A single word can turn a campaign in the wrong direction. In the case of Rick Perry, of course, that word was “oops.” In the case of Mitt Romney, the word was “maybe”: Romney’s answer to the question of whether he would release his tax returns. It came across as arrogant and condescending. Whether it turned the tide in the South Carolina primary is impossible to say, but it definitely diminished Romney. Most people who go into electoral politics do so knowing that they will likely be called upon to release their tax returns. It is expected. Romney ducked and dodged the question, saying that he might release them in April. “Maybe” was as close as he came.

Romney’s inconsistent statements raised the issue of why he wouldn’t release them and whether there was something embarrassing that he didn’t want anyone to know about. This is exactly what happened to Bill White. He wouldn’t release his returns, and the Perry campaign used it as an excuse to keep from debating White, and to impugn White’s ethics. Romney’s “Maybe” was his Bill White moment. He let the issue fester, when he should have known that he was going to have to release the returns in the end. Now he finds himself in a dogfight with Gingrich, trailing in the polls, with no assurance that he can win in Florida. Another self-inflicted wound in a race that has abounded with them.

Tagged: bill white, mitt romney

We interrupt your regular blogger to bring you a special message from the editor:

So it’s official. As of today, at 1:30 pm EST, Governor Perry is finally a formal candidate for president (though we’ve been convinced he had eyes on the job as far back as February 2010). The question has at long last gone from if/when to how? How will he run? We know he’ll run strong. Perry has never lost a race, something that neither his predecessor, nor the man he hopes will be his ultimate opponent in the 2012 campaign, can say. Most people in Texas would now agree that Perry is an extremely skilled campaigner. But there are 13 people, in particular, who know it in their bones. Who are they? Perry’s 13 vanquished opponents in his ten contested elections. For a feature entitled “The Great Campaigner” in the September issue (available online today), we interviewed these 13 candidates (0r, in a couple reticent cases, their staff) for a candid look at what it’s like to run against (and get beaten by) Governor Perry. It amounts to a fascinating oral history of Perry’s electoral march from unknown Democratic state rep to powerful governor and presidential candidate.

The art for this story deserves a little explanation too. It’s a riff on Boris Vallejo’s iconic 1983 movie poster for National Lampoon’s Vacation. The idea to put the governor in this pose had been on our minds since his pasting of Kay Bailey Hutchison in the 2010 Republican primary and his comfortable win over Bill White in the general election that followed. Like most ideas, it hatched and then followed us around for a while until the right time arrived. That time is now. So with apologies to Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, and Barack Obama, and with condolences to the defeated, here’s the original movie poster, followed by the illustration created for our September issue by artist  Tyler Jacobson. Note the dead coyote and horned toad in the foreground. Details, people, details. (Also, a note to bloggers: Tyler’s illustration can be copied and pasted to your heart’s content.)

We now return you to your regular Burkablogger, senior executive editor Paul Burka.

-JAKE SILVERSTEIN

Boris Vallejo's 1983 movie poster

Tyler Jacobson's illustration for us

Tagged: 2012, barack obama, bill white, kay bailey hutchison, Michelle Bachman, mitt romney, presidential campaign, rick perry

In an earlier version of this post, I mistakenly wrote that the 1990 governor’s race was between Richards and Bush. It was, of course, between Bush and Clayton Williams. The mistake was mine, not Dr. Murray’s, and has been corrected.

This article from the blog of Dr. Richard Murray, a well known Houston polling authority and professor at the University of Houston, focuses on the importance of the Harris County vote in statewide elections. It was sent to me by a correspondent. I have some short comments at the end.

The Importance of Harris County in Texas Gubernatorial Elections: A Review of the Historical Patterns

[Dr. Murray writes]

When virtually all Harris County’s election gear burned in a mysterious early morning warehouse fire last weekend, that blaze also ignited quite a buzz about how this might affect the 2010 governor election. The conventional wisdom is that Democrat Bill White will need both a big turnout locally and a sizable margin of victory here to unseat the ten-year Republican incumbent, Rick Perry. Any disruption in the normal electoral process in Harris County, if such results in reduced turnout, is expected to benefit Governor Perry at Mr. White’s expense.

Before getting into that, I thought it might be useful to look at the role Harris County has placed in Texas governor elections since the Republican Party became a serious statewide threat to the long dominant Democrats in the 1970s.

The table below summarizes the vote for governor in Harris County in the last eight General Elections, starting in 1978. The table reports the Harris County vote for the Democratic and Republican nominees as well as other candidates. It also shows what percentage of the two-party vote the Democrat got in Harris County, and how that compared to their statewide percentage.

Gubernatorial Vote Patterns in Harris County: 1978 – 2006

1978
John Hill (D) vs. Bill Clements (R)
Hill Harris County167,814
Clements Harris County 190,728

D percentage of Harris County two-party vote: 46.8%
D statewide percentage:
49.6%

D -2.8%

(In other words, Hill ran better statewide than he did in Harris County.)

1982
M. White (D) vs. Bill Clements (R)
White Harris County 240,279
Clements Harris County 231,045

D percentage of Harris Countytwo-party vote: 51.0%
D percentage statewide 53.7%

D -2.7%

1986
M. White (D) vs. Clements (R)
White Harris County 267,685
Clements Harris County 238,119

D% of Harris County two-party vote: 52.9
D% statewide: 46.6

Harris County: D +6.3

1990
Richards (D) vs. Bush (R)Richards Harris County: 290,118
Bush Harris County: 259,821

D% of the two-party vote: 51.9%
D% of the statewide vote: 51.3%

D = +.6%

1994
Richards (D) vs. Bush (R)
Richards Harris County 290,118
Bush Harris County 348,507
D% of two-party vote: 45.4
D% of statewide vote: 46.2

D = -.8%

1998
Mauro (D) vs. Bush (R)
Mauro Harris County: 183,045
Bush Harris County: 350,309

D% of the Harris County vote: 34.3%
D% of the statewide vote: 31.4%

D = 2.9%

2002
Sanchez (D) vs. Perry (R)

Sanchez Harris County 280,077
Perry Harris County 355,293

D% of Harris County 2-party vote: 44.1%
D% statewide
40.9%

D +3.2%

2006
Bell (D) vs. Perry (R)

Bell Harris County 203,102
Perry Harris County 215,150

D% of Harris County two-party vote: 48.6%
D% statewide: 43.2%

D+ 5.4%
[161,000 Friedman, Strayhorn votes
not counted due to four candidates in race--pb].

[Dr. Murray writes]

The data show Harris County has been a competitive county in governor elections since 1978, excepting 1998 when Governor George W. Bush blew out an underfunded Democrat, Gary Mauro.

In 1978 and 1982, Republican nominees ran stronger in Harris County than they did statewide, despite the fact that in both years the Democratic nominees, John Hill (1978) and Mark White (1982) were local residents.

Lately, Harris County has become more Democratic than the state as a whole. In 2006, Democrat Chris Bell got just 43.2 percent of the two-party statewide vote, but took 48.6 percent in Harris County. Still, Mr. Bell lost his home county to Rick Perry, so Bill White has to run considerably better than the last Democratic nominee if he is to come out of Harris County with a large enough lead to put the state into play.

Looking at history, Bill White’s 2010 performance in Harris County can probably best be measured against Democrat Mark White’s (no relation) showing in 1986. Twenty four years ago, Governor Mark White got about 53 percent of the vote locally, and carried the county by a little less than 30,000 votes. Mark White did well locally because he got about 40 percent of the Anglo vote, 80 percent of the Hispanic vote, and over 95 percent of the African American vote. If Bill White can repeat that performance with these local voter populations in 2010, he would carry Harris County by about 56-57 percent of the two-party vote because the Anglo vote share is significantly lower today than was the case in the mid-1980s. Of course, there are a lot of other differences between 2010 and 1986, and most of those factors generally work to the benefit of Republicans in this election cycle. That means Bill White has his work cut out for him to match or exceed Mark White’s performance a quarter-century ago.

* * * *

My remarks:

The point of this table is to show that Harris County tends to vote more Democratic than the state as a whole.
I am in agreement with Dr. Murray’s analysis. In fact, I used the 56% for White as the number he has to get in Harris County if he is to defeat Rick Perry in my editorial column this month in TEXAS MONTHLY. That doesn’t mean I think he can get it.

Tagged: bill white

The level of political discourse in this campaign is about as bad as I have ever seen it. Take today’s communication from the Perry campaign:

Today is Day 171 of liberal trial lawyer Bill White refusing to debate. He also continues to refuse to release his taxes from his years in public service.

How is Bill White “refusing to debate?” I suppose the Perry camp would say, well, we said we wouldn’t debate unless he releases his taxes. So White is “refusing” to debate by not releasing all his tax returns. How does that make sense? Of course, as any campaign neophyte would know, White should have just released all his tax returns. He handed the Perry campaign a talking point.

The other recent development in the campaign has been the newspaper ads describing Rick Perry as a “coward” for refusing to debate. These were a big mistake. You just don’t call people a coward in our Texas culture. Perry has his share of shortcomings, but it would never occur to me to call him a coward. Them’s fightin’ words. This is the risk of independent expenditures: the campaign that is supposed to benefit from them can’t control the content of the attack unless it coordinates with the independent group–but coordination is illegal. I will be surprised if the attacks don’t raise White’s negatives.

White is still within single digits of Perry. That isn’t too bad a position to be in, considering the political climate for Democrats in this state, and the amount of time remaining in the race. White has taken a lot of shots from Perry, many of them unfounded (such as “hurricane profiteering”). He hasn’t gotten a lot of traction, but neither has he fallen off the radar screen. White came into this race with a good image. He should tell the trial lawyers who are attacking Perry to shut it down.

Tagged: bill white, rick perry

The race hasn’t budged since the last poll (July 14, Perry 50, White 41). What is significant is that White has spent buckets of money since the last poll and he hasn’t moved any numbers. Probably most Texans know how they are going to vote in this race.

Here is the report on the pollster’s Web site:

Neither major party candidate appears to be gaining any ground in Texas ‘ gubernatorial race, with Republican incumbent Rick Perry still holding a small lead.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the state finds Perry earning 49% support, while Democrat Bill White, a former mayor of Houston, receives 41% of the vote. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and seven percent (7%) are undecided.

The race remains Solid GOP in the Rasmussen Reports’ Election 2010 Gubernatorial Scorecard. [bold face added]

Last month, Perry held a nearly identical 50% to 41% advantage over White. In match-ups since February, Perry’s support has ranged from 47% to 51%. White has earned 38% to 44% of the vote in that same period.

White faces a tough race in a state that trends conservative Republican, especially given the national electoral mood.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of Texas voters consider Perry a conservative. Forty-two percent (42%) view White as a liberal, while another 29% describe him as a moderate.

Despite the perceived differences in ideology, 51% of voters in the state describe Perry’s political views as mainstream, and 52% say the same of White’s views. Thirty-three percent (33%) brand Perry’s views as extreme, and 29% think White’s are extreme.

The survey of 500 Likely Voters in Texas was conducted on August 22, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Perry is favored by 72% of Republicans, while 84% of Democrats support White. Among voters not affiliated with either political party, the Republican leads by a 59% to 33% margin.

Fifty-five percent (55%) of voters in the state approve of the job Perry is doing as governor. Forty-five percent (45%) disapprove. These numbers, too, have held steady for months.

Twenty percent (20%) of voters in Texas have a Very Favorable opinion of Perry, while 20% view him Very Unfavorably.

White is regarded Very Favorably by 19% and Very Unfavorably by 18%.

* * * *

I see nothing in here that is bad for Perry or good for White. Nothing has changed except the White campaign’s bank balance–for the worse. The political climate weighs heavily in Perry’s favor and is reflected in Perry’s high approval rating. About the only thing White can hold onto is that this is August and most people do not pay attention to politics in August.

The most significant number is Perry’s 59-33 margin among unaffiliated voters. If you’re a Democratic candidate and independent voters are breaking almost 2 to 1 against you, you’re unelectable.

White’s television has been primarily positive to this point. At some point he is going to have to attack Perry. But most of the anti-Perry issues were vetted in the primary by Hutchison, and she did nothing but lose ground throughout the campaign. Perry is such a familiar figure by now that everybody knows how they feel about him. This is why, as I have written before, nothing sticks to him. When I was on MSNBC earlier in the month, Chuck Todd asked me, “Does White have a snowball’s chance?” My response was, “That’s about right. He has a snowball’s chance.”

Tagged: bill white, rasmussen reports, rick perry

Republicans are salivating with anticipation; Democrats are running for cover. This is nothing new. The biggest enemy of the Texas Democratic party has always been the national Democratic party, dating back to 1952, when Governor Allan Shivers broke the Solid South by endorsing Eisenhower, who carried Texas. The worst thing that can happen to the Texas Democratic party is for national Democrats to nominate or elect a presidential aspirant who is anathema in Texas. John F. Kennedy carried the state in 1960, but he would not have done so had he not made the shrewd choice of Lyndon Johnson for a running mate. Hubert Humphrey carried the state against Richard Nixon in 1968, barely. McGovern was a total disaster in 1972. His presence on the ticket assured another term for U.S. Senator John Tower and an easy win here for President Richard Nixon. Jimmy Carter carried the state in 1976–the last Democrat to do so–but he was so unpopular by 1978 that the Republicans, a party still in the larval stage, reelected Tower and won the governorship, behind Bill Clements, for the first time since Reconstruction. In 1980 Reagan thumped Carter here, and he won again in 1984. The 1984 Democratic candidate was Walter Mondale, and he carried only his home state of Minnesota. The ’84 election began the destruction of the Texas congressional delegation. which was the most powerful and most cohesive in the House. Six Democrats lost their seats that year. In 1988, U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen was Michael Dukakis’s running mate. That gave Texas Democrats some hope, but (1) George H. W. Bush was the nominee, and (2) Dukakis ran a terrible campaign. Bush won, 55.44% to 43.68%.

The only Democratic nominee, other than Carter in ’76, who has run well in Texas since 1952 is Bill Clinton. In 1992, with Ross Perot in the race, Bush narrowly carried Texas, 40.56% to Clinton’s 37.07%. Perot got 22.01%. The race was close again in 1996, when Bob Dole defeated Clinton, 48.75% to 43.83%. The next two elections were landslides for George W. Bush against Al Gore (2000) and John Kerry (2004). In 2008, Obama could muster only 43.68% against John McCain’s 55.44%.

In short, national Democratic candidates have a long history of running poorly here. The only reason that they visit Texas at all is to raise money, and all that does is take money out of the state that might be used here to pick up some legislative seats. Obama’s visit will help the entire Republican ticket. So if Bill White is perceived as running away from Obama, who can blame him?

Tagged: barack obama, bill white

Readers will recall that an earlier version of this saga featured Perry’s claim that White, while mayor of Houston, personally profited from a contract between the Coastal Water Authority and BTEC, a company that provided generators to keep water flowing to major Houston industries during the storm.

To refresh readers’ memories, here is what I posted when AP’s Jay Root published his story on the contract:

This was the lead of the AP story that has rocked the White campaign today (June 10):

Former Houston Mayor Bill White, who was widely praised for guiding his city through Hurricane Rita, acknowledged to The Associated Press on Tuesday that he made money by investing in a company that was hired to help the region recover from the storm.

The story goes on to relate the following information. (Quoted material is from the AP story.)

1. “White helped line up private companies to provide goods and services as part of a massive relief effort.”

–Is there anything wrong with this? Certainly not. Houston was in an emergency situation.

2. “One of those companies was BTEC Turbines, where White had served on the board of directors before he was mayor.”

–Is there anything wrong with this? Hardly. White’s service on the B-TEC board occurred before he was mayor. He had no connection with the company at that time.

3. “White said he called the company to help provide power generators to ensure the Houston-area refineries and the adjoining city of Baytown could maintain their water supply during the power outages.”

–Is there anything wrong with this? Of course not. The refineries and the public needed the water during power outages.

4. “The company then got an emergency contract with the regional Coastal Water Authority, White recalled.”

–Is there anything wrong with this? Not that I can see. Emergency contracts are used in emergencies. Does anyone doubt that this was an emergency? This was all about arranging for the Authority (a conservation and reclamation district) to provide untreated surface water to Houston, Baytown, and Deer Park as well as around 100 industries during a crisis. The authority is governed by a seven-member board. White has four appointees, Perry three.

5. “A little more than a year later, White invested about $1 million in the privately held BTEC, which has also provided generators to contractors in Iraq. He has reported about a $500,000 profit from the investment.”

–Again, I see nothing unethical in this transaction. The investment in B-TEC came ONE YEAR after the storm. Whatever payment BTEC had received from the emergency contract was in the past. You have to credit the Perry people with shrewdly making a mountain out of a molehill, but the dots do not connect.

The post concluded with this comment:

So, was White at fault in any way? Of course he was. He wouldn’t release his income tax returns for two months. This was stupid. There is no other word for it. How could someone as smart as White not know that he was going to have to make his tax returns public. He allowed the issue to fester, and fester, and fester, and he just let Perry pound on him. Finally, he bowed to the inevitable and made them public. In the meantime, his dilly-dallying allowed the Perry campaign to plant the idea in the public’s mind that White had something to hide….

* * * *

Now, let’s move forward to the current dispute, based on Root’s AP story of August 4. Here are some passages from the story. In some cases I have combined paragraphs for convenience and clarity. My comments appear following dashes:

(more…)

Tagged: bill white, rick perry

Marc Ambinder, politics editor and blogger for The Atlantic, writes that the Democratic message for the fall elections is shaping up to be, “We may be incompetent but they’re crazy.”

Good party messages are organic, and they are not announced. Fortunately for Democrats, theirs just sort of came along, thanks to the Tea Party movement, which has invited into politics hecklers and cranks and fairly fringe candidates who are currently hurting the Republican Party in several key states. Oh, but the Tea Party is an organic movement of conservative men and women who will feel insulted if the Democrats cast them as crazy and lumps them together with Republicans, right? Nah. These people are perpetually offended by the Democratic Party.

The Democratic strategy in a nutshell is small enough to fit in one but has the protein of a good, tasty nut. The Republicans want to be mayors of crazy-town. They’ve embraced a fringe and proto-racist isolationist and ignorant conservative populism that has no solutions for fixing anything and the collective intelligence of a wine flask. This IS offensive and over the top, and the more Democrats repeat it, and the more dumb things some Republican candidates do, the more generally conservative voters who might be thinking of sending a message to Democrats by voting for a Republican will be reminded that the replacement party is even more loony than the party that can’t tie its shoes. This is a strategy of delegitimization, not affirmation. It is how you reduce independent turnout. It’s how you fundraise for your own party.

* * * *

Can this strategy work for Bill White? The Republican party here is unrecognizable compared to when Bush was governor. I’m not sure that even Rick Perry can control it. It has moved far to the right, and it is obsessed with hatred for Obama and the federal government. That would be dangerous territory in normal states like, say, Ohio, but independents here are pretty reliable Republican voters. The one thing White has going for him is his mild personality and wonkish appearance. His low-key manner may turn out to be effective on television as a contrast to what is going on in the Republican party. This is a strange year, and the Democrats have a chance to nationalize the election along the lines of crazy/sane. I’m not saying that this is going to be a good year for the Democrats. I do think that they have a shot at holding on to both houses of Congress, narrowly. California is not the best measure of political normalcy, but it looks as if Boxer is establishing a decent lead against Fiorina, and Jerry Brown is leading Meg Whitman, albeit narrowly, for governor. My sense is that this is a very unstable electoral climate; it can turn and bite. It ought to be a Republican year, and there is no doubt that the GOP will make substantial gains. But this is looking less and less like 1994. The Republicans knew what they were doing then. Now they are riding the whirlwind.

Tagged: bill white

I don’t get it. White has been criticizing Perry for taking more stimulus funding than any state except California and New York. Is this a bad thing? White is a Democrat. Democrats want to use government to help people. Money helps people. Had White been governor, would he have told mothers receiving child support that he wasn’t accepting $27.3 million in federal funds for child support enforcement? Would he have rejected $2.1 million to compensate victims of serious crimes? Would he have snubbed $9 million for women who are victims of violence? Would he have struck $2 million for a nutritional program that provides home-delivered meals to seniors? Or $27.6 million in supplemental nutrition assistance for food stamp recipients? Or $1.58 billion for road and bridge construction? One and a half billion dollars is a lot of jobs.

It looks to me that White is falling into the same error that Perry’s opponents always make: They hate Perry so much that they want to make him out to be a bad person, not just a bad governor. White is apparently trying to make some obscure point that Perry is not really a fiscal conservative, or that he is really a creature of Washington. Give it up. It’s not going to work. In the meantime, White ends up looking silly, because everybody knows that if White had been governor, he would have jumped at the money. What’s more, we would be in a much worse budget situation today if Perry hadn’t done so.

I realize that there is a separate issue over whether state budget writers used the stimulus funds wisely, or whether they used money that was intended for one purpose to achieve another purpose. That’s an argument for another day. There should be no dispute over whether Texas is better off because Perry took $12 billion or so in stimulus dollars. It is. So why is White trying to make an issue of something that serves beneficiaries of government programs–his own constituency?

Tagged: bill white, rick perry, stimulus money

The previous poll was 48-40, so very little change. Curiously, Rasmussen describes Perry’s lead as “modest.” Since the MOE is +/- 4./5%, Perry’s nine-point edge is the largest possible advantage that is still within the margin of error. Perhaps Rasmussen is downplaying Perry’s lead as a reaction to recent criticism from polling junkies that his polls have a Republican “house effect.”

Is there any reason for optimism in the White camp? (1) Perry’s job approval numbers are 55% approve, 44% disapprove. At +11, these numbers mirror the horse-race numbers. No good news there. Independents? Perry +6. No good news there. Texans’ view of the economy is turning darker:

Good or excellent: 12%
Poor 51%

Economy improving: 25%
Economy getting worse 50%

These views could help White. but Perry has established himself as an advocate for jobs and economic growth, and it will be hard for White to undo that perception.

Favorable/Unfavorable:

Perry 17% very favorable. 20% very unfavorable
White 24% very favorable, 18% very unfavorable

Perry’s numbers are upside down, White’s are rightside up.

Anything involving national politics–health care repeal, the Arizona immigration lawsuit–is overwhelmingly in favor of Republicans.

I don’t see much to dwell on here. Perry has a solid lead. National trends are in his favor. He has to watch out for shifting views on the state’s economy. His job disapproval is high, but his approval is higher. Among voters with strong feelings, Perry is -3, White is +6. Very little new information.

As has been true of previous polls, this one was conducted before the race has begun in earnest. The poll was conducted on July 13. July 15 is the semiannual reporting deadline for the fundraising period that includes the election. Only when the candidates go up on TV in earnest will we have an idea about what their messages are and whether they are effective.

Tagged: bill white, rasmussen, rick perry