.

"I think it's a mistake for us to have an internal battle in the Republican Party this year about immigration reform," Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, told reporters at a gathering of conservatives. "I think when we take back the Senate in 2014 one of the first things we should do next year after we do certain economic issues, I think we should address the immigration issue."

Labrador's comments were noteworthy as he was one of eight House members working on bipartisan immigration legislation last year. He later abandoned the negotiations.

Wayne has more on the fecklessness of the GOP, and the spinelessness of the Democrats to effectively run on the issue.  Latino voters: it's all on you to change this if you don't like it.  As Howard Dean said not so long ago: you have the power.  Get your block, your neighborhood, your church, and your community registered to vote in November.  And make sure you have proper ID.

Update: Almost forgot to mention that the True the Vote pasty gangsters are once again vindicated; there is indeed voter fraud in Texas.  Unfortunately it's Harris County Republicans doing the defrauding.

Four political campaign workers have been indicted by a Harris County Grand Jury in the wake of allegations of election fraud in a Harris County Justice of the Peace race, first reported by Local 2 News in January.

The suspects -- two men and two women -- were paid to gather signatures to place Republican candidate Leonila Olivares Salazar's name on the ballot in the Justice of the Peace, Precinct 2, Place 2 race.

Salazar is fighting to stay on the ballot. She says the four workers were hired by her campaign consultant, Collonnade Marketing, owned by long-time politico Fred Blanton.

[...]

The indictments, handed down Monday, come about two weeks after Salazar’s Democratic opponent, incumbent Judge George Risner, sued to have her name withdrawn from the ballot.

As first reported by Local 2, Risner obtained signed statements from three of the suspects admitting they did not actually obtain the signatures listed on the petitions.

Risner said his investigation shows that 380 of 447 signatures submitted to put Salazar's name on the ballot were forged.

The indictments name campaign workers 57-year-old Ralph Basil Garcia, 53-year-old Annette Irigoyen, 28-year-old Iris Irgoyen and 55-year-old David Basurto. All face felony charges of engaging in organized criminal activity and tampering with a governmental record.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Only two things today

If your time is short -- like mine -- and you only have time to read one or two pieces about Texas politics today, then click on these from Paul Burka and Charles Kuffner.

The evolution of the Republican primary into a race to the far right is a sad moment in Texas politics. There is nothing left of the party of George W. Bush, or even the party of Rick Perry. The press has done little to hold up its side of the equation; they can't get away from the Wendy Davis saga. We should be talking about how Republicans have allowed creationism to creep into the schools, about the myopia of the media when it comes to setting the agenda for a political race, about the failure of the business community to shoulder its share of responsibility for educating Texans about the things our citizens need: better schools, better roads, better health care.

There's only three more paragraphs there.  Burka isn't all that accurate all that often any more, but he's dead solid perfect there.  And so is Charles.  All the grafs ahead of this last one are important.

Here’s where Mark Jones’ idea really makes no sense. Pretty much every county where Democrats are strong features important primaries. We already know about Harris County, where the need to nominate Kim Ogg outweighs Jones’ suggestion all by itself. Travis County is electing a County Judge, as is El Paso County, which also features three hot legislative races. Bexar County has races for County Judge, County Clerk, District Attorney, District Clerk, and a slew of District Court judges. Dallas County has a power struggle between current DA Craig Watkins and Party Chair Darlene Ewing, with the former running his own slate of candidates, including one against Ewing. Tarrant County will be key to Rep. Mark Veasey’s re-election. And those are just the big counties.

The media and the consultants and the anal-ysts like Jones have dictated the terms of this election so far, and not just with the roasting of Wendy Davis for the snarling consumption by the fringe right hogs in this state.

The only way that will ever change is if enough people refuse to buy what they're peddling, and upend the conventional 'wisdom' with their direct action at the polling place.  If that does not happen, then Texans will keep getting what they have gotten for the past 20 years.  And will excruciatingly deserve what they will surely get in the years to come.

This is your final warning.

Reconnoitering

But still no time for anything but an assembly.

-- Trey's rant about the Lone Star media was... okay.  I don't understand how anybody can call me vulgar after that, but all of McB's drunken-sailor-ishness doesn't detract (much) from his point: that the people covering politics in Texas day to day are simply a weak bunch, and especially from a historical perspective.  That isn't going to change, and if the Davis campaign is looking for a break... that ain't happening either.

The Texas Tribune apparently represents the best that it's going to get, and they are consumed with the horse-race aspect while at the same time advancing the usual false equivalencies that are by now just lazy and sloppy.  Click here, and then compare the headline to what you read in the address bar (the former headline, I presume).  And Charles Kuffner is absolutely correct: the next time you see "Mark Jones" in a story on Texas politics, just stop reading.

But the bottom line for Wendy Davis remains the same: her campaign is going to have to make something happen and stop reacting to what's happening.

-- I thought that Gadfly one-upped me with this.

Greg Abbott wouldn't want the political correctness police to treat his candidacy with kid gloves related to his physical handicap limitations, now would he?

We know that a good conservative like Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott would never, ever succumb to political correctness, now, would he?

Of course not. A rugged individualist hombre who can shoot thousand upon thousands of clay pigeons with a powerful 12-gauge loaded with double-aught buckshot a light, likely multi-round chambered 20-gauge shotgun with barely-more-than-blanks skeet loads surely doesn't need the support of librul buzz words, coded phrases and mollycoddling language, does he?

Or does he?

"Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus", indeed.  I remember singing that in church when I was a kid.

I wonder how Greg Abbott feels when he sings it.  To have to live with the fact that he can't, I mean.  Does that foster shame, or embarrassment, or some kind of putrid self-hatred?  Can you get counseling to deal with it?  It's probably covered by Obamacare, but not Medicaid, even under the terms of expansion that General AbouttheSame has no more intention of accepting than Governor Goodhair.

Neither of them should ever have to worry about being on Medicaid, after all.

-- Some Republicans have started an anti-Nathan Hecht campaign.  There's a Twitter account as well.  If you want something a little more serious -- and not seriously stupid all the time -- with your Texas Supreme Court campaign soup, then head on over and read John Coppedge at QR.  Excerpt complete with Harvey Kronberg's typical oddball emphasis.

There are three Texas Supreme Court incumbents facing challenges in the Republican Primary this election cycle- Chief Justice Nathan Hecht, Justice Jeff Brown and Justice Phil Johnson.

It is no secret that Houston mega-lawyer Mark Lanier is not a fan of the current court. What is noteworthy is that a look at the most recent Texas Ethics Commission reports of the three challengers to Hecht, Brown and Johnson shows that they have collected $61,100 in total. And 98% of that came from members of the Lanier firm. (Mark Lanier and 10 lawyers in his firm have contributed $60,000). He and his firm seem to be leading the charge. It remains to be seen if others will follow.

If the personal injury bar follows Lanier's lead this cycle, they will contribute handsomely to the campaigns of the three challengers. But so far, they are laying behind the log. And notably some are supporting the incumbents. In past campaigns, the trial lawyer contributions came primarily after the "30 Day Report", thus shielding them from public view until just a few days before the election. And the dollar amounts have been staggering.

More if you have a subscription.

-- Just so we're clear: the underling at MSNBC that got fired over a Tweet about the right-wing acting all indignant about a Super Bowl commercial (you know, the one Phil Griffin apologized to Reince Priebus for) just had the wrong Super Bowl commercial in mind.  You think Griffin will hire that person back?  Since they were correct about the right-wing reaction, that is?

Still way behind on events past and future.  I wanted to blog about all of the Keystone XL developments and #NoKXL rallies yesterday, and even about Louie Mueller Barbecue in town on Super Bowl Sunday (I went, it was great) and coming to Houston permanently soon, but there aren't enough hours in the day.  I'll get a round tuit eventually.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance still has a dozen or so Republican responses to the SOTU it needs to get through as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff takes a look at campaign finance reports for Harris County legislative and countywide candidates.

Horwitz at Texpatriate laments the loss of Algebra II as a high school graduation requirement.

In light of some of the more ridiculous back-and-forth between Wendy Davis and Greg Abbott and their campaigns -- not to mention James O'Keefe and his clandestine, altered video -- PDiddie at Brains and Eggs asks: "Is it insensitive to say that Abbott is 'running' for governor?"

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants you to scream in horror over the Republican war on women. All Republican candidates for lieutenant governor are FOR keeping a brain dead woman with a severely abnormal fetus on life support against her family's wishes.

McBlogger has some advice for the Wendy Davis campaign, the press, and all the Democratic activists who are eager for a win this year.

Neil at All People Have Value wrote about the slate of Green Party candidates running in Texas in 2014. All People Have Value is part of NeilAquino.com.

======================
And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Nonsequiteuse scoffs at the notion that Texas may turn into California.

Texas Redistricting updates on the proposed fixes to the Voting Rights Act and other election law news.

John Coby names Randy Weber the frontrunner to replace Steve Stockman as the craziest Congressman from Southeast Texas.

Texas Clean Air Matters reports on the longrunning legal battle between Texas and the EPA over clean air regulations.

The Lunch Tray alerts us to potential changes to the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.

Randy Bear examines the reasoning behind various LGBT groups' non-endorsement of Wendy Davis in the Democratic primary for Governor.

Greg Wythe has the data to analyze the actual impact of Texas' voter ID law in Harris County.

BOR asks why the Texas Medical Association supports candidates who oppose their own stated positions, and gets a non-responsive answer from them.

No shortage of headlines for Texas nutbars

-- Steve Stockman appears to have blacked out about something that happened in his life, because he has found an attorney to sue John Cornyn for lying about his (Stockman's, not Cornyn's) nights spent in jail.  When he (Stockman, not Cornyn) confessed to the media to being in jail. 

Rep. Steve Stockman accused a group that supports Sen. John Cornyn of lying about him, by asserting that he had been “jailed more than once” and was “charged with a felony.”

That is strange, because Stockman has admitted to these facts, several times.

“I may have been in jail a couple of times, two or three times,” he told this newspaper.

As for the felony charge, that stemmed from the time his girlfriend hid three Valium tablets in his underpants when he was reporting for a weekend in jail. “When they found that they charged me with a felony,” he told the Houston Chronicle.

Those interviews were back in 1995, during Stockman’s first two-year stint in Congress.

On Friday, Stockman, R-Clear Lake, announced that he has filed a libel lawsuit in Houston against Texans for a Conservative Majority, a political action committee funded and run by Cornyn supporters. Its website, ShadyStockman,com, includes a line from a Jan. 15, 2013, Washington Post story: “He has been jailed more than once, and was charge with a felony after one such incident when authorities found Valium in his pants.”

“The Cornyn supporters have committed libel per se against me, falsely and maliciously accusing me of a felony,” Stockman said in a statement issued by a campaign aide. “Of course, I have never been charged with or committed any such act, and these anonymous Cornyn supporters know it.”

There's more, naturally.

-- Kesha Rogers went up to the Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M and made some news.  From the Bryan-College Station Eagle...

The woman who interrupted a moderated discussion Wednesday evening between two national leaders was Kesha Rogers, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Sen. John Cornyn's seat.

Rogers caused a stir and briefly derailed a discussion between Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, co-chairs on the committee to solve the nation's debt crisis in 2010, when she began yelling from the back of the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center.

The interruption came nearly an hour into the event, when Simpson was talking to moderator Andrew Card, George W. Bush's chief of staff, about the distrust in Washington between Democrats and Republicans. The three had been discussing contributors to the national debt, such as health care and Social Security, and what would need to be cut and changed to reverse the trend.

Simpson called trust the coin of the realm, but said it had been severely tarnished, when Rogers stood up.

"No one is going to trust you guys, because you are sacrificial leaders and they're sacrificing the population," Rogers yelled. "What they're doing right now, this policy was tried at Nuremberg."

Only an hour in, and she's already gone Godwin.

Rogers, a Democrat who is running for U.S. Senate on a platform to impeach President Barack Obama and fund NASA, went on to say that Simpson and Bowles had made a mockery of the lives of Americans, which drew boos from the crowd. Several people attempted to get her to stop yelling, but she said, "They haven't answered my question." Card then acknowledged her from the stage and asked her what her question was.

"My question is why are you pushing policies that are killing people?" she asked. "Policies that Dr. Leo Alexander warned about that were tried at Nuremberg? Why are we bailing out Wall Street and you say ..."

At this point, another attendee from the audience stood up and called her a "nutcase," pointing out that President George H.W. Bush and his wife were in the room, to which she turned around and said, "I don't care."

Card attempted to get the discussion back on track when Rogers began yelling about the funds that were used to bail out Wall Street.

"Why can we not afford Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid? Why do we have to put cost effective measures on human life?" she yelled. "Why do we have to look at the office of budget management to determine who gets to live and who dies?"

Rogers left on her own several minutes later.

You know, Rogers has some good points inside that rant, but as per her usual it's in that stopped-clock-twice-a-day fashion.

She issued a press release Thursday explaining her reference to Alexander, a psychiatrist and neurologist who served as an aide to the chief counsel at the Nuremberg war crime trials. He wrote the Nuremberg Code about moral, ethical and legal guidelines after studying the actions of Nazi troops and concentration camp guards.

Rogers compared cuts to social programs, which were included in Simpson and Bowles' 2010 proposal to reduce the debt, to Alexander's warnings about physicians in Germany devaluing life.

I'm all in favor of the Simpson/Bowles Catfood Commission going off the rails, but it really needs to include Kesha lying down in front of the train.  Three birds with one stone, as it were.

-- And what would a nutbar edition be without some tasty Ted Cruz tapas?

"Anyone pushing an amnesty bill right now should go ahead and put a 'Harry Reid for Majority Leader' bumper sticker on their car, because that will be the likely effect if Republicans refuse to listen to the American people and foolishly change the subject from Obamacare to amnesty," he said.

The Texas senator added that a bill that includes "amnesty" could keep conservative voters away from the polls.

You just gotta love it.

"Republicans are poised for an historic election this fall -- a conservative tidal wave much like 2010. The biggest thing we could do to mess that up would be if the House passed an amnesty bill -- or any bill perceived as an amnesty bill -- that demoralized voters going into November," he said. "Amnesty will ensure they stay home."

P.T. Barnum ain't got nothing on "Norovirus" Cruz.

Sunday Super Bowl Funnies

A Lone Star roundup of downballot races and more

Most of the political oxygen is being sucked up by the governor, lieutenant governor, and Senate primaries on both sides of the aisle, so with the deadline fast approaching -- as in Monday -- for Texans who are not yet registered to vote in March, an update on what's happening elsewhere in the left-right tug of war is overdue.

-- Before we move down the ballot, let's note that Dan Patrick has the endorsement of fringe-iest of the right-wing fringe mega-church pastors, John Hagee.  And say no more about that, because, really... what else can be said?

-- In the Republican primary for comptroller, Glenn Hegar says it's all about his money, and Debra Medina says no, it isn't.  Meanwhile, Harvey Hilderbran is saying he can do things even Bob Bullock could not do: bend the IRS to his will.  I suppose in the hypothetical comic-book matchup, Superman can beat up The Incredible Hulk, but only because the big green dude lets his anger get the best of him too often.

(If I have to explain that analogy, then it isn't as funny as I would hope.)

Update: And don't miss the Texas Observer's WTF Friday, starring Hegar and his guns, in a campaign ad called "Freedom".  Because freedumb means never pronouncing "comptroller" correctly.

-- It's not all bad for Texas Democrats; the TXGOP are experiencing their usual difficulties counting their money.  Socratic Gadfly has the links from the Rockwall Herald Banner...

The Texas Democratic Party (TDP) has called for a criminal investigation into alleged illegal election activity at the Rockwall County Clerk’s office, according to a statement released by the organization Wednesday.

In addition, a letter requesting a “cease and desist from unlawful political fundraising activities” was also issued by Chad Dunn, general counsel for the TDP.

A statement from the TDP on Wednesday claims the Facebook page of Rockwall County Clerk Shelli Miller advertised the sale of tickets for  Saturday’s Rockwall County GOP Reagan Day 2014 event and that these tickets could be purchased in Miller’s office at the Rockwall County Courthouse.

Attorney General Greg Abbott is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the event, and due to the involvement of the Abbot campaign in the Reagan Day event, the TDP has asked for an investigation into the alleged illegal activities to be opened.

“It is inexcusable to use taxpayer funded facilities for political fundraising,” TDP Executive Director Will Hailer said in the statement. “The Rockwall County GOP must immediately cease their unlawful activities. This is political corruption, plain and simple.

“A thorough investigation is warranted in this case and it is incumbent on the Attorney General’s office to put election year politics aside and move forward by appointing a special investigator.”

...and Trail Blazers.

The Dallas County Republican Party failed to report more than $60,000 of transactions to the Federal Election Commission, according to a draft of an audit approved by the agency Thursday.

The report, which includes violations from 2009 to 2010, shows that the DCRP didn’t report a $24,000 credit card donation or almost $6,000 in donations from March 2010.

A transfer of $31,000 to a “non-federal” bank account was also unreported by the party. Since the county party works with both federal and state candidates, each facing different rules, it must keep separate accounts to take advantage of the less stringent Texas campaign finance laws.

Back to Gadfly with the wrap.

(S)ince current state Attorney General Greg Abbott, now running for governor, is the guest speaker at the February event, doesn't he need to recuse himself or something? Maybe appoint a Democratic special investigator?

[...]

How do you miss a $24K credit card donation, anyway?  

-- The Chron endorsed John ManBoyLove in the Republican primary for CD-36, to replace Steve Stockman.  They had to pick somebody, I suppose.

--  Paul Kennedy has the state of play in the GOP primary for Harris County district clerk.

Four years ago (Republican) Chris Daniel won the race for Harris County District Clerk over the incumbent (Democrat) Loren Jackson. Under Mr. Jackson's leadership the District Clerk's Office moved out of the Stone Age and into something that resembled our modern times. Alas, Mr. Jackson won election to an unexpired term in 2008 on the coattails of Barack Obama (perhaps you've heard of him) and was swept out in the next election.

Mr. Daniel has moved forward with the changes Mr. Jackson made -- but with a bit more of an eye on the publicity side. He cruises around town in his gas guzzling Hummer with campaign signs in the windows. Subtle is one characteristic no one would ever use to describe Mr. Daniel. [...]

(T)here are some in the Republican community who are upset with Mr. Daniel. Chief among them is the head wing nut in Harris County, State Senator Dan Patrick. Now I wish I could find a clip of Mr. Patrick painting himself blue for an Oilers' playoff game back in the 70's but since YouTube didn't exist back then those clips are rare to find.

The darling in Mr. Patrick's eye is his former employee, Court Koenning. Why exactly he's running for District Clerk isn't quite clear. There isn't exactly what I would call a groundswell of opposition to the way Mr. Daniel is running the office.

Even more curious is Mr. Koenning's website with endorsements from leading wing nuts in Harris County.

Sen. Patrick touts Mr. Koenning as a "conservative leader." State Rep. Patricia Harless says he will be "an outspoken advocate for conservatives at the courthouse." State Rep. Allen Fletcher champions his "conservative vision."

I am still trying to figure out what being a liberal, a conservative, a Marxist or a neo-fascist has to do with running the District Clerk's office. Your job as clerk is to make it as easy as possible for folks to file suits and for the courts to get the filings they need. Your job is to make the process of obtaining certified copies of filings as painless as possible. Your job is to send out jury summonses. That's about it.

This is a lament that could be applied to every single primary contest on the Republican side.  Sid Miller (ag commish candidate) weighs in on Phil Robertson and Duck Dynasty.  Barry Smitherman -- boy, have we mentioned him here a lot -- Tweets a picture of a hangman's noose beside the names of Republican US Senators who favored last year's gun legislation in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre.  Jared Woodfill passes judgment on Annise Parker's wedding.  Around and around that carousel goes, and where it stops...

While this is certainly no endorsement of Chris Daniel, it should serve as a warning about the creation of made-for-election issues. I would love to be a fly on the wall so I could figure out what's really going on behind the scenes with this race. My guess is it's being used as a battleground for a fight between the far right wing of the GOP led by Dan Patrick and the more moderate wing led by whoever leads the mythical moderate wing of the Republican Party in Texas. 

More nicely said than me, and still makes the same point: if everybody in the Republican party wants to be like Ted Cruz, then where do the sane conservatives go?

And here's everything else you missed this week, some of it having nothing at all to do with politics.

Wendy Davis appearance last night draws indignant media response

The Davis campaign seems to have itself in some hot water with the state media, after they restricted access to coverage of last night's Travis County Democratic fundraiser to the Texas Tribune, which streamed the video.  James Moore, who co-authored Bush's Brain and now serves as the executive director for the Progress Texas PAC, delivers another blow.

At a Travis County Democratic Party fundraiser the campaign banned reporters from the dining area where she was circulating with supporters and speaking to the crowd. Journalists had to watch the event on a video feed provided by one of the media outlets. Nobody gets the actual facts or the sense of an event by watching it on television instead of being present in the room. This is the kind of decision that accomplishes nothing for the campaign and only agitates journalists, who, based upon (Wayne Slater's) Morning News story (about the Davis bio discrepancies), are beginning to suspect Davis is withholding details that are relevant to the public.

If you really want to go "inside baseball", then you can read this comment stream from former newspaper reporter RG Ratcliffe's FB wall, which has several other reporters who've covered Texas politics weighing in, and if you want the story straight from the Twitter feed, then you need to follow SAEN/HC reporter David Rauf and TCDP chair Jan Soifer.  Update: And a somewhat shorter and calmer discussion started by Kimberly Reeves here.

Candidates need to talk -- especially candidates who are considered the underdog. Wendy Davis ought to be running toward reporters, not away from them. Let them interview her on any and every topic they desire and then print and broadcast and post what she says from the Coastal Bend to the Franklin Mountains and from Boca Chica Beach to Dalhart. There is no other way for her to win than to be open and forthright. A candidate lacks credibility talking about running a government in a different manner when they campaign like every other person who has wanted to be governor.

Don't exercise control; exercise honesty and complete openness. Davis has big-time money in her race now and equally large interests in seeing her succeed. Those pressures have turned her campaign, in its early stages, into an operation that looks stage-managed and carefully orchestrated, which leads to mistakes. It has been credited with making pronouncements like her "origins story is now off limits," and, in an effort to change the narrative, had the candidate start talking about gun rights and fighting a state income tax. 

The first blog on the scene was, unfortunately, PJ Media, a notably conservative outfit.  I won't bother exerpting anything from there, but they have the embedded Tweets of the exchange between Rauf and Soifer if you want the abridged version of what the dispute was about.

The job of journalism is not to provide a hallelujah choir for candidates; it is to screen that candidate, dutifully and fairly, for the public office and the trust the candidate is seeking to acquire. Yeah, I know, there are Davis supporters who will suggest fairness has been absent but I haven't seen that. Unfairness is scheduling an interview with a reporter for one newspaper and then canceling and giving it to a reporter at another paper at the same time, which was an act of the Davis campaign.

Don't do that, senator. Reschedule so both newspapers can interview you. And talk, talk to anyone and everyone who will listen to you and most especially talk to reporters who can send your point of view far and wide across the state. It's your best chance to win. And don't be managed. People are sick of managed candidates. Give voters the hard truth. That noise on a state income tax and gun rights isn't going to fire up the Democratic base and you aren't going to get anyone to come over from the other side with it, either. It will, however, make some supporters scoff, and reporters think you aren't ready for the big game.

You owe journalists nothing, of course, but if you work this right, they can help you win for the people who see hope for this state in your story. 

I can only add a similar warning to what has been said before about the Davis campaign's mistakes: they cannot afford to continue making them.  Update: You don't have to read tea leaves to understand that there are more attacks coming.  The open question remains: how will Wendy Davis and her campaign staff respond to them?

If the Republicans are allowed to shape her story, to define her in the most unflattering of ways -- and if she takes one or two weeks to respond -- then you go on and can drop the curtain.

More from the Texas Observer.

Why Democrats shouldn't nominate Republican donors

Because Republicans will pwn them.  In this corner, the challenger David Alameel, with the egg all over his face.  In that corner, the defending champion "Big Bad John" Corndog.  This is the response the good doctor received to his request for a refund of his donations to Cornyn, Orrin Hatch, Mitch McConnell, and all the other GOPers he's written big checks to over the years.

“Thanks in part to your support for Texas conservatives like myself, Gov. Perry, Attorney General Abbott, and others, Texas has implemented a successful pro-growth agenda, marked by prolific job creation thanks to lower government spending, less taxes, and limited regulations,” Cornyn wrote in an open letter released by his campaign.

“Without your help, conservatives across Texas could not have fought back against the big-spending, big government, pro-choice agenda that Democrats in Washington, D.C. have tried for so long to impose on our state,” the letter said. “That fight continues, and, regrettably, it is one for which no dollar can be spared.”

I am at a loss as to why Wendy Davis endorsed this guy.  Update:  And Leticia Van de Putte as well (despite her obviously pointed and kind words for him).  Well, at least until the first-quarter campaign finance reports come out, anyway.  The only thing worse than Alameel being the Democratic nominee would be Kesha Rogers being the nominee.  And if those two are in the runoff...

Let's hope the Dems have at least learned that you should just say, "I made a mistake", and not "I want a refund".  You don't often hear wealthy people say that, though.  Even when they are Republicans running for office as Democrats.

More at Texpate and Off the Kuff.

More on what BGTX is up against

Really good stuff here from Greg Wythe on the non-standard and varying interpretations of the voter/photo identification legislation implemented in Harris County last fall.

The fundamental flaw in the “no big deal” argument is the logic that only the most dire outcome (a voter being turned away) or the most stringent cure (a provisional ballot) represents the entirety of the law’s negative impact. It’s somewhat similar to evaluating the crime rate based on the number of state executions carried out in Huntsville. Among the secondary problems are things like lengthening lines at polling places or dissuading voters from registering to vote if they feel a photo ID is all that is needed. There are other concerns, as well. But we likely won’t get a full taste of that until November 2016.

There's more you should read at the link, and Greg's going to have some followup posts but the end result is the same: lots of confusion, plenty of aggravation for voters, and an atmosphere of intimidation which results in people leaving the polling place without casting a ballot.  And for Republicans, that's a feature and not a bug.

When you see Steve Stockman walk out of the SOTU, when another Congressman threatens to throw a reporter over the Capitol railing, and another throws a temper tantrum on teevee, just keep in mind that Republicans love them some democracy so much that it makes them crazy.  But they only love it as long as they're the ones in power.

Do you think Greg Abbott understands what the greatest challenge to him getting elected governor is?  It's not the he said/she said BS, it's not how much money he can raise or spend, it's not which side has the most volunteers or enthusiasm.  It's not the unpredictable, intangible events that happen through the course of a campaign season to sway the electorate.   It's not even some combination of all those factors.

It's this.  Making voting by people who won't vote for him as difficult as he possibly can, in order to discourage them from voting at all.  Getting Texans to vote who have a poor habit of doing so is the mountain Battleground Texas must scale, and Greg Abbott is at the top of it, pushing boulders down at them.

I almost typed "kicking boulders", but thought that might seem insensitive.

Charles has some more.

Update: Greg's second post detailing some of the things he experienced last November as an EV clerk at the Bayland Park poll in southwest Houston is up.

Northwoods

I really enjoy Swamplot, the local real estate blog that works in some awfully good snark at opportune times.  Here, they catch what the daily let sail right over their heads.  First, the Chronic with the advertorial.

Toll Brothers is the latest in a long line of developers to use the word “wood” in the name of its new master-planned community on the north side of town.

The luxury homebuilder is calling its nearly 700-acre development Northwoods, joining other famous woods, including Kingwood, The Woodlands, Woodforest and Springwoods Village.

And now, the moneyshot.

You know the old joke about suburban developments: That they’re typically named after the natural features that they replace. But in proudly announcing the name it has chosen for the new 692-acre residential development the company is planning near the yet-to-be-built northern segment of the Grand Parkway between I-45 and U.S. 59, Toll Brothers may have made that cliché seem quaint. According to the publicly traded homebuilder, which is working with Cernus Development on the project, the top selling point for this new community is its proximity to the new corporate campus ExxonMobil is building just 6 miles to the west. Northwoods will have room for 1,000 homes built by Toll Brothers and other builders, along with “resort-style amenities that take advantage of the mature trees and topography,” including trails, parks, lakes, and a recreation center.

It’ll also have the same name as a 62-home subdivision in the Little Rock suburb of Mayflower, Arkansas, where an ExxonMobil pipeline accident last March resulted in the release of 210,000 gallons of diluted bitumen from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, onto the streets and back yards of the middle-class neighborhood.

Somebody needs a GPS device to locate the irony.  George Orwell couldn't have predicted this.

Immediately after the spill from the Pegasus pipeline, a quarter of the homes in Northwoods were evacuated. The gloppy nature of the oil product, which until the pipeline break residents had no idea was flowing near their homes, made cleanup very difficult. As of 2 months ago, almost half of the homes in Northwoods had either been listed for sale or been bought up by ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil demolished 3 of the 20 homes it bought after a soil assessment found oil had leaked into the foundations. After months of complaints by residents who said they were still feeling effects of the toxic fumes, Arkansas governor Mike Beebe ordered free medical exams for Northwoods residents.

Keystone XL runs a little to the east of Northwoods Texas, so I'm sure they'll be okay.  Happy househunting, all you new XOM managers!

Is it insensitive to say Greg Abbott is "running" for governor?

The so-called nefarious intent implication that Greg Abbott's sycophants have tried to link to Wendy Davis' unofficial campaign slogan has already been batted away.  There's a question still worth pursuing, and it's this entire business of whether simple words, phrases, or images used to describe elections, or by politicians in the course of their campaigns, is in some way unfair or unkind.

John Coby raises a real good point here.

His unfortunate story is known to most political savvy people. He ran under a tree and was paralyzed when it fell on him. He pulled himself up by his bootstraps after winning the $10 million lawsuit lottery. He then permanently latched himself to the tit of the government as an elected official. Everyone, including me, wishes he had used a treadmill that day, or ran on the other side of the street, or ran on a high school track, but he needs to stop painting himself as a victim on a daily basis.

Over the next few months there will be statements made such as "Greg Abbott has no legs to stand on concerning... " or "Abbott is running on a campaign of fear". These are common political statements and should not be construed as an attack on his unfortunate situation.

Abbott's attacks on his opponent will be as fierce and low-life as his party's attacks on former Senator Max Cleland, a decorated Vietnam war veteran who lost both legs and an arm. Abbott is expected to stoop as low as a political crack whore in order to win. What is not expected or appreciated is his constant whining when someone returns the political favor.

"Standing with Wendy", "On Her Own Two Feet", "walking a mile in her shoes", and other similar innocuous bipedal references are being twisted into pejoratives presumably aimed at the Candidate on Wheels.  The most notable of those efforts was pulled off by convicted criminal and serial liar James O'Keefe, with a helping hand from corporate media that should know better (and do better).

Going a step further: if vermin like Erick Erickson want to keep adding to their doll collection, then "Coathanger Ken" moves into fair play.  And it's just a short hop from there to "Crippled Ken".

See what I did there?

Greg Abbott needs to pull up his big boy underwear, stiffen the steel implant in his spine and get ready to take it, especially if his minions are going to keep dishing it.