edited by: Ted McLaughlin,
Texas Editor
Gov. Rick Perry's campaign, not too surprisingly, pounced on Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's comment on Meet the Press that if Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner deserves to be fired, members of Congress do, too.
"Senator Hutchison finally admitted that she is part of the problem with the out-of-control spending in Washington," said [...]
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, on NBC's Meet the Press, defended Rep. Kevin Brady for demanding the resignation of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner at a hearing last week - though she didn't exactly endorse his sentiment.
The Brady/Geithner confrontation has been replayed repeatedly on cable news shows.
"I think what Kevin Brady'" [...]
The Dallas-based law firm of Haynes and Boone saw two of its partners tapped by Speaker Joe Straus recently to serve on the Sunset Advisory Commission: Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas; and Lamont Jefferson of San Antonio (right), the brother of Texas Supreme Court [...]
Dallas public television station KERA reports that Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison have agreed to debate on Jan. 14 -- statewide, televised, one hour, questions from journalists.
Do not touch that dial. Those flames and sparks flying from your set are entirely to be expected.
Sen. Florence Shapiro of Plano said Friday she will file for re-election for her senate seat next month, while she keeps her long-range sights set on the U.S. Senate seat now held by incumbent Kay Bailey Hutchison. The Republican state senator said she will file for [...]
The Rick Perry campaign is airing its first radio ad of the campaign - a lively takeoff on the popular game show Jeopardy with questions about runaway federal spending and the answer always the same: Kay Bailey Hutchison. It's the first real attack of the campaign, but uses humor to' [...]
Sen. John Cornyn, still a bit hoarse, is vocalizing again. The briefly speechless junior senator recalled something Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, quipped after vocal cord surgery three years ago to address recurring problems. Doctors ordered him to remain mute during his recovery.
"He said his approval ratings shot through the" [...]
A congressional hearing turned ugly Thursday, thanks in large part to Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, who called for the resignation of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
"Conservatives agree that as point person, you failed," Brady said. "Liberals are growing in that consensus as well. For the sake of our jobs," [...]
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has been booked as a guest Sunday on Meet the Press, along with two Democratic senators, Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois and California Sen. Diane Feinstein, and with Connecticut independent Joe Lieberman, who chaired the first open hearing regarding the Fort Hood shootings, on Thursday.
[...]You got your first look at the gubernatorial air war here on TrailBlazers. We were the first yesterday afternoon to post Kay Bailey Hutchison's new ad and to report that Rick Perry was following suit with a spot of his own. Perry put his new spot on his campaign [...]
Kay Bailey Hutchison voted with her fellow Republicans yesterday against the confirmation of a federal judge that conservatives have labeled a liberal activist. But Gov. Rick Perry told me that's not good enough because she missed an earlier vote on the nomination. Clearly, Perry's going to keep up the "she's'" [...]
Dallas Cowboy DeMarcus Ware is one of three NFL stars appearing with President Barack Obama in a public service announcement that will air during Thanksgiving games. Ware was on the South Lawn of the White House last month tossing a ball around with Obama and a bunch of DC-area kids. [...]
The Kay Bailey Hutchison campaign has launched a statewide television campaign against Rick Perry with a TV commercial set to begin airing tomorrow across Texas. The ad will play in Dallas-Fort Worth and the state's other major markets. It features Hutchison sitting in a living-room setting, explaining that she decided' [...]
The chairman of the Republican Governors Association says a fractious primary fight for governor in Texas will make it more difficult for the GOP to win next November. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said "there's a strong likelihood" that red-state Texas will hold on to the governorship in next year's general [...]
In less than an hour, Houston hair-care magnate Farouk Shami will formally announce he's running as a Democrat for governor. Already, though, the Shami campaign has put out a release that tackles what political insiders say could be the biggest [...]
Sen. John Cornyn croaked through his Q&A with Attorney General Eric Holder at a Senate hearing yesterday. Today, that would be an improvement.
"The senator has no voice," his office declared in postponing his weekly conference call with reporters.
Tough spot for a senator. Talking is pretty much their livelihood. Good [...]
THE CLAIM: Endorsing Kay Bailey Hutchison for governor in Houston on Wednesday, former Vice President Dick Cheney said: "When Texas was faced with a budget shortfall and some legislators were proposing an income tax, Kay stood with the taxpayers and led the fight to kill the" [...]
It's being described as a debate by some folks, but can you call a program where the candidates get the questions in advance a real debate? Probably not, but that's the type of forum we're watching here at the fantastic student center at TCU.
Democratic hopefuls for governor Tom Schieffer, Hank' [...]
A new study ranks Texas' tax structure the fifth most "regressive" among the states. That means state and local tax collectors take a much greater share of income from low- and middle-income families than from the wealthy.
The report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy puts only Washington' [...]
Kay Bailey Hutchison is going up first with commercial of the governor's race. Radio spots are to start tomorrow statewide. Can television be far behind? The campaign calls it a "significant buy." And you'll hear it on your local radio station through November.
The decision to go up on radio comes [...]
Sarah Palin, the 2008 vice presidential nominee and former Alasa governor, tells Fox News' Sean Hannity that she views the Fort Hood attack as an act of terrorism.
"I certainly do," she told the conservative talker in an interview' [...]
Kay Bailey Hutchison stayed in Washington yesterday to vote on a military appropriations bill before heading to Texas for a campaign fundraiser. Rick Perry says she should have stayed little longer - long enough to vote against an Obama appointee as a federal appeals judge. The Senate voted 70 to [...]
Over at the transportation blog, we have an updated analysis of Perry and the gas tax question. You can read it here.
[...]Dick Cheney told a crowd of Kay Bailey Hutchison supporters tonight that Texans know "the difference between a real talker and the real deal." And he said Hutchison "is the real deal." The former vice president traveled to Houston for a rally and fundraiser for Hutchison. About 200 sign-waving supporters [...]
Sarah Palin is coming, Sarah Palin is coming.
Gov. Rick Perry was asked during a conference call this afternoon when we'll see the former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate stumping for his re-election bid' [...]
Democrat Carol Kent won an upset victory last year against Tony Goolsby in the District 102 race.
Now she'll have to fend off one of at least two candidates running in the March Republican Primary.
Dallas lawyer Stefani Carter has been raising money and is expected to announce her candidacy in the' [...]
Texas Sen. John Cornyn has just released a letter to President Barack Obama, urging him to come right out and acknowledge that Maj. Nidal Hasan was likely "compelled by a fanatical religious ideology.
"If Islamist terrorism was the driving force behind the senseless violence at Fort Hood, as it seems to [...]
It was touch-and-go, but word now is that Kay Bailey Hutchison will attend tonight's rally and fundraiser in Houston with Dick Cheney. There was a possiblity that the Senate would take a preliminary vote today on health care -- something Hutchison didn't want to miss. We wrote today that' [...]
Gov. Rick Perry on Monday defended efforts he once made to have girls vaccinated against the HPV virus that can lead to cervical cancer.
"I've always though HPV was an issue of life," Perry said in Dallas.
The governor was responding to a reporter's question about the U.S. Centers for Disease Control [...]
At a stop in Dallas Monday, Rick Perry said that elected officials would have to find a way to "expand our ability to raise some dollars" for roads and other transportation infrastructure.
"One of the problems is that we do not have the dollars that we need to build all the" [...]
Kay Bailey Hutchison, who announced Friday that running for a new office without abandoning the old one was the right thing to do, once said running for a new office while holding another was the wrong thing to do. As the estimable Jason Embry points out, in her 1990 [...]
Austin Bureau chief Christy Hoppe checks up on a Rick Perry statement:
THE CLAIM: In his campaign stump speech, Gov. Rick Perry states that when Texas faced with a budget shortfall in 2003, he and the Legislature cut spending instead of raising taxes but were able to [...]
Texas' other senator, John Cornyn -- the one who isn't running for governor or, as far as we know, contemplating the best timing to quit or not quit the Senate -- is happy that colleague Kay Bailey Hutchison isn't quitting, at least for now.
Cornyn chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee,' [...]
Gromer Jeffers Jr. just broke the news that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has flip-flopped on her publicly announced timetable for resigning from the Senate. She won't quit by the end of this month as she said in July. In fact, she'll stay in her seat through the March gubernatorial primary. [...]
State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, asked recently to respond to those who say Democrats can't win statewide, today poured forth a torrent of reasons Rick Perry can be beaten.
Is Shapleigh (right/AP photo) thinking of running for governor in the March Democratic' [...]
The American public probably won't have much sympathy for Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan upon learning today through his lawyer that he is paralyzed.
But it raises some interesting issues.
Has anyone who is paralyzed ever been executed in this country' [...]
A new Rasmussen poll adds to the good numbers news for Rick Perry. Here's the primary election matchup:
Perry 46
Hutchison 35
Medina 4
Not Sure 14
That means Perry has gained ground since the last Rasmussen poll in September (up 8 percentage points) and Hutchison has lost ground (down [...]
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison tells The Dallas Morning News that the Fort Hood shooter should face 14 murder charges, not just 13. The Army announced that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan will face one specification of murder for each casualty.
But as Hutchison points out, one of the soldiers killed in [...]
That Fort Hood memorial service forced President Barack Obama to delay his 10-day trip to Asia by a full day. He took off this morning. Thanks to the delay, he needed a pinch-hitter at a speech he was supposed to deliver in Singapore on Saturday morning to the Asia-Pacific Economic [...]
Couple of tidbits on our Transportation blog that you political junkies might enjoy:
Michael Lindenberger, our transportation writer extraordinaire, breaks down a new report by the Texas Public Interest Research Group on campaign donations from transportation interests.
Michael is also following the local appearance of House Transportation Committee Chairman [...]
Staff writer Robert T. Garrett examines a claim from Democrat Tom Schieffer:
THE CLAIM: Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Tom Schieffer said Wednesday that Gov. Rick Perry's rejection of federal economic-stimulus money for unemployment benefits soon will increase taxes on Texas employers. "Employers can thank Gov. Perry and" [...]
Gov. Rick Perry's office today fended off people who say the governor sabotaged a review of whether Texas uses "junk science" in arson cases by mentioning that chief arson-evidence critic Barry Scheck helped former NFL running back O.J. Simpson juke past charges he killed his ex-wife.
As we noted in an [...]
Is it possible that the TV war in the Texas governor's race is about to get underway? The Kay Bailey Hutchison campaign is inquiring about the availability of broadcast time and the rates for this month and next - generally a precursor before a campaign starts [...]
Like all political races, the GOP primary in Texas is a numbers game. Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison are competing for support among a finite pool of Republican primary voters. Only question, how many Republican voters will show up next March? Last year was a presidential year and 1.2 [...]
Elbows are flying in the aftermath of yesterday's legislative hearing on Gov. Rick Perry's shakeup of the Texas Forensic Science Commission.
This morning, former commission chairman Sam Bassett, an Austin criminal defense lawyer, sent reporters an email warning that new chairman [...]
Politico has deemed the Texas Republican primary one of the top 10 political races of 2010. Well, yes. The battle between Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison pits Texas' top two politicians in a showdown that already is showing signs it will be brutal and expensive.
Here's what Politico had' [...]
John Fortier, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, has an interesting piece for Politico on the usefulness and pitfalls of primaries. He writes with a focus on the recent New York 23rd Congressional District, but his piece is full of notes worth remembering as Texas' biggest primary in a generation' [...]
Memo to Dallas Republican Rep. Pete Sessions: Think twice before making comparisons.
Sessions, who famously compared his own party to the Taliban, is taking heat from liberal groups and Democrats for a comment reportedly made last week in a debate over higher health insurance premiums that women [...]
