Innovation and creativity used by Joaquin Castro against the radical, crazy Republicans

Express-News columnist Brian Chasnoff’s column today appeared to have a two-pronged purpose:

1. Advance the deification of the Castro twins.
2. Create a perception that Democrats are on the verge of becoming competitive in Texas.

Chasnoff addresses the first prong by telling a three-act story involving Joaquin Castro.  In the first act, Castro is block-walking on the Republican northwest side of San Antonio.  Then in the second act, Castro is depressed because his list of targeted houses – those with reliable voters – causes him to walk past most of the houses.  And in the third act, Castro has an inspiration, which is to get the reliable voters to influence their unreliable friends and family to vote.  For melodramatic measure, Castro names his idea the “Victoria Project” after his late grandmother.

Your response to Castro’s inspiration might be, “Duh?  Tell me something I didn’t know,” but that is not how Chasnoff characterizes it.  Instead he describes it as an epiphany – “Castro’s idea, conceived that day on the campaign trail, is more modest in scale. But its creative approach might inform the myriad efforts here to revitalize Democrats, who haven’t won a statewide election in two decades.”

And that brings us to the second prong of Chasnoff’s column – i.e., there is a serious movement underway to make Texas a competitive state for Democrats within the decade.  Chasnoff refers to an extensive new article in Politico.com that describes the myriad, far-reaching efforts to revitalize Democrats that might be informed by Castro’s creative approach, but instead of discussing those efforts, Chasnoff decides to elaborate on Castro’s “more modest in scale” project:

• Each voter would cast a personal appeal powerful enough to motivate nonvoters to cast ballots.  Castro offered a fictional example: Maria Fernandez, whose father died from diabetes, emails 10 people “who really cared for her dad” with a message that “combines a personal narrative with a policy imperative.” In other words, Fernandez mourns both her father and GOP policy on health care.

The column concludes by suggesting that the Victoria Project would work perfectly against Republicans if Governor Rick Perry and party leaders persist in refusing to extend Medicaid under ObamaCare to two million poor, uninsured Texans.  According to Castro (and Chasnoff?), this position is beyond radical, it’s crazy.

Although this simple concept of trying to leverage your voters unquestionably makes sense, its effectiveness is questionable.  As Castro says, “It’s very intensive work.  There’s a lot of follow-through and a lot of handholding because you’ve got to help people craft the message.”  You think?

Think about crafting a message from your voters to their friends telling them about their poor family member who can’t afford ObamaCare, but would be eligible for free Medicaid if more people would vote Democratic.  Good luck on that in Texas.

City contracting in San Antonio

Earlier today, I posted on my Facebook wall that I was planning to run for the San Antonio City Council, with the election on May 11.   I noted that I wouldn’t be soliciting or accepting any campaign contributions because there was too much money in politics.

Coincidentally, Brian Chasnoff’s column in the Express-News today discussed a problem concerning city councilmen who make money off city contracts.  Apparently, city ethics rules prohibit councilmen from making money off contracts that are directly with the city, but contracts with city-affiliated agencies, such as SAWS and VIA, are kosher.  

Mayor Castro sees this distinction as an improper loophole and recently proposed that contracts with city-affiliated agencies also be prohibited.  Chasnoff suggests, however, that Castro’s proposal might have an improper motive – i.e., District 9 Councilwoman Elisa Chan, a political thorn in Castro’s side, has a consulting business that does a lot of business with city-affiliated agencies.  This could be a way of getting back at her.   

While doing some research on this subject, I stumbled across a similar column that Chasnoff wrote a couple of months ago.    In the earlier column, however, Chasnoff focused on the ethical quandary of Rolando Briones, who is running for the same District 8 position that I am.  Apparently, Briones bid on and won some engineering contracts with the city in 2012 after he had become a District 8 candidate.  This is something that even Elisa Chan declined to do after she became a council candidate.

Briones said in the Chasnoff column that he will give up his city contracts if he is elected even though the city ethics rules allow him to finish out those contracts.  (In fact, giving up the contracts will cause problems for the city.)  I think it would have been better if Briones had followed Chan’s example and quit bidding on contracts after he became a candidate.  I also think that Mayor Castro’s proposal to treat city and city-affiliated contracts alike makes sense.  And most importantly, as with lobbyists and elected officials, I don’t think there shouldn’t be a resolving door between being a city vendor and being on the City Council. 

On a related matter, I wonder whether people like Chan or Briones should be entitled to vote when the city considers a proposal to give contracting preferences to Asians and Hispanics (and African-Americans.  Of course, if all minority councilmen recused themselves, there would be only be the single white, non-Hispanic male on the council left to vote.

Colin Powell on racist Republicans

Colin Powell angered a lot of Republicans this weekend on Meet the Press when he accused the party of harboring a bunch of racists.  Because I missed viewing the show, and didn’t want to criticize Powell on the basis of out-of-context clips, I decided to read a transcript.  It says the following:

• “I think the Republican Party right now is having an identity problem. And I’m still a Republican. … In recent years, there’s been a significant shift to the right, and we have seen what that shift has produced: two losing presidential campaigns. I think what the Republican Party needs to do now is take a very hard look at itself and understand that the country has changed. The country is changing demographically. And if the Republican Party does not change along with that demographic, they’re going to be in trouble.”  This comment seems to reflect the party’s need to better accommodate the growing Hispanic population, and it is consistent with what most in the party have already concluded.
• “You can’t go around saying we don’t want to have a solid immigration policy, we’re going to dismiss the 47 percent, we are going to make it hard for these minorities to vote, as they did in the last election.  What did that produce? The court struck most of that down, and most importantly, it caused people to turn out and stand in line, because these Republicans were trying to keep us from voting.”  This comment repeats Powell’s Hispanic/immigration criticism and throws in Romney’s 47% comment, which was repudiated by most in the party, including Romney himself.  But Powell goes on to characterize the Republican Party’s voter-ID initiatives as an effort to disenfranchise minorities.  That’s equivalent to calling a cutback on food stamps or welfare as a racist attack on minorities.  You expect that sort of name-calling by opportunist Democrats, but not by a self-proclaimed Republican.
• “There’s also a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party. What I do mean by that? What I mean by that is they still sort of look down on minorities. How can I evidence that? When I see a former governor say that the president is ‘shucking and jiving,’ that’s a racial-era slave term. When I see another former governor — after the president’s first debate, where he didn’t do very well — saying that the president was lazy. … And then there’s a third word that goes along with it: birther, the whole birther movement. Why do senior Republican leaders tolerate this kind of discussion within the party?”  The first three sentences of this paragraph are used in all of the conservative-show clips, and the “evidence” sentences are usually not presented.  How solid is the evidence?  Although the “shucking and jiving” criticism (by Sarah Palin) might have some weight as offensive, the weight is greatly diminished by the fact that New York governor Cuomo used the same phrase to describe candidate Obama during his primary run against Hillary Clinton in 2008.  Does Powell think there is a “dark vein of intolerance” within the Democratic Party, too?  (How about Biden’s comment about a “clean looking” Obama?)  And if calling a person lazy is offensive if the person happens to be black, then we will have to stop calling people dumb if they happen to be blonde.  And finally, responsible people in the Republican Party had nothing to do with the Birther movement.

Like Ronald Reagan, I believe the Republican Party should be a big tent and shouldn’t impose loyalty oaths on its followers.  That’s why I hate the whole RINO thing or any form of excommunication.  If Colin Powell, despite his misgivings, continues to claim Republican status, that’s fine with me. 

But together with Chris Christie, he reminds me of the old adage – with friends like him, who needs enemies.

Money in Texas politics

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the outsize role that money is playing in races for San Antonio’s City Council.  Today’s edition of the San Antonio Express-News has so many articles on money in Texas politics that it makes me sick:

1. George P. Bush, about whom I blogged a few days ago, has already raised $1.35 million even though he hasn’t even decided which office he will run for.  Because Texas has no limits on contributions, Bush was able to collect $50,000 from his dad Jeb and $50,000 from his uncle Bush-43; 449 contributions from 29 states, with 65% from TX and 26% from FL.   
2. The Pre-K 4 SA initiative received $345,000 in contributions in the last few days before the election, mostly from HEB, and $30,000 from the Castro for Congress campaign.  The Castro contribution is shocking because that is federal money, which is limited to $2,500 per contributor.  But then again, it isn’t shocking because Joaquin Castro was not in a competitive race and therefore didn’t need the money.  And from his family’s perspective, the defeat of Pre-K 4 SA would have been devastating.   
3. Attorney General Greg Abbott has accumulated an incredible $18 million, which some suspect is an indication that he plans to take on Governor Rick Perry, who has a mere $6 million.  Texans should wonder who is giving these people so much money, and what are these contributors expecting or receiving in return?  Incidentally, the House Speaker Strauss has $4 million and the Lt. Governor Dewhurst has a mere $2 million. 
4. If these money articles weren’t enough, the front page of the Express-News is headlined with an article on the former deputy city manager, Pat DiGiovanni, receiving a letter of admonition for having a conflict of interest in approving a multi-million dollar contract to a business run by a person he was interviewing for a job with. 

I suddenly feel the need to take a shower.

Chicken hawks of the Senate

Dana Milbank from the Washington Post used his column today to defend Chuck Hagel from concern expressed by three Republican senators:

• “In Vietnam in 1968, two separate mine explosions left Chuck Hagel with shrapnel in his chest and burns on his face and arms.  This is not a man who is going to shrink from a fight with the chicken hawks of the Senate.”

According to Milbank, “Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.) called Hagel’s record ‘extremely concerning.’ Sen. David Vitter (La.) said Hagel’s confirmation ‘would send exactly the wrong message.’ Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) said Hagel’s views send ‘the worst possible signal.’  Neither Cornyn nor Vitter lists military service in his biography. Graham was an Air Force lawyer.”

Hypocritically, Milbank has the gall to accuse Senator Lindsey Graham (born 1955) of being a chicken hawk despite his six years of active-duty service and subsequent Guard service (albeit as a mere lawyer).  Senator Vitter (born 1961) graduated from college in 1983, and I’m not sure what war Milbank thinks Vitter should have volunteered for. 

Senator Cornyn (born 1952) does own a history that is consistent with most of the college kids of his time.  As indicated in a detailed on-line article, Cornyn appears to have used a student deferment to avoid service during the Vietnam War. 

I have always found the term “chicken hawk” to be childish and disgusting – childish in calling someone “chicken” and disgusting in suggesting that only veterans can favor taking military action.  Should we call John Kerry a killer dove for fighting in Vietnam and then later opposing the war?  Should President Obama be called a chicken dove for declining to serve in the military and then later opposing most military action?  (I might be sensitive to the term because I consider “chicken” to be a fighting term and because I actively avoided Vietnam service in the early 70s.)

I have an idea – how about saying that only people who have served have the right to call someone else a chicken hawk.  That would eliminate Maureen Dowd of the NY Times, who loves to use the term.  It would also eliminate Dana Milbank (born 1968), who was going to Yale and in the secret society of Skull & Bones when Bush-41 was sending American kids into harm’s way.

Milbank’s column elicited 2472 comments, most of them favorable.  Dowd’s columns routinely provoke the same sort of cynical responses.  I see San Antonio’s recently elected congressman, Joaquin Castro do the same thing on his Facebook page.  Seems they have decided that their popularity depends on rousing the rabble.  That’s sad.

Why is George P.G. Bush in the news again?

Two months ago, I blogged about George P.G. Bush, Jeb’s oldest son, after news reports indicated with was planning to run for state-wide office in Texas, probably for State Land Commissioner.  In my blog, I indicated that Bush seemed like a fine young man, but I was concerned that he was an aristocrat who wanted to be a career politician.

This morning’s Express-News contained an extensive Associated Press article/interview on P.G. Bush that essentially rehashed the same information.  Accompanying the article was a large photo of P.G. golfing with Bush-43.  This unfair advantage of free, favorable publicity given to political aristocrats like him is a major reason why I generally root against these guys.  

The article contained several revealing comments from P.G.:

1. On his job experience.  “Instead, he spoke of how his past experience as an asset manager would help him manage the Permanent Schools Fund, which pays for public education and is managed by the land commissioner. He also said his perspective as an Afghanistan war veteran will help him use the post to become a leader in veterans’ affairs.”  First, his experience as an asset manager is nominal.  Second, the job of Land Commissioner has nothing to do with veterans’ affairs, but it never hurts for an American politician to gratuitously mention status as a veteran.
2. Running for governor instead.  “Some have speculated that Bush could challenge Perry for governor — and even if he doesn’t, what Perry decides will trigger political dominos falling.  Bush suggested he’d be willing to wait his turn politically rather than immediately seeking top positions coveted by others in the state GOP.  ‘We’ve said that we want to be team players in the party, providing a younger, fresher vision for our values,’ he said in the interview Friday.”  Seriously, which non-insane person would suggest that P.G. run for governor?  Team player?  Maybe Team Bush.
3. Hispanic takeover of Texas.  “Bush’s mother Columba is from Mexico. Conservatives view George P. Bush on the ballot as a way to solidify support among Hispanics.  A Democrat has not won statewide office in Texas since 1994, but Hispanics tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic and accounted for two-thirds of Texas’ population growth over the last decade. Bush noted: ‘We’ll be majority Hispanic in six years.  I don’t necessarily agree with the idea that having a candidate of Hispanic origin, or someone who can speak Spanish, can automatically obtain these votes,’ Bush said of Hispanics. ‘Having said that, it’s important tactically to have candidates that understand issues of the community.’”  That sounds like talking out of both sides of the mouth or, in other words, like a politician.
4. Discrimination against Hispanics in Texas.  “Bush’s mother has said that one of the reasons she and Jeb Bush left Texas for Florida in the 1970s was because she felt like she had experienced racism here. But George P. Bush said, ‘the way I view it, rather than an issue of discomfort, is economic opportunity.’    He said he didn’t think there was more intolerance toward Hispanics in Texas.  ‘Obviously, I think that issue exists wherever you go.  I don’t think it’s just unique here.” “  Huh, what does discomfort have to do with economic opportunity?  Columba’s comment sounds like Michelle Obama saying she had never been proud of America until it elected her husband?
5. P.G. as an undeserving aristocrat?  “Bush said of trying to stand out among his famous political family, ‘It’s always been the thing of my grandmother to say, ‘Go out and make a name for yourself’ and that’s something that I’ve followed.’”  As I pointed out in my previous blog posting, Barbara Bush actually said, “Make a name for yourself, have a family, marry someone great, have some kids, buy a house, pay taxes, and do the things everyone also does instead of just running out and saying, ‘Hey, I’m the nephew of or the son of or the grandson of…‘.” 

Unfortunately, P.G. has decided to ignore Barbara’s sage advice.

Sonia Sotomayor on affirmative action

Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor is making the media rounds to publicize her new book titled My Beloved World.  I caught her appearance Sunday on 60 minutes, during which she discussed being scarred by affirmative action.  The scarring occurred when her high school nurse asked her why she had been accepted by Princeton while the numbers #1 and #2 in her class had been rejected.  Apparently, the nurse thought that such a result was not right.  Sotomayor did not address the merits of the nurse’s concern, but instead said that such attitudes caused her to want to show naysayers that she was qualified.   

Later in the day, I went on-line and read an article in USA Today about Sotomayor’s book.  The article again discussed Sotomayor’s views on affirmative action:

• But for her opportunities to attend Princeton and Yale Law School, Sotomayor is careful to credit the same affirmative action programs that her colleague on the court, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, has decried.  “I had no need to apologize that the look-wider, search-more affirmative action that Princeton and Yale practiced had opened doors for me,” she writes. “That was its purpose: to create the conditions whereby students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be brought to the starting line of a race many were unaware was even being run.”

I have one question and one observation for Sotomayor:

1. Question: Whatever happened to #1 and #2 in your class, whose place in Princeton you took?  They deserve no apology from you, I guess.
2. Observation: Affirmative action was not created to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds; it was designed to help students of color.

Corporate incentives gone awry in San Antonio

In preparation for running for the San Antonio City Council, I started drafting some talking points or brief position papers.  Among the first issues that came to mind are (a) limited government (Pre-K 4 SA), (b) transportation, (c) development of downtown, (d) employee pension reform, (e) sanctuary city, (f) corporate incentives, and (g) water. 

Regarding (c) and (f), I drafted the following:

• Development of downtown.  A vibrant downtown is important to the future of San Antonio, but the city should not try to impose its will on the free market.  Modest encouragement of downtown development is appropriate, but the city should not try to manufacture an unnatural demand.
• Corporate incentives.  Although public entities in Texas have been criticized for giving too generous incentives for employers to re-locate, I support such incentives provided their cost to our taxpayers does not exceed their benefit to the city.

An article in today’s local newspaper reported on a controversial matter that hits on both of the aforementioned issues.  According to the article, the San Antonio City Council has approved a wide-ranging collection of corporate incentives (a ten-year tax abatement, a $400k grant, and $500k of free water) for a solar-panel manufacturer to build a facility on the South Side.  In addition to those incentives, however, the city has included a $12 million discount for some city property, and the city’s three Northside councilmen have objected to this as too generous.  Mayor Castro’s response:

• “Are we doing a little more because it’s a South Side investment? Sure,” Castro said Wednesday. “We want to create momentum there in a traditionally economically depressed area.”

So it appears that my talking point about the development of downtown is too narrow.  Yes, the mayor wants the Northside, at its expense, to encourage the development of downtown, but he also wants the Northside to encourage the development of other parts of San Antonio at the expense of the Northside.  This is clearly an effort for the city to impose its will on the free market.  Modest encouragement of downtown development is appropriate, but the city should not be favoring one part of town over the other for the placement of jobs. 

In the long run, distorting the market will prevent San Antonio businesses and San Antonio itself from being competitive.   

Incidentally, the city of San Antonio would not be bribing the solar-panel manufacturer with millions of dollars to locate on the South Side if CPS hadn’t given the manufacturer the option to locate anywhere in the CPS territory.  By granting this option, CPS incompetently gave the manufacturer the ability to play several small municipalities and San Antonio against each other.  Let’s hope our public servants learn from this multi-million dollar mistake.

Gilbert Garcia and campaign reporting

The past couple of weeks, I have been thinking more seriously about running this spring for the San Antonio City Council.  Last week, I talked to a friend about setting up a campaign website.  The guy is an entrepreneur with a passing interest in politics, and he had talked on his Facebook book wall about setting up political websites in the past.  Based on my frugality, I figured getting the help of a friend was a better deal than hiring an off-shore Indian vendor, like I did with my congressional race in 2010.

Boy, was I surprised to learn that my friend had more than a passing interest in politics.  He told me that he had managed campaigns for several years and was recently hired to help pass San Antonio’s Pre-K 4 SA.  He wasn’t sure how much an effective campaign would cost (mostly signs and direct mail), but promised to do some background work and get back with me.  (Incidentally, he also told me that the popular campaign consultants in San Antonio are not really hired for their knowledge of either campaign policy or campaign spending, but rather for their ability to call on contributors with deep pockets.  Interesting.)         

I told my friend that, although I had spent $15,000 of my own money running for Congress, I didn’t know whether I wanted to spend any money running for City Council, which is, after all, essentially a volunteer position.  In contrast, the two already-declared candidates for District 8 – Rolando Briones and Ron Nirenberg – had already raised $100k and $30k by July of last year. 

Obviously, I won’t be able to compete with these guys on signs or direct mailings, and I’m not sure that I can compete with them on energy/motivation.  Briones recently noted on his campaign website that he had already knocked on 3,500 doors.  This guy apparently has a thriving engineering business (near Alamo Heights and in other cities) and a young family, with an election four months away, and yet he is motivated to wage this sort of battle over 5,000 votes for a volunteer position.  The other guy, Nirenberg, works for the Trinity University radio station and has almost a decade of experience in developing public policy while at an Ivy League university.  Their biggest weakness is that their connection to District 8 is tenuous – i.e., they happen to live in District 8 now, but they don’t work there and probably relate better to the Downtown crowd.     

A column in today’s Express-News by Gilbert Garcia provides a good example of the role that campaign money plays in a local political campaign.  Garcia talks about a campaign for the State Board of Education, but he could as easily have been talking about a campaign for the City Council when he said:

• “It’s usually not viewed as a gotcha question.  If you’re putting yourself out there in a political race, it’s a given that you’ll have to reveal how much your campaign is raising and spending, what you do for a living and who is working to get you elected.”

Briones and Nirenberg will be prepared when asked that question.  They will have thousands of dollars to spend on signs and direct mail.  The Briones campaign is being managed by former District #8 Councilman Art Hall and has been endorsed by County Commissioner Kevin Wolff, while the Nirenberg campaign is being managed by former District #8 Councilwoman Bonnie Connor and has been endorsed by former Mayors Phil Hardberger, Bill Thornton, and Howard Peak.

Although I’m tempted to criticize these candidates (especially Briones) for trying to buy the election, I have previously declared, semi-seriously, that my life would not be greatly different if I won the lottery except that in my next political campaign I would provide significantly more self-funding. 

So, if I had the money, I would probably spend it on my campaign, too.  If I don’t have the money, I will probably see if social media can level the playing field.  That is a principle worth getting excited about.  Anything that makes for a smarter voter.

FiveThirtyEight weighs-in on the Fiscal Cliff compromise

FiveThirtyEight by Nate Silver is one of the most popular political blogs in America.  (Its name is taken from the number of presidential electors.)  San Antonio’s Mayor Julian Castro has declared it to be his favorite, and I agree.  It is not only interesting, but also credible, as proven by its detailed predictions about last year’s presidential election. 

Today’s posting of FiveThirtyEight in the NY Times provides an excellent framework for evaluating the Fiscal Cliff compromise.  According to Silver, the compromise can be evaluated from three perspectives:

1. How much does it redistribute income?  Although Silver is a liberal, he is not running for office, and this allows him the freedom to admit that part of the liberal agenda is to redistribute income from the rich to the poor.  Clearly, from this perspective the compromise was a great success because most of the new taxes were imposed on America’s high earners and only a bit of it (expiration of temporary FICA cuts) was imposed on low earners.
2. What is the ratio of tax increases to spending cuts?  Republican presidential candidates were ridiculed in the media for arguing that they would reject $9 in spending cuts if the cost was $1 in tax increases.  I wonder if the media will now ridicule the balance in this compromise with $40 of tax increases for every $1 of spending cuts.
3. How much stimulus spending is included?  From this perspective, the compromise is more balanced.  The extension of unemployment benefits and a few business tax credits will provide some stimulus, but those will likely be outweighed by taxes on the rich and the FICA tax on almost everyone.

Prior to the compromise, several pundits (mostly conservative) warned that President Obama might drive too hard of a bargain and that this will come back to haunt him.  I am “modestly optimistic” (to use one of Obama’s malaprops) that those pundits were correct and that Americans will now rise up and insist on significant spending cuts as part of the Debt Ceiling compromise.