As mayor of Houston, White enjoyed considerable support — political and financial — from Republicans. But he occupied a nonpartisan office. Can he repeat that success in a partisan race against an incumbent Republican governor, and can he do it outside of Houston as well as inside?

The answer depends upon factors that are hard to measure at the moment: the degree of Perry fatigue among moderate Republicans and White’s ability to exploit fissures among Republicans in the business community. One such fissure involves the fuel used to generate electricity. Perry has gone out of his way to favor coal-fired power plants. In 2006 he issued an executive order for state regulators to fast-track the approval of new coal plants. (Fast-tracking essentially cut off the ability of opponents to challenge the permitting of new plants.)

A year later, 18 new coal plants were on the drawing boards. The biggest proponent of coal has been the utility giant TXU, which became Luminant following a $45 billion leveraged buyout.

White and Laura Miller, then mayor of Dallas, formed a coalition of cities and mayors opposed to the new power plants. Perry, in an op-ed piece in the Dallas Morning News, wrote that delays in building the plants would hurt the Texas economy and said that opponents wanted to return Texas to the era of the horse and buggy.

How does this battle (which ended with a reduction in the proposed number of new plants) potentially affect the governor’s race? For one thing, White has positioned himself to be the champion of clear air — a quality of life issue in the Republican suburbs — against Perry. But here’s the real opportunity: The economic opposition to Texas’s reliance on coal comes from the natural gas industry. Natural gas is a much cleaner fuel than coal. It is abundant in Texas. White has the opportunity to win the support of a major Texas industry with a lot of money and a lot of potential votes by arguing that Texas should shift its electricity production from coal to gas.

Tagged: bill white, coal plants, republicans, rick perry.

This was today’s daily blast from Joe Pounder of the Hutchison campaign:

“When we should be focused on creating jobs and keeping our state’s economy strong, Rick Perry is openly promising higher gas taxes. That’s less money in Texans’ pockets and more money for TxDOT to waste on Perry pet projects that lead to millions spent on environmental studies for roads that are never built.”

It has taken Rick Perry eight years to recognize that we need to raise the gasoline tax, and now that he has finally done the right thing, all Hutchison can do is criticize him without offering any solution to the state’s transportation problems. What is her proposal? How does she plan to pay for the roads we need? If not a gasoline tax, if not toll roads, if not a local option tax, then what? It is irresponsible to oppose an increase in the gasoline tax. Perry deserves a lot of credit for talking about it in the middle of a campaign. Better late than never.

Tagged: gas tax, kay bailey hutchison, rick perry.

It never really got off the ground. Tom had just been out of the game for too long. The conservative Democrats who had been his political allies during the seventies, when he served in the Legislature, had ceased to exist as a political force. I had the opportunity to meet with Tom on a couple of occasions. He is a good man and he is sincere about wanting to do public service, but he wasn’t going to put his own money into the race, and he couldn’t raise any money from Democratic sources. The trials saw him as a business guy, not to mention a Bushie, and they never trusted him. If you compare Schieffer to White, Schieffer has Bush connections, White doesn’t; the trials don’t like Schieffer, White has been a trial lawyer; White is on the cutting edge of the environmental issue, Schieffer isn’t. Tom comes from a time when the business community was aligned with the conservative Democrats, but Perry is the real deal, pro-business all the way, tort reform, friendly regulation, whatever they want. Schieffer never had a chance.

Tagged: bill white, governor, Tom Schieffer.

I had a conversation with John Sharp this afternoon. Sharp said that White’s first preference has always been to run for governor. What had kept him out of the governor’s race was the prospect that Hutchison would win the primary, leaving White to face the most popular figure in Texas politics, which she was, by a large margin, a year ago. As the Hutchison campaign began to implode and suffer from intellectual paralysis in the late summer and throughout the fall, everyone, including the White team, began to wonder whether the campaign could possibly be this bad. If there was any life to the Hutchison candidacy, it would appear in her first media spot. The spot, of course, turned out to be an utter disaster: no sign of intelligent life here. That was Friday. I don’t think it was any coincidence that, before the sun had set, White had moved his chief of staff to his campaign staff. Without Hutchison as a threat, the decision to run for governor was an easy one.

Tagged: bill white, John Sharp, kay bailey hutchison.

Swartz on the scene at City Hall:

Upstairs at City Hall at 4:15 today, the local news media was treated to a classic performance by our mayor/gubernatorial candidate, Bill White. The answer to the question that has been swirling through political circles since Kay Bailey Hutchison announced that she wouldn’t be resigning her Senate seat until after the Republican primary — Will White run for governor instead of Senate? — is . . . probably. That is, Bill White is just possibly, perhaps, probably, most likely, going to enter the Democratic primary to run for governor of Texas. White was his usual now-don’t-get-all-excited self when he read his statement from the podium in a darkly paneled, windowless room outside the mayor’s office. He wore an inoffensive gray suit. He sounded, as he often does, like a preacher in an ecumenical service, that is, if the preacher were speaking in lay terms, and that preacher had maybe seen Network a few times. In other words, White isn’t going to decide for sure until he hears from the people of Texas that they’re mad as hell and aren’t going to take it any more. He wants each and every one of us to go to his website (see below) and tell him what we think he should do. THEN he is going to make up his mind. (“So I want to hear YOUR thoughts and aspirations for the future of our state. Can’t we do better in Texas? How can I best serve you?”) The best predictor of White’s intentions? Maybe it was the bumper sticker that the supposed Senate campaign has been handing out for months, a deliciously ambiguous, “Bill White for Texas.”

Here is the text of his remarks:

Since Friday a week ago Texans from all backgrounds and all regions have asked me to consider running to be our next Governor of Texas. Today I agree to consider running for Governor, and shall make a decision by Friday, December 4th.

Before then I invite the citizens of Texas to weigh in on this decision by visiting my website and emailing me at .

Both our next Governor and Senator should bring new energy to the task of moving our state forward. In both positions, we need leadership that can bring our state together and reduce the strident partisanship in both Austin and Washington.

Texans know we can do better than ranking dead last in the nation in the percentage of our population with a high school diploma. Texans know we can do better than the last decade of soaring electricity and insurance costs, and skyrocketing college tuition.

Sen. Hutchison has postponed her departure from the Senate and acknowledged that her continued service limits her ability to campaign in our state. I share her belief, and that of her supporters, that we need a new Governor.

I thank many thousands of Texans who have supported my campaign with their volunteer hours and dollars. I will listen to your views on how we can best work together to do what is right for Texas. I especially welcome advice from the citizens of Texas’ largest city, who know me best and have supported leadership by solutions, not just soundbites. You have been my partners in moving Houston forward by finding common ground, and running our City Hall with integrity, in a business-like, financially sound, and inclusive manner.

Politics aside, Texans should enjoy their friends and family during this week of Thanksgiving and say a prayer for those who cannot be home with their loved ones because they are serving us abroad.

Tagged: bill white, governor, kay bailey hutchison, Tom Schieffer.

I’ll post a report from Mimi Swartz after the press conference.

The word is that a race for governor is “in play,” which I take to mean that White is keeping his options open, which is not really news.

The bad blood between Rick and Kay is only going to get worse. Had Hutchison resigned in the fall, which was her stated intention, White would be in the middle of a special election for the Senate now. Instead, Perry faces a bloody gubernatorial primary against Hutchison, followed by a general election race against White. Perry has got to be furious. By delaying her departure from the Senate, Hutchison has made it possible for White to postpone his decision and hold onto both options, putting Perry at risk.

If White is still weighing the Senate race, along with a race for governor, he must consider in which race the national political situation is likely to play a greater factor. The advantage for a well funded Democrat, which White would be, is that the Senate race is short, a wide-open special election followed by a runoff between the top two vote-getters, quite possibly against a Republican, appointed by Perry, who doesn’t have a lot of name identification or proven voter appeal. But the bad news outweighs the good news. Democrats haven’t had much to be motivated about during the first year of Obama’s presidency, unlike Texas Republicans, who are seething with hostility toward him.

I think White would be in a much stronger position in a governor’s race. The obvious reason is that it’s a general election. Democrats will have somebody they can rally behind for the first time since Ann Richards. All the national issues that have inflamed Republicans — debt, deficits, government-run health care, that pie-in-the-sky cap and trade bill — don’t play a big rule in a governor’s race. I’m not selling Perry short. He is a formidable opponent with great candidate’s skills and a record that Republicans love. You can be sure that he will try to hang Obama around White’s neck. But Perry has a ten-year record that he will have to defend, and he will have been through a rough primary. If White can keep the race focused on state issues, he can win. The Republican base alone can’t win a statewide election.

Tagged: bill white, governor, kay bailey hutchison, rick perry.