Rep. John Carter announced on his Facebook page that he’s withdrawing his support of SOPA. Carter is my congressman, and sadly, he was previously a SOPA cosponsor. It’s good to see that he’s seen the light.
Rep. John Carter Now Opposes SOPA
January 19th, 2012Perry Out?
January 19th, 2012So say the tea leaves. An announcement is scheduled for later today. Word is he’ll endorse Gingrich.
A sad turn of events, but also increasingly an inevitable one. After his autumn gaffes, Perry could just never regain traction. He joins Jack Kemp and Phil Gramm among the list of Republican Presidential contenders I’ve supported who have flamed out early. Sic transit gloria.
(Hat tip: Ace)
Ted Cruz (and Myself) Climb Aboard the Stop SOPA Bandwagon
January 18th, 2012I’m sure that if you do any web-browsing at all, you’ve noticed all the Stop SOPA Blackouts (or, in the case of Fark, a white out) in opposition to the ill-conceived, MPAA-backed SOPA IP “protection” bill that would open up roughly, oh 99% of the web or so to frivolous lawsuits and censorship in the name of copyright protection. I haven’t been blogging about it because: A.) I have other fish to fry, B.) Lots of other bloggers are carrying the load there, and C.) I have a innate aversion to jumping on big internet bandwagons that everyone seems to agree with.
But now that Texas Senate Candidate Ted Cruz has climbed aboard the Stop SOPA bandwagon, I have an excuse to do so. This is another example of how quickly the Cruz campaign acts on current events, and seems to get a jump on its rivals when it comes to hot-button issues, as it did on Fast and Furious, and a quick look showed nothing about SOPA up on the David Dewhurst, Tom Leppert or Craig James websites.
SOPA is a bad bill, and while not nearly as big a concern as out-of-control spending by the federal government, it deserves to be killed.
I note that one of the bill’s main backers, Republican Lamar Smith of San Antonio, has not yet drawn any primary opposition for House District 21. Perhaps some San Antonio conservative might rectify that when the extended campaign filing period opens up after the redistricting case is settled…
New PPP Poll: Cruz Up, Dewhurst Still Leading But Down
January 17th, 2012The latest PPP poll has David Dewhurst still leading the Senate race at 36%, but that’s down five points since their last poll, while Cruz is up 6 points at 18%. Leppert is a distant third at 7% and Craig James comes in at 4%.
Most surprising piece of data: 39% of Dewhurst supporters identify with the Tea Party.
Caveats: The margin of error is +/-4.2%, and PPP is a left-leaning polling company. Still, even at twice Cruz’s support, the Dewhurst campaign can’t be happy with the overall trends…
Dewhurst Raises Disappointing $1.54 Million From Donors in Q4
January 17th, 2012David Dewhurst only raised $1.54 Million from donors in Q4.
While far from chicken-feed, those numbers seem really disappointing to me, especially given that he pulled in $2.64 million in donor contributions in Q3. Those are just donor numbers, and we don’t know much of Dewhurst’s own considerable wealth he tossed in until he tells us, or his official FEC numbers go up (there’s usually a significant lag between the campaign announcement and the FEC putting the numbers up).
As the establishment candidate and presumptive favorite, Dewhurst should be running away in the fundraising race. He’s not.
TPPF Texas Senate Debate Roundup and Video, Plus A Few Other Race Tidbits
January 16th, 2012I was busy with a family even over the weekend, so I haven’t had a chance to sit down and watch the debate all the way through. But I’ll go ahead and put it up for others to take a gander at (Hat tip: The Right Side of Austin). Be aware that the debate doesn’t actually start until over an hour into the video. I’ve heard of long intros, but that’s ridiculous…
Watch live streaming video from texaspublicpolicyfoundation at livestream.com
I’ll save my own comments until I get a chance to watch the whole video.
Here’s a live blog of the debate.
The Cruz campaign sent out a list of links, and rather than link all of them and claim them as my own, I’ll just direct you thataway.
One link they didn’t send out was this review over at Big Jolly Politics, where he gave James, Addison and Dewhurst As, Cruz a B, and Leppert a C.
Kathleen McKinney ranked it Cruz first, James second, and Leppert last (“Not a lot of flash there”), though her overall impressions of all were positive.
In other Senate race news:
Saddle Up Texas Straw Poll Results
January 14th, 2012I’ve been busy hosting a family even this weekend, so I haven’t been able to do a post on Thursday’s debate. But I wanted to point out the results of the straw poll at Saddle Up Houston (which, with 3,321 voters, had a lot more attendees than I suspected).
Keep in mind all the usual caveats that apply to straw polls: They don’t tend to mean a lot when it comes to real voting.
President
Ron Paul: 54.4%
Rick Santorum: 15.6%
Rick Perry: 13.3%
Newt Gingrich: 11.9%
Mitt Romney: 4.2%
Jon Huntsman: 0.5%
Charles “Buddy” Roemer: 0.0% (Jeeze, how do you not manage to snag even .1% of the vote?)
That’s an excellent showing for Ron Paul, but Paul has consistently proven himself much more adept at winning straw polls than primaries. Caveats aside, it’s a bad showing for Rick Perry (if you can’t win a straw poll in your own state, where can you win it?) and Mitt Romney (the frontrunner should get more than 4.2% of the vote, even against two favorite sons).
Senate
Ted Cruz: 49.1%
Craig James: 12.9%
Glenn Addison: 12.0%
Tom Leppert: 9.1%
Lela Pittenger: 9.1%
David Dewhurst: 7.1%
Charles Holcomb: 0.3%
“Doc Joe” Agris: 0.3%
Curt Cleaver: 0.0%
Ben Gambini: 0.0%
That’s good news for Ted Cruz, Craig James and Glenn Addison, and bad news for David Dewhurst. And even though Tom Leppert outpointed Dewhurst, he can’t feel good at merely tying Lela Pittenger, who has neither campaigned as much as him, nor spent 1/1000th of what he has. (Also, Doc Agris can’t feel good about putting up such a paltry total in his own back yard.) Gambini getting 0% isn’t a surprise, since he’s been the invisible man. Cleaver getting 0% is a bit more surprising, since he’s had at least the semblance of a campaign.
But again, these results don’t mean much, as I seriously doubt we’re going to see Craig James battle Glenn Addison for a spot in the runoff against Cruz. They do highlight an enthusiasm gap between Cruz and Dewhurst, but just how much of that gap will translate into votes remains to be seen. I don’t think we’ll get a glimpse of how the race is shaping up in the minds of actual primary voters until we see polls from some of the established polling companies like Gallup, Zogby and Rasmussen.
Going Down, Down, Down…
January 13th, 2012France’s credit rating, that is. “Standard & Poor’s has downgraded France’s credit rating, French TV reported Friday, while several euro zone countries face the same fate later in the day, according to reports.” Maybe because that “strict” 2012 budget France passed still had a budget deficit of 4.5% of GDP, despite the EU having a “limit” (in much the same way the Professional Wrestling has a “limit” on fouls) of 3.0%.
That would be the second largest economy in the Eurozone behind Germany, and the fifth largest in the world.
And the U.S. Federal Government’s 2012 budget deficit is running at about 6.9% of GDP…
LinkSwarm for January 12, 2012
January 12th, 2012I had a maid service come clean my house in advance of a family event I’m hosting this weekend. It’s amazing the difference between “Bachelor Clean” and “Clean Clean.” It’s almost as big as the difference between “Obama Smart” and “Actually Smart”…
If we build the Raspberry Pi in Britain, we have to pay a lot more tax. If a British company imports components, it has to pay tax on those (and most components are not made in the UK). If, however, a completed device is made abroad and imported into the UK – with all of those components soldered onto it – it does not attract any import duty at all. This means that it’s really, really tax inefficient for an electronics company to do its manufacturing in Britain, and it’s one of the reasons that so much of our manufacturing goes overseas. Right now, the way things stand means that a company doing its manufacturing abroad, depriving the UK economy, gets a tax break. It’s an absolutely mad way for the Inland Revenue to be running things.
(Hat tip: Slashdot)
The Federal Debt In Household Terms
January 12th, 2012Something to show those who think the rising national debt is no big deal…