The Race Is On
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texasmonthly.com: You say that if every Texas voter were required to cast a ballot, Kinky Friedman would be the clear winner. Has contemporary apathy toward politics and the major parties really become that great?
PB: Yes. Look how few people vote in party primaries. The parties have gravitated so far to the extremes—both parties—that they don’t speak to ordinary people. A Republican consultant who went to the state convention told me that the activists have no use for public schools at all. There is so much dislike of both parties, and of contemporary politics, that if everybody cast a vote, I feel certain that the majority would vote for the “none of the above candidate.”
texasmonthly.com: Do you think that the situation created by the passage of the new business tax in an effort to shore up school funding will develop into a handicap for whoever sits in the governor’s office come next year?
PB: I probably ought to delete this question, because the premise is incorrect. But I’m going to answer it, because I think it reflects a widespread misunderstanding that the new business tax represents “an effort to shore up school funding.” It does nothing of the sort. Not one penny raised by the business tax goes to public schools. All the money is dedicated by law to reducing property taxes to a rate of $1 per $100 of property valuation. Even if the revenue exceeds all predictions, all of it still must go to property tax cuts unless the Legislature undoes the dedication. Back to ideology: The Republican leadership could not have gotten Republicans to vote for the business tax if any of the money had been used to pay for anything except tax cuts. Whether this will be a handicap for a governor depends upon who the governor is and what he or she wants to do. Rick Perry signed off on this plan, so he certainly would not regard it as a handicap; it reflects his ideology. The other candidates (except the libertarian) would probably feel otherwise.
texasmonthly.com: To what extent has Rick Perry’s long tenure in the governor’s mansion been the result of luck?
PB: All successful politicians are lucky politicians. But I don’t want to suggest that Perry’s tenure is all the result of luck. He had the fortitude to roll the dice and change parties. Sure, he got lucky that Jim Hightower was overconfident in the Ag Commissioner’s race. He got lucky that George W. Bush got the Republican nomination for president and then won the fight over Florida, so Perry could fill the vacancy without having to run a race. The biggest luck of all is that Kay Bailey Hutchison didn’t run against him, twice. She would have beaten him in the primary both times. So what? He doesn’t scare. He is an astute, disciplined politician. He deserves respect for what he has accomplished politically.
texasmonthly.com: Given your statements that the Texas Democratic Party has been reduced to irrelevancy and that the only Texas election that matters is the Republican primary, what do you think it would take to return Texas to being, as you put it, “a true two-party state?”
PB: Texas was a true two-party state for a brief time—basically, from the election of Bill Clements as governor in 1978 until the election of George W. Bush in 1994. From then on, the Democrats have been routed. Texas has been a one-party state since the Republicans won the state House of Representatives in 2002. So the entire process, from the election of the first prominent GOP state official to complete dominance took 24 years. I don’t think you’d be far off base if you’d say that it will take equally as long for the Democrats to regain power. That’s 2026. I do think that the Democrats will be able to win a Senate seat here or a governor’s race there. But they won’t have legislative majorities.
texasmonthly.com: What special challenges are there when writing about an event shrouded in speculation (such as an election) that has yet to occur? Do you have a method for determining how far your conclusions should reach?
PB: The best method for writing about an event like the governor’s race is to do my job right, which is to say, do a lot of reporting. Talk to the political pros, the consultants. Most of them will tell you how they analyze a race. It’s not much of a secret. Everybody is working with the same numbers and the same parameters. Then I try to synthesize the answers into a likely scenario. So here it is: If Perry stays around 40 percent, he’s going to win. So the only way to beat him is to cut into his base. Bell can’t do that; he’s a Democrat. Strayhorn is better positioned to do that. And, she might be able to cut into Bell’s base as well. Then do some fiddling with numbers. Give Strayhorn a third of Perry’s base: 1/3 of 50 percent (the solidly Republican portion of the electorate) is 16 plus percent. Give her a third of Bell’s base: 1/3 of 35 percent is 11 plus percent. Give her a third of the independents: another 5 percent. That gets her to 32—33 percent. Not enough. Bell can get to the same number by holding 3/4 of his base plus 1/3 of the independents—a pretty likely scenario, but also not enough. Only one of these two scenario’s, Bell’s or Strayhorn’s can be right, and both could be wrong. So it’s pretty clear that unless Perry loses votes, down to, say, 35 percent, he can’t be defeated. Then the question becomes, how can that be done? Well, maybe the anti-tax conservatives can be wooed and won by Strayhorn—but not by a Democrat. What you come up with is that Perry can’t take the race for granted, but he is a very strong favorite unless something unusual occurs. I have left Kinky Friedman out of this analysis. If he were to catch on, if he were to get his voters to the polls, everything could turn upside down. I hate to be a cynic—in fact, I’m not at all cynical about politics—but it’s a good rule of thumb that any candidate who talks about getting new voters to the polls is a losing candidate.
texasmonthly.com: If Texas did have a provision for a runoff election in a five-way governor’s race, do you think that Perry would be in greater danger of losing the coming election?
PB: There’s no question that a runoff would be very dangerous for Perry. The majority of the voters are not for him. That’s why he is at 38 percent.
texasmonthly.com: If you could design the ideal gubernatorial candidate, what would the top three qualities of that person be, and why?
PB: Vision. Charisma. Public spiritedness (by which I mean that policy is placed above ideology). The desire to help every Texan. In my lifetime, John Connally and George W. Bush—Governor Bush, that is—are the models.
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