Craig James: Not Universally Loved

December 14th, 2011

I know this may comes as a shock to some of you, seeing as how I occasionally write about sports for my other blog, but I don’t have cable, and thus have no first-hand experience of Craig James’ ESPN broadcasting prowess.

However, news of James’ possible Senate candidacy has been racing around the worlds of both politics and sports, and from the commentary there, I think it safe to assert that James is not universally loved:

  • I was unaware (or had even forgotten) that all four of Sports Illustrated‘s college football writers names James the worst college football broadcaster. “Craig James and Jesse Palmer…it’s still two ex-jocks glad-handing each other and spewing clichés for three-and-a-half hours” says the normally mild-mannered Stewart Mandel. (Nor does he seem to have moderated his views on the subject.)
  • Awful Announcers has put him on their Mt. Rushmore of awfulness.
  • Matt Hinton is not a fan.
  • Some are hoping he’ll win just to get him off the air.
  • An Ordinary American is not impressed.

    • The same liberal bitterness over any public Republican figure? Maybe, but I’m not getting that vibe reading the comments. And hard-core liberals don’t usually hang out at Big Government.

    More James news:

  • The Statesman asks Could Craig James be a serious candidate for the U.S. Senate? (Texas Iconoclast answers “No. On the other hand, getting crushed in a political race might help downsize the guy’s XXL ego, so that’s a plus.”)
  • This piece argues that James will get his ass handed to him (which I think is correct) and that he’s actually not running to win, but to build name recognition for a 2014 U.S. House seat run. Maybe, but running statewide in a race you don’t expect to win is an awful bass ackwards way to run for a House seat.

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    Posted in Elections, Media Watch, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Texas Senate Race Update for December 13, 2011

    December 13th, 2011

    The filing deadline for all races is coming up on Thursday. Beyond that, the biggest news is probably going on behind the scenes, as I suspect all three of the major candidates are raising money like mad in advance of the Q4 deadline, the last to be reported before the March primary.

  • Ted Cruz, David Dewhurst and Tom Leppert have all officially filed for election.
  • So have Glenn Addison, Curt Clever, Charles Holcomb (as mentioned yesterday), and one Ben Gambini of Winnie (about which The Google has precious little; he might as well be Chauncey Gardener).
  • Sean Hubbard says he’s filed, and his name showed up on the Texas Democrats’ website today.
  • Still no sign of Ricardo Sanchez’s name. Two days left…
  • Leppert picked up the endorsements of a number of former Dallas Cowboys, including Roger Staubach (who I mentioned previously as having donated to Leppert) and Troy Aikman. Again, all those play to his Dallas base, but Staubach and Aikman’s endorsements certainly won’t hurt him in the rest of the state.
  • Dewhurst calls on Eric Holder to resign.
  • Dewhurst stated that he was willing to debate once or twice. As Texas Iconoclast noted: “How magnanimous of his highness.”
  • Once you get beyond the condescending opening (“Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst enters the U.S. Senate campaign with considerable cash and name recognition, but a couple of Republican challengers are nipping at his heels”), this Houston Chronicle piece is a fairly accurate distillation of the consensus wisdom on the race.
  • Speaking of MSM outlets, Robert T. Garrett in The Dallas Morning News has an interesting bit on Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks setting up a phone bank for Cruz. Garrett has even toned down most of his usual smug condescension…
  • Sen Jim DeMint also appeared with Cruz at a Houston fundraiser on December 6.
  • Dewhurst spoke in Wichita Falls.
  • The Texas Restaurant Association endorses Dewhurst. That link also notes that:

    This endorsement follows other major Texas endorsements of Dewhurst’s candidacy in recent weeks, including the Texas Poultry Federation, three former presidents of the Texas Farm Bureau, BEEF-PAC, the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association Political Action Committee and the Texas Farm Bureau Friends of Agriculture Fund last week. David has also received endorsements from the Texas State Association of Fire Fighters, the Texas State Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, the Texas Municipal Police Association and the Texas Department of Public Safety Officers Association PAC. Prior to those, he received endorsements Texas Right To Life PAC, pro-life leaders Kyleen Wright and Carol Everett, and the Texas Alliance for Life PAC.

    Dewhurst was always going to get the lion share of the business endorsements. The pro-life endorsements I’ve covered. The police and firefighter pickups won’t hurt.

  • Well, there’s one group that probably won’t be endorsing Craig James if he jumps in: Texas Tech boosters. But I don’t know where the silly “killed 5 hookers” meme started.
  • Robert Pratt at Empower Texas is not impressed with Tom Leppert’s pledge to “get things done” in Washington. I hardly qualify as a Leppert cheerleader, but I do think they make much ado about nothing for what is essentially a rhetorical flourish.

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    Posted in Elections, Media Watch, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Craig James to Jump Into Republican Senate Race?

    December 13th, 2011

    So says The Dallas Morning News, citing “sources close to his developing campaign.”

    I don’t know why he would. I don’t see a lot of running room (no pun intended), it will be very hard to raise money, it’s been a long time since James was top of the football heap, and ESPN analyst is probably not a high-enough profile job for the requisite level of fame you’d need to win the race jumping in this late. And he’s not nearly rich enough to self-fund like David Dewhurst (unless the pre-death penalty SMU football program was even more generous with athlete payouts than we’ve been lead to realize).

    If he does get in, he probably hurts Tom Leppert the most, due to the same geographic base in the Metroplex.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Welcoming Eric Holder to Austin

    December 13th, 2011

    Several Austin bloggers are suggesting that people gather to “welcome” Eric Holder to Austin, where he’ll be speaking at the LBJ Library on UT campus. I won’t be able to, due to commitments with my new job, but I encourage others to do so if it fits into their schedule.

    And here’s a related cartoon from Frugal Cafe:

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    Posted in Austin, Democrats, Obama Scandals, Texas | No Comments »

    Where’s Ricardo? (Plus: A New Democratic Challenger Appears)

    December 12th, 2011

    There’s some news on the Democratic side of the Texas Senate race.

    First of all, the name of the DNC’s handpicked candidate, Ricardo Sanchez, does not appear on the list of candidates who have filed for the Texas Senate race.

    Well, the deadline is Thursday. No worries. Assuming he wants to run, there’s plenty of time for Sanchez to file for the race.

    But what if he doesn’t?

    After all, even before his house burned down, there was precious little evidence Sanchez was really interested in running for the Senate. His fundraising is abysmal, his media appearances are rare, his campaign stops even rarer (Ted Cruz and Glenn Addison do more campaigning in a day than Sanchez manages in a month), his social media footprint miniscule, and his buzz factor is non-existent.

    Other signs of the moribund nature of Sanchez’s campaign: DSCC chair Patty Murray drawing audible laughs when asked about Democratic chances in Texas. “After being initially hailed as a pick-up opportunity, Texas is off the radar for Democrats. DSCC executive director Guy Cecil suggested as much last month. Murray didn’t even mention Ricardo Sanchez’s name.”

    Sanchez peaked when he announced for the race. Ever since then it’s been a long, painful slog, with his only reward the prospect of being slaughtered by Ted Cruz or David Dewhurst in the general election. Is there a serious non-partisan observer anywhere who looks at Sanchez’s dismal campaign and thinks he can win?

    Is this how Sanchez pictured his retirement? He seems for all the world like someone just going through the motions.

    However, there is one Democratic candidate who has filed for the U.S. Senate race: Daniel Boone! I believe Texans will be favorably impressed with his trackin’ and bear-killin’ skills, and thus might be willing to overlook his Missouri residency and the fact the he’s been dead 191 years.

    Sadly for Democrats, the “rippin’est, roarin’est, fightin’est man the frontier ever knew” is not the one running, but rather a retired Air Force Lt. Colonel (which sets up a nice “flyboy vs. grunt” inter-service rivalry if Sanchez does run).

    He has a website and a Facebook page. His campaign platform is vague Democratic boilerplate.

    But a famous namesake isn’t enough to overcome Ricardo Sanchez, right?

    Think again.

    Remember Gene Kelly? The perennial office-seeker whose only notable attribute was the name of the famous dancing movie star? He won the 2000 Democratic primary runoff for this very Senate seat (then occupied by Kay Baily Hutchison) over former state legislator Charles Gandy with 58.43% of the vote.

    Want to guess what Kelly’s background was?

    Would you believe retired Air Force Colonel?

    It would be tempting to use the “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce” line, but here the first time was farce.

    If Sanchez declines the race, I would say that Boone automatically becomes the frontrunner. And so far Sanchez has run such a lackluster campaign that high name recognition (even misrecognition) might be enough to beat him…

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Retired Judge Charles Holcomb Joins the Senate Race

    December 12th, 2011

    Looking over the list of Republican candidates who had filed for the Senate race, I was surprised to see the name of former Court of Criminal Appeals judge Charles Holcomb of Wimberley, who was age-limited out of the office. Despite searching, I was unable to find any campaign website for Judge Holcomb.

    So I called him up.

    Judge Holcomb was gracious enough to talk a few minutes about why he was running:

  • He considers himself an “Eisenhower Republican.”
  • He talked over running with some friends and decided “why not?”
  • He has neither a campaign staff nor a website, and said he just filed the required paperwork with the FEC.
  • He’s running to “give people a choice.”
  • He realizes he has a steep uphill fight “against two millionaires.”
  • He promises to serve only a single term.
  • He supports the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan.
  • He believes that there is too much money in politics.

    • BattleSwarm Blog thanks Judge Holcomb for his time.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 3 Comments »

    Never Mind Sucking Up Tax Dollars: The Latest Democratic Donor Cronyism Could Get You KILLED

    December 11th, 2011

    I’m sure by now that everyone who has been paying attention knows the Obama Administration’s insatiable appetite for cony capitalism, especially when it comes to shoveling “green energy” subsidies to Obama campaign donors.

    But never mind that. The latest Obama scandal has the potential to kill more Americans than Fast and Furious, maybe by three or four orders of magnitude.

    The high level summary: A project backed by a prominent Democratic donor might interfere with GPS.

    I used to work at both a GPS company, and a company producing RF chips for commercial computer use, so I have a little more technological background on this issue than some. Here’s a summary of the issue by the former Chief Technology Officer of one of the companies I used to work for:

    LightSquared uses spectrum right next to GPS, and they expect to have both terrestrial and satellite broadband links. GPS signals are already quite faint by the time they reach the earth’s surface, and any adjacent interference could severely impact the performance of a GPS receiver – its location accuracy could be impaired, or it may not work at all. There are millions of GPS receivers in both civilian and military systems that could be impacted…it would be impossible to retrofit all of these with a fix, so the onus is on LightSquared to figure out how to avoid interfering with GPS.

    Here’s another overview:

    GPS satellites broadcast a 50-watt signal from 12,000 miles up, across an entire continent, said Pete Large, a vice president at GPS vendor Trimble Navigation who works with the Coalition. By contrast, the LTE base stations used in the recent tests produced signals of up to 1,600 watts within about a mile of GPS receivers. LightSquared’s signals were stronger by 1 billion times or more, Large said.

    So GPS signals get overwhelmed by a local source. What’s the worst that could happen?

    Well imagine a Boeing 787 Dreamliner conducting an nighttime instrument approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when the GPS signal is overwhelmed at a critical phase. Now imagine that same Boeing 787 Dreamliner plowing into downtown Arlington, Virginia at 150 miles per hour, leaving a wake of bloody body parts and burning jetfuel for a quarter-mile.

    That’s the worst that could happen.

    How likely is that worst case scenario? Well, consider that news just broke of the U.S government test of LightSquared technology. The result?

    – Philip Falcone’s proposed LightSquared Inc. wireless service caused interference to 75 percent of global-positioning system receivers examined in a U.S. government test, according to a draft summary of results.

    The results from testing conducted Oct. 31 to Nov. 4 show that “millions of fielded GPS units are not compatible” with the planned nationwide wholesale service, according to the draft seen by Bloomberg News.

    “LightSquared signals caused harmful interference to majority of GPS receivers tested,” according to the draft prepared for a meeting next week of U.S. officials reviewing the LightSquared proposal. “No additional testing is required to confirm harmful interference exists.”

    (Hat tip: Slashdot.)

    It was bad enough when the Obama Administration was just wasting taxpayer dollars on well-connected business cronies like Solyandra. But Fast and Furious has helped kill hundreds of Mexicans and at least one U.S. border patrol agent, all for the the purpose of promoting gun control. In trying to help another batch of well-connected Democratic cronies at LightSquared, the results could easily be hundreds or evn thousands dead. And it might not just be one airliner, because there’s no guarantee the accident investigation would find the cause quick enough to prevent a re-occurrence.

    Will the Obama Administration back off it’s efforts to ram through LightSquared approval despite the scientific evidence? Will LightSquared stop trying to get the technology approved?

    Don’t bet on it. From the same story:

    LightSquared is “outraged by the illegal leak of incomplete government data,” Harriman said in an e-mailed statement. “This breach attempts to draw an inaccurate conclusion to negatively influence the future of LightSquared and narrowly serve the business interests of the GPS industry.”

    Yeah, the GPS industry does indeed have a strong business interest in not seeing thousands of people die. Whether the the Obama Administration shares that concern enough to turn their back on a major Democratic donor less than a year before the 2012 elections remains to be seen.

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    Posted in Democrats, Obama Scandals | 4 Comments »

    Supreme Court to District Court on Texas Redistricting Plan: REJECTED!

    December 10th, 2011

    The Supreme Court Friday night “blocked a redistricting plan for Texas drawn by a panel of federal judges.”

    I’ve got to run off, and the issue is far from settled, but this is good news for the rule of law, and bad news for liberals wanting to abuse the court system to get what they want despite voters rejecting them again and again.

    [Edited to add: Crappy, hastily written headline now rewritten to make it clear this was a U.S. Supreme Court stay, not the Texas Supreme Court, which is obviously holds no sway over a U.S. District Court. – LP]

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    Posted in Democrats, Supreme Court, Texas | 2 Comments »

    European Union to Become SuperDuper European Union

    December 9th, 2011

    Let me see if I can get this straight:

    UK Prime Minister David Cameron, objecting to the Deutschland Uber Alles renegotiation of the Maastricht Treaty, is now causing the creation of a new SuperDuper Europe, with Germany reoccupying the Rhineland taking leadership of the whole shebang, finally erasing the rest of the continent’s reluctance at receiving orders from Berlin?

    I mean, when even the Europhillic New York Times says that “Twenty years after the Maastricht Treaty, which was designed not just to integrate Europe but to contain the might of a united Germany, Berlin had effectively united Europe under its control,” maybe the citizens of those stodgy old entities we used to call “countries” should consider the possibility that they might may be making a mistake. I am especially surprised that the non-Euro-using generalgouvernement Poland gave in so readily, as their previous experiences with rule from Berlin have been less than exemplary.

    But what’s sacrificing the last of your country’s vestigially sovereignty compared to the glorious dream of saving the Euro?

    Assuming, of course, that forging this Pact of Steel (including a 500 billion Euro bailout fund) actually saves the Euro, which is a dubious proposition at best. And at least one U.S. general says we should be prepared for civil unrest if Euro ends up exploding anyway.

    The irony, of course, is that David Cameron, the wetest Tory Wet PM since Neville Chamberlain, refused to give in to another Eurotreaty British citizens wouldn’t get a chance to vote on less than two months after refusing to allow a vote on the previous EU treaty British citizens were not allowed to vote on. It would be ironic if Cameron actually ended up pulling the UK out of the EU because, in a moment of weakness, he actually exhibited rare and uncharacteristic streaks of firm principle and common sense.

    Will the citizens of Europe actually get a chance to vote on this Reich closer European integration? Doubtful. Ireland’s Taoiseach is being “cagey” about a vote. (Translation: Fark no, you peasants won’t get a vote.) I doubt any of his brothers in Europe’s Permanent Ruling Class will feel any less “cagey.”

    Through a thousand small steps, from committees and working groups and consultations and emergency decrees, Eurocrats have done their very best to remove power for all important decisions from the hands of the people and entrust it into their own well-greased palms. And also, not so coincidentally, to avoid taking the blame for the ruin their cradle-to-grave welfare states, and the huge and ever-growing debts necessary to pay for them, have made of Europe’s once free nations and productive economies.

    Other Eurozone news, some possibly stale and out of date:

  • Jim DeMint says the best way for us to help Europe is not to help Europe.
  • Portugal’s economy is shrinking.
  • Moody’s downgrades French banks.
  • Problem: Possibility of sovereign debt default means bond downgrades. Solution: Create a bailout fund. problem: Downgrade of bailout fund. Solution: ?????
  • Europe’s Coming Inflation:

    For years, Europeans loved to lecture Americans on the both the safety and soundness of the continent’s banking system as opposed to our own, and how their economic system worked so much better than ours. Well, one lesson of the 2011 financial crisis is that many of their banks are probably in worse shape than the US banks were in 2008.

    At least our banks’ troubled investments were tied to real estate, which may rebound once our economy improves. Their banks are holding debt tied to some of the world’s least productive, no-growth countries.

    Why so underproductive? Most of the evidence points to the failure of the European welfare state.

    Europeans loved to lecture Americans on how government-run health-care and cradle-to-grave entitlements provided such safety and comfort for the masses. People supposedly didn’t mind paying higher taxes because it enhanced their standard of living.

    Until, of course, it didn’t enhance anything — and Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal face the collapse of their safety nets because they can’t borrow to pay for them anymore, even as unemployment is rampant. (Meanwhile, France is not far behind.)

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    Posted in Budget, Economics, Foreign Policy, Welfare State | 1 Comment »

    UT Law Dean Resigns Over Slush Fund Payouts

    December 9th, 2011

    Keep in mind that’s not what the headline says, which is a more neutral “UT law dean forced to step down.” But what else do you call “a $500,000 forgivable loan” to UT Dean Larry Sager “at a time when deans, vice presidents and other top university officials were under a salary freeze”? When you give people money they don’t have to pay back, that’s not a loan, that’s a gift. (I also wonder whether Dean Sager declared this money on his taxes. Or did he not have to, because it was a “loan”?) And slush fund seems to be the proper term for a fund from which sums can be doled out without administrative accountability.

    Or, to put it another way: If it were revealed that University of Texas head football coach Mack Brown had such a fund, to receive funds from or to dole out at his discretion, not only would we be calling it a slush fund, he would be fired, National Championship notwithstanding. Should the UT Law School be held to a lesser standard than the UT Athletics Department?

    No wonder the Texas Public Policy Foundation continues to advocate for lower administrative costs in higher education, among many other needed reforms. This most recent incident shows such reform is still badly needed.

    (Hat tip: Tax Prof Blog via Instapundit.)

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    Posted in Budget, Texas | 5 Comments »

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